Press Office

Aired: Sunday, 4 June, 2006 10:00
Sky News’ ‘Sunday Live with Adam Boulton’

Boulton:          Well Douglas, six months of David Cameron, you in the cornerstone group are you pleased with what he has done so far?

 Carswell:        So far, so good and needs to go a lot further.  The direction of travel is good but we need to accelerate and go much further.

Boulton:          What in other words you want to promise not to cut taxes for two terms?

Carswell:        No I think there are certain things that appeal to me as a Clacton Conservative, not a Notting Hill Tory, as a Clacton Conservative about David Cameron that made me back him at the beginning.  The need to change to win, the country is crying out for a credible alternative to this rotten Labour government and David Cameron convinced me that he could change the Conservative Party to be that credible alternative and he hasn’t disappointed.

Boulton:          Well, he has convinced one of his own MP’s that he is the man the lead the country but is he convincing the country at large, Ed Vasey?

Vasey:                        I think he is making progress.  I think of David Cameron were here now he would echo what Douglas has just said, he needs to go further and faster he has said that in many recent speeches.  The key test in the first six months were the local election results, we started down that path of people predicting that the Conservative’s would lose councilors but he got the highest share of the vote, the highest number of councilors that anyone had predicted so he past that test.

Boulton:          The question though really is how fundamental these changes need to be in terms of policy.  He’s talked about wanting to have fairly fundamental changes, Shahid Malik talking to me earlier on from the Labour perspective said that the Conservative Party is still seen by many as tainted brand so presentation is one thing but one policies need to be worked on?

Vasey:                        Shahid Malik is talking about a tainted brand and I think he makes a fair point which is there are a lot of Conservative policies that the public support but they don’t support them when they are branded as Conservative.  So, I would Shahid Malik’s point and say that a lot about this is to do with changing people’s perspective of the Conservative Party.  As far as policy is concerned David Cameron has got six policy reviews underway but he has still got a lot of crunchy policies already.  He has reversed our policy on tuition fees and I thought that was an extremely important signal about the credibility of the Conservatives.   He had the courage to support Labour’s education bill even when Labour back benchers weren’t supporting it because we believe in more autonomy and freedom for schools, that is courage, that is leadership and those are policies.

Boulton:          A suggestion in the Sunday Times from Simon Jenkins that possibly Foreign policy is an area where you could, given what is going on in Iraq, given doubts about the operation in –

Vasey:                        - I thought Simon’s article was completely bonkers.  I mean the idea that we would suddenly say that we are going to pull out Afghanistan I think is ludicrous and I think the public would see it as opportunistic, I think anyone whatever your views of the war in Iraq, people recognize that a process has started and has to be seen through.

Boulton:          Douglas Carswell, on Foreign policy you got that promise out of David Cameron that he would leave the European People’s Party group in the European Parliament but he hasn’t done so.

Carswell:        Well, this is one area where we have got to go further.  We said we would modernize our relationship with these slightly outdated institutions and parties in Europe, the European People’s Party is a product of the 1950’s, of old Europe, and David Cameron said he would  modernize our relationship with Europe and be progressive –

Boulton:          - Let me just put it to you that it is the biggest group in the European Parliament and –

Carswell:        - Doesn’t make it right.

Boulton:          - and the Conservatives are the biggest element within it and it has got people like -

Carswell:        - But it believes in things like pan-European taxation, a common European defence and security policy.  It is a product of the 1950’s it’s not part of a modern Europe and as a modernized new Conservative Party we need to embrace a new European grouping and David Cameron said he is going to do that.

Boulton:          What hasn’t he done got out of it yet?

Vasey:                        I suppose it is negotiation.  William Hague is taking it forward but it is an emphatic and clear commitment and I think leaving the EPP sends a very strong signal so we are not going to say one thing in Brussels and another in Britain.  We have already this week, and Douglas can confirm - the Czech People’s Party are going to join the new grouping and I think the Conservatives breaking away will act as a real catalyst.  The trouble is that Blair said we’re going to have a new deal in Europe eight years a go and we have had the same thing time and again, something needs to shake up –

Boulton:          - What do you want to change in Europe then?

Vasey:                        I want Europe to have policies that serve the people of Europe, not the bureaucrats of Brussels.  I want a Europe of a free trading, nation state so it is creating jobs and getting Europe ready for a globalised economy.

Boulton:          And if that means leaving the European Union?

Vasey:                        Well, I am not in favour of withdrawal from the European Union.

Boulton:          And you?

 

Carswell:        My private view is that we would be better off out but that is my private view, not the party’s view and I accept that, everyone accepts that.  The truth is that if we want to be credible I think we have to say one thing in England and say the same thing in Brussels.  We need that consistency.  I think the new grouping would allow us to build a far more flexible Europe.

Boulton:          Now, what about this A-list of favoured candidates; women, ethnic minorities, “she-she Londoners” according to one of you colleagues in the cornerstone?

Carswell:        Let’s not look at the whole question of candidate selection exclusively in terms of the A-list.  The really significant story of candidate selection is the idea of open primaries and this has been announced by David Cameron –

Boulton:          - He said he would like to go down that road but the policy at the moment is the A-list–

Carswell:        - No, he’s announced it –

Boulton:          - It’s not Members of Parliament though is it?

Carswell:        But it has also been announced that we may to it for target six.

Boulton:          What do you think of the A-list though, and the people on it?

Carswell:        Some of them actually helped me win my seat, if I am absolutely honest with you I might not even be an MP if it wasn’t for the campaigning efforts of some of the people on that list, I am not going to sit here and have a go at them.  Obviously in any political party you are going to have some people disappointed, any political party needs to choose who its candidates are and that is almost by definition going to suit winners and losers.  The point is that we have got to have it free and fair –

Boulton:          - So you’re pleased that the A-list was spurned yesterday in Bromley?

Carswell:        Was it?  We had a short list where we had a pretty diverse choice.

Boulton:          You didn’t choose an A-list candidate did you?

Carswell:        We had a very strong local candidate, a devout Muslim candidate, a practicing Christian candidate, a very diverse range of Londoners in the short list.

Boulton:          It was one in the eye for the A-list wasn’t it?

Vasey:                        No, it wasn’t, not at all.  It was actually quite the reverse because at the bi-election the priority list doesn’t apply and yet two members of the priority list were in the last three and the only person who could beat them was the leader of the Conservatives on the greater London Assembly who represents that seat on the London Assembly, who is an excellent, first class candidate.  So, it took an A- double plus candidate to beat the two candidates from the A-list and I think it is actually an affirmation that we have picked the right people to be on the priority list.

Boulton:          Do you think David Cameron is going to have to go further and actually take sanctions to enforce the A-list?

Vasey:                        Well, David Cameron has already said that the test of the A-list is over the next three or four months with the selection of the thirty seats that are coming up and then he will look at it again.  If he thinks that not enough is being done to select enough women, for example, to be candidates then he will look at it again.

Boulton:          If there was a general election in, say, eighteen months time would David Cameron win it?

Carswell:        I think so.  Let’s not take it for granted, there’s a lot more we need to do and we need to go a lot further but so far, so good, we now need to speed things up, we need to make those changes.

Boulton:          Isn’t that slightly unrealistic if you actually look at where the votes are?

Vasey:                        I don’t think there is any complacency but we have certainly moved from a position where if you said the Tories are going to win the next election people would have laughed in your face to people saying yes, I think it is a real possibility.

Boulton:          So out of ten for his first six months?

Vasey:                        Well, I’d give him eleven.

Boulton:          Top that!

Carswell:        So far, so good.

Boulton:          Sounds like a six.

Carswell:        Ten out of ten.