Cameron planning Thatcher-style radicalism
David Cameron says he will match the scale of Margaret Thatcher’s economic changes with the radical nature of his social reforms in a new book out today.
Cameron on Cameron: Conversations with Dylan Jones sees the Tory leader issue forth on everything from last year’s election-that-never-was to “political joke” Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.
He says of the former Tory prime minister: “I’m going to be as radical a social reformer as Mrs Thatcher was an economic reformer. radical social reform is what this country needs right now.
“Margaret Thatcher in her time realised that the big challenge was reviving Britain’s economy, and we should recognise that the challenge for the modern Conservatives is reviving our society.
“It’s dealing with the issues of family breakdown, welfare dependency, failing schools, crime, and the problems that we see in too many of our communities.”
Mr Cameron says in the book he would have won the much-rumoured snap general election of autumn 2007, predicting a hung parliament with the Conservatives as the largest party.
And he says current prime minister Gordon Brown made the situation much worse for Labour by insisting the decision had nothing to do with opinion polls, which were starting their swing towards the Conservatives.
“It was a lie and it was treating people like fools,” he said.
The Tory leader also reveals the driver of a white van attempted to push him in front of a car while he was riding on his bike late one night after returning from a dinner event.
“I got rather nervous about it so I turned down a road I don’t normally go down, and I slowed down and sort of pulled in behind a line of parked cars and as this van drove by this hand came out and just bashed me in the back with the aim of pushing me in front of the car,” he said.
“Luckily I managed to put the brakes on… But I’ve never been the victim of proper violent crime.”
Mr Cameron remembers predicting in the book that Tony Blair’s leadership of the Labour party would be “disastrous” for the Tories and the BBC quotes him saying in the book he has received excellent advice from former leader William Hague.
Mr Hague, now shadow foreign secretary, told Mr Cameron: “Being leader of the Conservative party and wearing a hat are incompatible.”
