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Jeff Randall and David Cameron

With less than 80 days to go before the country must go to the polls to choose a Government, David Cameron has admitted to Sky News Business Presenter Jeff Randall that he has much left to do to convince the electorate to vote Conservative.

In the first broadcast from Sky News’ city studio at The Gherkin, the Tory leader also denies any "wobble" by his party in its pledge to go further than the Government in making immediate cuts to the UK's public deficit, currently 12.7% of GDP. 

Mr Cameron promises to reduce the number of quangos, but refuses to specify if that means thousands of public sector jobs must disappear. 

When pushed, he appears uncertain about the nature and purpose of more than 10% of the Treasury's spending budget for this year. 

The Conservative leader describes the bullying allegations made against the Prime Minister as "an unholy mess."

Labour's charge that his party has orchestrated the media coverage is dismissed as "ridiculous, unfounded and paranoid."

In a wide ranging interview, Mr Cameron also seeks to dispel the controversy surrounding the tax status of Deputy Party Chairman, Lord Ashcroft, promises further immigration controls, and defends his decision to ring-fence the UK's £9 billion overseas aid budget.   

Jeff Randall presents a 7.30 pm live half-hour business news show four days a week on Sky News, from Monday to Thursday.

A full transcript of the interview and grabs will be available this afternoon under embargo.

Highlights from the interviews will run at www.skynews.com/jeffrandall shortly after they air and Sky News Active, accessed via the red button on the remote control, will repeat Jeff Randall Live.

EMBARGOED: 19.30pm, Monday 22nd February

 

Full Transcript: SKY NEWS, JEFF RANDALL LIVE: 22.02.10, INTERVIEW DAVID CAMERON MP

 

Jeff Randall: Mr Cameron, welcome to Sky’s new home in the heart of the City.

 

David Cameron: It’s fantastic.

Jeff Randall: Let’s start with today’s news, bullying allegations against Gordon Brown.  Number Ten seems to be suggesting that elements of the Conservative party are pursuing “a dark agenda” here, you are in effect prompting a bullying charity to slander the Prime Minister.  Are you absolutely sure that none of your people is involved?

 

David Cameron:What they’re saying is ridiculous and unfounded and completely typical of the sort of paranoia, frankly, that this organisation seems to show.  Let’s stand back: what we had here was a book about the Prime Minister and what happens in Number Ten Downing Street and a woman from a bullying help line coming forward and talking about what happens at Number Ten Downing Street.  None of this has got anything to do with the Conservative party, this is a problem for Number Ten Downing Street, a problem for the government, it’s a problem that I would suggest that they respond to and deal with and have an enquiry and sort out and stop trying to do their usual thing which is blame everybody else.  They have a problem, they need to deal with it.

Jeff Randall: Don’t we expect a grown up country’s leaders to be demanding, isn’t the problem here that we have so infantilised ourselves that any element, any example of a severe reprimand is now complained about as bullying?

 

David Cameron:Look, I don't know whether what’s in the book is true or what this lady is suggesting is true.  What I do know is that in any organisation, of course the pressure builds up, of course sometimes you have cross words with your staff, of course everybody gets frustrated but there are lines you mustn’t cross and, as I say, I can’t tell whether these things are true.  It seems there is an awful pattern of behaviour, we have had book after book and allegation after allegation, they have got to get to the bottom of these and clear it up and I would have thought there exists a mechanism, which is Sir Philip Mawer who is in charge of policing the Ministerial Code, he should probably be asked to hold a quick enquiry so it’s independent of Number Ten, to get to the bottom of this and then we can get on.  All I would say, standing back from all this, it’s another kind of unholy mess at the heart of government and just says to me that we’re at the fag end of this tired and exhausted government and can we please get on and have an election so we can deal with the problems this country faces for the next five years rather than worrying about Downing Street’s crisis for the next five days.

Jeff Randall: All right, let’s talk about the election and more substantive matters. I suppose if it is going to be about anything it is going to be about deficit reduction and the Chancellor has promised, he’s pledged, non negotiable, to halve the deficit in four years.  I put it to you, you can’t do better than that, you can’t cut it by more and you can’t cut it faster. 

 

David Cameron:Well I don’t agree with that at all and now there is a growing body of people, whether it’s the Bank of England, whether it’s economists, whether it’s people in business like Richard Branson last week coming forward and saying what the government is suggesting is not enough.   Now I think two things, one is that we should start earlier.  2010, this coming year, we should make some reductions in public spending programmes, we should get on with it because it’s all very well having a plan to halve the deficit, we can all have plans for the future.

Jeff Randall: So you’re not wobbling?

 

David Cameron:No, I’ve been utterly clear and consistent about this, that you have to start in 2010, you need to be able to demonstrate you are getting to grips with this problem.  We can all have plans but I think it is much more impressive if you can show some early reductions in spending programmes to show you’re serious.  The second thing that George Osborne has said and I’ve said is that you have got to deal with the bulk of the structural deficit within a parliament and I think what the government is talking about is not significant enough.

Jeff Randall: Okay, if you are really serious about cutting back the state [finishing soon to be] and you say you will attack the deficit, in the short run that means attacking the state’s payroll doesn’t it and if that’s the case, in the short run we’re going to see unemployment go up, you’ve got to get rid of jobs.

 

David Cameron:I accept you have got to deal with the issue of the payroll but I would say, that’s why we have said have a public sector pay freeze from 2011 for one year, excluding the million lowest paid workers, because that actually saves you tens, possibly a hundred thousand jobs you would otherwise have to cut so yes, you can’t reduce and deal with public sector spending unless you look at public sector pay but a pay freeze should be a very big part of that process.

Jeff Randall: You are going to get rid of public sector jobs surely?

 

David Cameron:Well we’re going to get rid of some public sector functions.  The National Identity Card, the ID database, many of the quangos.  There are organisations that we think where the state has expanded too far, where it’s spending too much. 

Jeff Randall: But that means jobs, jobs have got to go.

 

David Cameron:Well in some cases, there are some people doing things …

Jeff Randall: The NHS?

 

David Cameron:As I say, the core of what the government is responsible for, the National Health Service we’ve said is special, we don’t want to see cuts in front line services like schools or policing, but what you can see from us is real rigour in terms of things like quangos and as I say, if you freeze public sector pay that prevents you having to cut even more jobs.

Jeff Randall: Labour has added something like 900,000 jobs to the public sector payroll, how many of those are superfluous, how many should you get rid of?

 

David Cameron:I don’t have that, I don’t have that figure.  If you look at what has been added, some of it is worthwhile – doctors, teachers, front line staff – but there is no doubt, if you look at the size of the central state, and after all we’ve said we will reduce Whitehall by a third, the size of the central state and then some of these peripheral activities that we think have got too big and too bossy and too interfering, they need to be changed. 

Jeff Randall: Let me just have a go at this one more times because there seems to be some sort of voodoo economics here.  You are going to cut out quangos, you’re going to cut out waste, you’re going to cut out bureaucracies but you’re not really going to get rid of many jobs.  Surely you need to get rid of tens of thousands of jobs because tax payers are sick of paying for non-jobs.  Don’t be shy about it.

 

David Cameron:Absolutely but tax payers also want to know that there’s going to be a good hospital for them to be treated in, a good school for their children to go to and there is going to be a policeman at the end of their street and so I want to be very clear that when it comes to cutting the deficit, freezing pay, getting rid of some of the benefits that go to better off people like the Child Trust Fund.  That we’ve set out, unlike the government who haven’t actually told you anything about how they are going to miraculously halve the deficit, we have actually started to set out some of the individual, concrete and yes, quite difficult things, for instance like asking people to retire a year early from 2016.  I get emails and letters from people in their late 50s quite angry about this but I have to say that if we are going to honour the promises we’ve made, deal with the deficit, there are difficult decisions we have to take. 

Jeff Randall: You talk about the government spending and cutting it back, this is the Treasury’s own projections for the year – spending of around 670 billion.  There is a box here that says £72 billion, other.  What’s in other?

 

David Cameron:Well I haven’t seen that exact chart but I guess that a lot of that is probably quango spending that has increase.  Now what we’ve said with quangos, it’s all very well saying oh let’s just have a bonfire of the quangos and get rid of the lot.  What you actually have got to do is have a test in each case, does this organisation have a proper function, is it doing something useful?  If not, then it should go.  In some cases it is duplicating what a government department is doing.  If you take for instance the Environment Agency, it does a lot of things in terms of policy development that ought to be done by the Department of the Environment, so there is a lot of duplication, but I haven’t seen that specific chart but I suspect the other is probably quite a lot of quangos.

Jeff Randall: £72 billion.  Quite frankly we are so close to an election and you don’t know what’s in the government spending plans.  It’s not a small item, £72 billion. 

 

David Cameron:There are different ways in which government spending plans are set out and so that other could be, some of it could be Whitehall, some of it could be quangos as I say.  I mean I can’t see the whole of that chart, it’s got other subjects broken down but I suspect …

Jeff Randall: It’s on the Treasury’s website. 

 

David Cameron:I’ll have a look at it and see but I think what you’ll find is that it will be an amalgam of some other smaller departments.  For instance I was looking across there, I can’t see that it’s got all the environment and agriculture departments …

Jeff Randall: No, that’s there, that’s separate, this is a mystery, it’s a cornucopia of delights. 

 

David Cameron:Well you’ve set me a task for this afternoon, I’ll go and …

Jeff Randall: We look forward to you addressing it.  People say that severe cuts in the budget can’t take place without services falling apart, without people being deprived.  I don’t quite get this, the Treasury’s own projections for spending next year is £700 billion, at the time of the last election – not so long ago, 2005, the government was spending £500 billion.  So in five years we’ve added £200 billion to state expenditure, surely it cannot be that difficult to cut that without closing schools and hospitals.  Life wasn’t so bad in 2005. 

 

David Cameron:I think it is possible to do that without closing schools and hospitals and frankly, you know, this has been Gordon Brown’s debate.  The debate he’s run for the last decade is that anyone that comes along and suggests that in any way you can do anything more cheaply, wants disastrous cuts and wants to leave people queuing outside a hospital.  It’s ridiculous. 

Jeff Randall: Why don’t you tell us this in more detail because I think a lot of people think you are scared of upsetting the voters, that the voters don’t want to hear that message.

 

David Cameron:We have said very frankly that government has got to get a bit more like business.  I mean business doesn’t think, if you talk to top business people as you do, they don’t go around saying well of course every cut in my cost is a disaster for my customer, quite the reverse. A good company will say actually reducing my cost base I can make my service even better and government has got to start thinking like that.  Gordon Brown is incapable of thinking like that, he thinks the only way you improve things is spending more money and that’s why I think we’ve got such a good argument about time for change because you need a team of people in charge of the country at a time when there isn’t any money to say right, let’s work out how we improve services without spending more money.  Let’s use technology, let’s give the consumer more choice, let’s ask what the voluntary and charitable sectors are doing.  Let’s be more like a business in terms of driving improvement through government while reducing costs at the same time. 

Jeff Randall: Before we leave the economy can I just summarise it because I think these are the facts.  We have eight million UK adults classified as economically inactive, unemployment is higher than when Labour came in, the pound is seriously a devalued currency now, our state deficit is worse than in Greece and yet the polls tell us we are heading for a hung parliament.  What are you doing wrong?

 

David Cameron:Well I think that people are extremely depressed about the state of not just the economy but about the state of our politics.  They have had the expenses scandal, they have had parliament dragged through the mire, we’ve also had a government with Labour that promised so much and delivered so little and I think frankly they are battered and bruised and they’re not really that prepared to put their trust in anyone, so we have to work twice as hard to win their trust.  Now I’m convinced that over the next 75, 80 days we can do that, we can say look, change is possible, this is a different team of people who will do things differently, we can get our economy going, we can mend the broken society but we have got a lot of work to do to convince people that change is possible.  Right now I think they find that hard to believe.

Jeff Randall: I’ll have to stop you there, we need to take a break.  Stay with us, we’ll be back soon.

 

END OF PART ONE

 

PART TWO

 

Jeff Randall: Welcome back to Jeff Randall Live, I’m in conversation with David Cameron.  Mr Cameron, according to the ONS, UK population will hit 70 million by 2029, that’s 10 million more in 20 years, much of it driven by immigration.  Most of us don’t want to live in an overcrowded country, if you win the general election what will you do about it?

 

David Cameron:Well we need to control immigration properly and we haven’t had proper immigration control for the last decade.  I mean to put it in context, if you go back to the 1990s, net migration was in the tens of thousands, the last ten years it’s been something like 200,000 a year, two million in a decade.  I think that’s too high, I would like to see net migration back into the tens of thousands again and we need to control is in order to do that.  How?  Well two thoughts, one is when new European countries join the EU we should have transitional controls rather than allow a free for all straight away and secondly, when there are immigration from outside the European Union we need both a points system so we get talented people to come here but we need a limit.  Do those two things and perhaps other measures as well, we’ll be able to control immigration properly.

Jeff Randall: So do you now accept that the economic case for mass immigration was entirely bogus, it was driven by the government that frankly wanted to force diversity down our throats?

 

David Cameron:I think they took a one sided view on the economic case for migration. Clearly there are some benefits from talented people coming to the UK and working hard but I think they ignored some of the issues on the effect, particularly on the low paid and I think there were other agendas at play as well.  Now I think it was a mistake, I argued against it at the time, we fought elections on this issue as well, we’ve had a very clear view – you’ve got to control immigration effectively. 

Jeff Randall: So when you say tens of thousands, a cap of what, 30, 40, 50,000 maximum?

 

David Cameron:What we would do is we would set a number each year.  We’re not in a position to set that cap yet but we are saying very clearly tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, so it’s those sorts of numbers. 

Jeff Randall: It seems to me that Britain is largely, viscerally, the eurosceptic country.  You promised a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, then you reneged.  You gave us a cast iron guarantee and then you sort of got out of it via a loophole, why should you we trust you again on Europe?

 

David Cameron:I don’t believe I did renege on my promise because while that Treaty was being discussed and debated round Europe we could have had a referendum and I campaigned for a referendum and we should have had a referendum.  Once that Treaty became part of the European law, a referendum wouldn’t have any impact.  You could hold a referendum but the rest of Europe could just turn round and say well I’m sorry, this is the European law, it’s been passed.  I had to make that decision, I had to explain to people why it was no longer possible, I know that means people are disappointed but I want to try and win this election on the basis of promises that I can fulfil, not just making promises that might look good in a manifesto but don’t actually work.

Jeff Randall: It seems to me that on these two issues we’ve discussed, immigration and Europe, UKIP, the people you described as ‘closet racists and fruitcakes’ were right all along, they were right weren’t they?

 

David Cameron:No, because I think there are many people in UKIP who are, as I described, of that persuasion. 

Jeff Randall: Are they really? All those people that voted for UKIP?

 

David Cameron:The leaders of UKIP, that was who I was referring …

Jeff Randall: Not the voters surely?

 

David Cameron:Of course, we are talking about the people in that party and I think there are former leaders of that party who have said some pretty disobliging things about people in that party.  I just take a very clear view on the immigration issue I’ve described to you, on the European issue it is incredibly disappointing we can’t have that referendum but we can’t but there is a promise the Conservative party has made that I think is very, very serious and thoughtful which is this – we will pass a law that means if ever in future there is a treaty or the passage of power from Westminster to Brussels, there has to be a referendum that takes place before that is allowed.   Now I think what’s exciting about that is people can … it is utterly believable and doable and deliverable and what’s more, once done I think every other political party in Britain will have to sign up to it so this will never, ever happen again. 

Jeff Randall: Looking beyond Europe to a wider world, the last time I checked Britain’s aid budget was about £9 billion, something like that.  That’s a quarter of our entire defence budget.  You have ring fenced aid and yet you intend to cut defence, why?

 

David Cameron:I think that in terms of the aid budget, let’s deal with that first. We are a compassionate country, we believe in our obligation to others on the other side of the world, even when things are tough here at home.

Jeff Randall: Even to nuclear powers – Pakistan, China?  China, we’re giving aid to China?

 

David Cameron:We have said we will cut the aid to China, that shouldn’t happen, I quite agree with you.  Aid to Pakistan on the other hand, a very poor country, a country where there is a real security interest …

Jeff Randall: With a nuclear focus …

 

David Cameron:For anyone who has been to Pakistan as I have, there is a deep and grinding and desperate poverty in that country.  If you think about the connection between the instability in Pakistan and the dangers we face in our world, I think it is quite right it is a large recipient of British aid, so I think there is a very good case for …

Jeff Randall: So we pay for poor Pakistanis whilst the Pakistanis are paying for nuclear bombs?

 

David Cameron:The reason the Pakistanis have a nuclear bomb is disconnected from the poverty of that country, it is about the stresses and strains between Pakistan and India but you need to ask yourself, do we have an interest in trying to tackle poverty and create stability in Pakistan?  Yes, we do.  Can aid help in some ways?  Yes, it can.  Therefore I think it is right to have an aid budget that goes to Pakistan.  Should we do more to try and bring aid more into the mainstream of our national security policy?  Yes, that’s why we’ve said we want to see stabilisation brigades where you can actually see when the army goes in and kicks down the door, as it were, they should be the ones immediately digging the wells, repairing the schools …

Jeff Randall: You mention kicking down the doors and yet you intend to cut the defence budget.

 

David Cameron:Well we are going to have a defence review, that is what needs to happen.  You shake your head but future generations, Jeff, are going to look back and say, hold on a second, you had 9/11, you had the Iraq War, you had Afghanistan and in all this time you didn’t have a defence review?  You didn’t ask …

Jeff Randall: Changing priorities is not the same as cutting the budget though is it?  You can spend it on other things.  As I understand it, you intend to cut the defence budget, are you saying that’s not true?

 

David Cameron:We are going to have a strategic defence review, that is the review you have got to have to work out what our priorities should be in the world and therefore our priorities in terms of defence and we can’t pre-empt that.  I know that’s frustrating for interviewers but it is almost certain to come to the conclusion that we need mobile effective armed forces rather than quite so much of, if you like, a cold war stance that we still have today if you look at the disposition of our forces. 

Jeff Randall: After expenses gate, if I can put it that way, you’ve made much – and quite rightly so I guess – about the need for transparency.  You mentioned it recently at the Scottish Tories conference.  When will we know if Lord  Ashcroft is a bone fide full and proper UK tax payer?

 

David Cameron:Well what you will know is that we are passing an act through parliament at our suggestion that will mean that anyone who sits in the House of Commons or the House of Lords has to be, or be treated as, a full UK tax payer.  I am changing the rules of the game if you like because for years the situation was, when these questions arised whether on the Labour side, or whether on the Tory side or whatever, the rules were that it was a matter between you and revenue what your tax status was.  I am changing the rules about that.

Jeff Randall: But you must know if Lord Ashcroft is a full rate bone fide UK tax payer, don’t tell me you haven’t bothered to find out?

 

David Cameron:What I’m doing is making sure that this whole issue, both for Lord Ashcroft but also for Lord Paul or any of these other people, is beyond doubt.  If you want to sit in the UK parliament, you have got to be or be treated as a UK tax payer.  As we stand today, it must be for these people individually to answer to the Inland Revenue about their tax status.

Jeff Randall: Can you imagine if the boot were on the other foot and you discovered that Labour was being funded by a tax avoider, you’d go crazy. 

 

David Cameron:Well what matters is, are the donations made to political parties legal and permissible.  That is the duty that we have in the Conservative party to make sure that’s the case and Labour has the same in their case.

Jeff Randall: Have you bothered to find out?

 

David Cameron:What I have done is made sure that Lord Ashcroft, like anybody else, is going to have to be or be treated as, whatever their status is today, a full UK tax payer, that is going to change.  Now Labour have had 12 years to sort this out …

Jeff Randall: And if he is not a UK tax payer?

 

David Cameron:He wouldn’t be able to sit in the House of Lord but he has said  he is very happy to …

Jeff Randall: Would he be able to fund the Tory party?

 

David Cameron:He has said he is very happy, he will comply with this law, so the sooner the law can be passed, and as far as I’m concerned it can’t be soon enough and then it will be put beyond doubt and this whole red herring – and by the way, Lord Ashcroft is only responsible for a relatively small amount of the funding of the Conservative party, it is completely overblown the commitment that he or companies associated with him make.

Jeff Randall: David Cameron, sadly we’ve run out of time.  Many thanks for coming in, we appreciate it, nice to see you.

 

David Cameron:My pleasure, thank you. 

ENDS

For still images and screen grabs from the interview please contact stills@bskyb.com

For further information please contact:

Anna Bifield

Acting Publicist Manager, Sky News

07920 027829

Anna.bifield@bskyb.com

 

 

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