HOW AN OH SO COSY CHAT ENDED IN A FIASCO
FOR what could be his last appearance at the Dispatch Box today as Prime Minister, David Cameron will have been coached for hours by his officials. But for his fateful ‘at home’ BBC interview, broadcast on Monday, in which he dropped the bombshell that he did not intend to run for a third term as PM, Cameron doesn’t seem to have bothered to do his homework properly at all.
He had at least watched a recording, on the Downing Street TV, of Ed Miliband’s own domestic disaster last week with BBC deputy political editor James Landale, after which the Labour leader was mocked for having two kitchens. But Cameron, a former political apparatchik-turned-PR man, never bothered to rehearse questions that might come up. He may have assumed he would not walk into any bear traps – but he could not have been more wrong.
The interview, when it was fixed months ago, was due to be conducted with the BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson. But Landale stepped in, as he did with Miliband and Nick Clegg because Robinson, 51, is at home recovering from an operation to remove a tumour from his lung.
It was clear on screen that Cameron felt instinctively at ease with Landale, a fellow Old Etonian. They didn’t know each other at school as Cameron was two years above Landale. But they are both from wealthy families. Landale was brought up in rural Worcestershire, while Cameron had a similar upbringing in Berkshire. And Landale went to university in Bristol, the same city where Samantha Cameron studied.
THE BBC programme, which was designed to show a softer, more homely side of Cameron, had been going to plan, with footage of the PM on the touchline at his son Arthur Elwen’s football match. Then there was a trip to the butcher’s in his Oxfordshire town, where he made a rather tortured joke about fellow Chipping Norton set member Jeremy Clarkson also being a customer.
And then he allowed the cameras into his constituency home.
The BBC, who had already spent 30 minutes with Cameron, were given an hour in the kitchen in Witney, where Cameron visibly relaxed.
Perhaps if his spin machine had exerted ruthless control of events, as Alastair Campbell once did for Tony Blair, it could have been a different story. But so confident was Downing Street that the interview would go off without a hitch that Craig Oliver, the No 10 communications secretary – himself an ex-BBC man – didn’t even bother to make the trip to Oxfordshire. Cameron was accompanied instead by Michael Salter, the Downing Street broadcasting officer, who is a relatively junior adviser in his team. The agreement which was thrashed out with the BBC before the interview concentrated on dress code, of all things. Both men were to be in casual weekend attire with no ties.
There were to be limited clips of the Prime Minister’s children, too, showing only the back of their heads. There was also an agreement to ensure there were no clips of the toys lying around the house.
Samantha was also, as agreed with the BBC, a frequent presence in the kitchen, looking suitably fragrant and glamorous. Crucially Landale, who has been with the BBC for 12 years after a decade at The Times, was not asked for a list of questions he might ask, or even subject areas in advance of the interview.
Landale, whose gentle manner belies an acute political brain, knows that Cameron has form for putting his foot it in when he’s relaxed. Remember his unguarded comments in America about the Queen ‘purring’ down the telephone to him over the nationalists failing to win the Scottish referendum?
Perhaps the BBC man sensed that the kitchen would be the most fertile place to ask tricky questions, while the PM was surrounded by his family. Yet the question over whether Cameron intended to serve a third term was hardly a bombshell: Cameron could have easily dismissed it.
The fact that he answered it calmly and directly triggered suspicion in some quarters that it was agreed in advance. But Landale says he was taken aback by the response, so much so that he hoped the surprise didn’t show on his face. The meltdown that followed in Downing Street as the gravity of the political story became evident supports Landale’s version of events.
In his BBC blog, Landale denies it was a set-up. ‘It was not something that a helpful Downing Street official had suggested I might ask – with a heavy hint I might get an interesting answer. It was just one of many speculative questions that political journalists like me ask in the hope that occasionally they might get an answer. And this time I did.
‘But by answering my question, he has potentially opened a Pandora’s Box. He has invited Westminster and the country to contemplate a time when he is no longer prime minister, a dangerous gamble to make so close to an election.’
CAMERON’S s upporters know that for some time he has been trying to squash speculation that if the Tories win, he will stand down as PM after the planned 2017 EU referendum. Now, his reply to Landale is naturally being portrayed by his political opponents as an arrogant assumption he will win the election.
As the political fallout continues, Downing Street surely has only itself to blame. The film was completed at l unchtime on Saturday, giving Downing Street 48 hours to decide how to handle the story and try to control it to best advantage.
Officials could have leaked it in advance to try to ensure a positive spin on the revelation. Or does the absence of any damage limitation strategy suggest that the PM got out exactly the message he wanted – even if he hadn’t worked out its explosive implications?