TV showdown gave Cameron a heart attack
REHEARSALS for the TV debates convinced Oliver they would not be easy when key Remain performers Angela Eagle and Ruth Davidson were stumped by tough immigration questions. When the cameras started rolling, Cameron was accused of ‘waffling’ by a woman. Oliver calls her ‘an attention-seeker’.
THURSDAY, JUNE 2
THE first part of DC’s Sky debate is an interview, almost all about immigration. Then a student, Soraya, asks a question. I have no clue what her point is. DC tries to answer. She interrupts him to tell him not to interrupt her. When he tries to give an answer, she says: ‘I’m an English literature student – I know waffle when I hear it.’ It feels like she’s been practising the line in the mirror all day. Hacks go mad on Twitter – in reality she is little more than a confused attention-seeker.
MONDAY, JUNE 6
At a studio for Amber Rudd’s ITV debate prep. I tell her she has to be more aggressive. ‘Kick them hard: “Boris, I might come to you for a good joke, but I’m not prepared to entrust you with our children’s futures”.’ At another rehearsal, the low point is when Angela Eagle tells a fake audience member that the reason his child’s class is swamped by foreign children isn’t because of immigration but Tory cuts. ‘What?’ I say. ‘One – you sound like you are fighting among yourselves. Two – it isn’t credible.’
TUESDAY, JUNE 7
DC and I drive to the ITV studios for the programme in which he is taking part with Nigel Farage. DC shakes Farage’s hand and says: ‘Hello, Nigel.’ There is a little bit of harrumphing and chuckling, but no words. I’m struck by the people he has around him. They look like bouncers in a club that’s trying to look respectable – oiled hair and shiny suits. In our dressing room, I show the PM a Twitter meme – a picture of Farage looking stupid with the caption ‘racist bell ***’. He laughs.
THURSDAY, JUNE 9
The day of Amber, Angela and Nicola Sturgeon’s debate and we are preparing again. We take a question from the floor. Alastair Campbell [Blair’s ex-spin doctor who is helping Remain] asks: ‘What is the number that immigration should be set at to ensure the country isn’t full?’
There follows a truly disturbing moment when Angela stares at him for ten seconds before saying: ‘I have no idea how to answer that.’ We’re hours away from the programme and none of this is working.
Later, at the TV studio, Sturgeon is wearing a green suit, the same colour as the set backdrop, and says she’ll change. I realise the craziness of my position: I’m talking to a woman whose main purpose in life is to break up the UK, hoping she will help us win the referendum.
The first question is on immigration. Amber delivers the line I wrote for her: ‘There are lots of numbers flying around in this debate but it seems to me the only number Boris cares about is No10.’ Twitter erupts.
Later she unleashes an attack which is almost too much: ‘Boris, you’re the life and soul of the party, but I’m not sure I’d want you driving me home at the end of the night.’ To me it feels like a racy joke, but one commentator claims it’s a ‘date-rape metaphor’.
After watching the news, DC tells me: ‘The whole thing is giving me a heart attack.’
SUNDAY, JUNE 19
The key moment in the BBC Question Time special in Milton Keynes comes when an angry Brexiteer accuses DC of being Neville Chamberlain. Something snaps in the PM – outraged at being compared to an appeaser. He says his No 10 desk is two yards from the Cabinet Room where Churchill made the decision to fight on in the Second World War. It sounds barnstorming.
The following day there are preparations for the Wembley TV debate. Sadiq Khan and Ruth Davidson are at their lecterns. The key question is put again: should there be an immigration limit? Ruth has a confident stab, then falls flat on her face, saying: ‘Oh b ******* !’ But when it came to the real thing, all the Remain debaters performed brilliantly.