CAMERON ON CAMERON
Dylan Jones
Fourth Estate, £12.99DAVID Cameron must now be calculating he will indeed be Prime Minister in the reasonably near future, otherwise he would never have agreed to the long interviews which mak
e up the substance of this book. I enter the proviso because he comes across strongly as a calculating personality, not just the sort of blind optimist any leader of a party has to be, or to present himself as. Obviously he judges the time ripe to start revealing to us more of himself. Hence the willingness to open up to Westminster groupie Dylan Jones.
Jones, the editor of men's magazine GQ, warms to his subject in the course of their contacts: slightly standoffish at the start, he is rooting for Cameron by the end.
For instance, some flesh is put on social responsibility. I, like others, see Cameron is a nice fellow, but the question of what he actually wants to do in office has defied any powers of analysis. This book makes quite a good job of drawing a distinction between the present control-freakery and Cameron's preference for a society where responsible people decide for themselves. To give a small example, Labour minister Margaret Hodge took the Proms to task for not being multicultural enough. In Cameron's Britain, this would be entirely a matter for those who love classical music (and he is not one of them).
It remains true that in many important spheres of public policy, little detail has yet been fitted round the basic attitude. Jones does not drag much more out. In fact, a reason the succession of Gordon Brown has been such a stroke of luck for Cameron is that it has allowed him to define his underlying approach more clearly than he could ever do against Tony Blair.
Still, many things remain obscure. One of the biggest problems Cameron would have to face as Prime Minister is Scotland, and a referendum on independence. Scotland merits three mentions in this book, though perhaps because Jones is not interested. The first time, Cameron says the English feel less fairly treated than the Scots. The second, he says he will never undermine the Union with Scotland, that is, "just wave goodbye to it and do some sort of hideous deal". But, the third time, he says the Government of Scotland "should be absolutely free to draw up their policies".
I draw from this the conclusion that, as in other spheres, Cameron has just not decided yet quite what he is going to do about Scotland. But he is already calculating.
The full article contains 443 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
