Cameron at 10

by Anthony Seldon

  Syria highlights the difficulty in achieving strategic clarity in Cameron’s foreign policy, a difficulty that will only mount. After the Syrian defeat, his stature on the world stage diminishes. ‘He hates defeat and acutely felt that his authority as prime minister was damaged,’ reflects one who worked closely with Cameron. ‘I was very struck on subsequent occasions how vociferous he was on foreign policy: “I’m never going to take that risk again.”’ The humanitarian idealism that motivated Cameron to want to confront Assad and protect his suffering people remains, but his ability to sway events has been fatally undermined. Within the NSC and Whitehall nexus, MI5, MI6 and the Home Office argue with increasing fervour that the real concern for Britain is counter-terrorism (CT). The release by Edward Snowden in June 2013 of the National Security Agency’s secret files is another factor focusing minds in the NSC on tackling the risks of CT. Cameron knows how to read the runes. ‘OK, our Syria policy is about CT. How does that affect what we do?’ says Cameron openly at a meeting of the NSC in early 2014.

  The defeat accentuates Cameron’s vulnerability in the House of Commons. From now on, he will work hard to avoid bringing any vote to it, above all on Europe because he knows it will be an excuse for his diehard opponents to vote him down. The defeat works deeply into his sense of what he can and can’t do. In future, where he believes British action is necessary, as in participation in air strikes against ISIS in Syria, seeking parliamentary approval will be very difficult (although he does win the support of MPs for strikes in Iraq in September 2014). Equally, he continues to support the US in its efforts to bolster the Syrian opposition with training, equipment and covert intelligence. But his ability to offer overt support is much weakened.

  Syria marks the ending of the activist phase of Cameron’s premiership which, when the Libya intervention appeared to have been successful, was riding high. From now on, he will be much more of a cautious prime minister when it comes to foreign intervention. He is blooded but unbowed. His aides point to the continued slaughter in Syria, which continues unabated. However, whereas his foreign trajectory is downwards, his domestic authority, against all the odds, is on the up.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Essay Crisis Autumn

  September 2013–February 2014

  The jibe that Cameron is an ‘essay crisis’ prime minister, who always leaves things too late to do a proper job, is given fresh impetus by the Syria debacle and on into the autumn, at the very moment that Lynton Crosby is attempting to impose consistency and rigour on the whole Cameron operation. First used within government reportedly by Nick Boles, a loyal minister and friend, the expression is picked up by the press in the summer of 2011 and remains a pointed criticism of Cameron’s style.1 Syria disturbs the tectonic plates, and it will take several months for public confidence in Cameron’s leadership to return.

  His party conference speech in early October is the next big item on the domestic horizon. Speechwriter Clare Foges has the draft ready unusually early. Her brief from everyone is to ‘repeat the 2012 speech’ but with less focus on the ‘global race’. She had come up with the phrase ‘the land of opportunity’ over the summer, and is pleased to hand over the first draft the week after the Syria vote. All that is lacking, she thinks, is a ‘something’ to grab the headlines. Cameron gathers his team at Chequers to talk his speech through on the day of Ed Miliband’s address at the Labour conference in Brighton. Kate Fall, Ameet Gill, Michael Gove and Steve Hilton, back from California to help craft the words, are all there overnight.2 Miliband announces a plan to freeze energy prices, which opens up a new front by putting the cost of living at the centre of the debate. None of them expected this, and twenty-four hours of redrafting are required.

  They see Miliband’s speech as a deliberate tack to the left. Crosby is not present round the dining table, but his influence is heavily felt. They resist the temptation to give the speech a new focus, but passages are added, full of passion, sometimes anger, arguing that Miliband’s repositioning of Labour will endanger the British economy.3 ‘So when Ed Miliband talks about the face of big business, I think about the faces of these hard-working people,’ they write. ‘Labour is saying to their employees, “We want to put up your taxes, don’t come here – stick your jobs and take them elsewhere.” I know that bashing business might play to a Labour audience. But it’s crazy for our country.’ Of Labour’s conference proposal to put up corporation tax, he says, ‘that is about the most damaging, nonsensical, twisted economic policy you could possibly come up with’. Labour, he says, want to return Britain to ‘1970s-style socialism’.4 More than in his 2012 speech, Cameron is thinking ahead to the general election. His message is, ‘give us the time, and we will finish the job’. The Foges phrase, ‘land of opportunity’, makes several appearances, including in the peroration. The text allows him scope to display his compassionate credentials: stressing educational opportunity for all, regardless of background, the desire for everyone under twenty-five either to have a job or be in education, and praising social workers including those who had helped with his own son, Ivan.

  The speech in Manchester is more significant than judged at the time. When he comes backstage for his customary glass of beer with his team, he is in a good but not euphoric mood. He feels he has done well enough, but nothing special. He has covered the bases: paying homage to Thatcher, demonstrating strength on foreign policy to help banish memories of the Syria vote, stressing that the NHS is safe in their hands, and providing evidence that Plan A is at last beginning to work. But the real importance of the speech is the ubiquitous influence of Crosby. ‘The 2013 speech was indeed a repeat of 2012: it was all about ramming home the message,’ as the Australian master himself later says.5

  Crosby’s voice, not Hilton’s, is dominant. Hilton added some nice flourishes to the speech, but his brief presence highlights the fact that the thrust of his agenda, for better or for worse, has passed. The influence of Jo Johnson, the new Policy Unit head, is instead pervasive at the conference: some sixty policies are announced in Manchester to give the Conservatives momentum in the final eighteen months of the parliament.

  Cameron almost literally has an ‘essay crisis’ when delivering his words. He likes to take a hard copy to the podium for his big set-piece speeches. The paper copy acts only as a ‘security blanket’, because he reads from the words in front of him on the autocue. But two hours before he is to deliver the speech, the autocue malfunctions. The text is repeatedly moving all over the screen and no technician can understand why. Cameron several times pops over and asks ‘Are you ready yet?’ Each time he is told ‘Give us a minute,’ but is not alerted to the reason for the delay for fear that it will cause panic. The malfunction appears to be a glitch with the memory stick, and the whole speech has to be uploaded again. The text has undergone several last-minute additions, so in the final minutes before he delivers it, his team have to check all 6,500 words of the hard copy with what is on the autocue. Cameron sails forth with the speech blissfully unaware that his team are worrying all the time that the same defect will return. For the speech team, it is the most anxious hour of their lives until the final words are safely delivered.

  One initiative that Crosby allows in the speech is the trumpeting of High Speed Two (HS2), the planned high-speed railway line between London, the Midlands, the north-west and Yorkshire and ultimately to Scotland. ‘Here in Manchester, let me say this: when I say a land of opportunity for all, I mean everyone – north and south. The country has been too London-centric for far too long. That’s why we need a new north–south railway line … Just imagine if someone had said, no, we can’t build the M1, or the Severn Bridge, imagine how that would be hobbling our economy today. HS2 is about bringing north and south together in our national endeavour,’ he says.6 Osborne had initially championed the idea for a high-speed rail link in 2008 before Labour adopted it, when the details of HS2 were worked out by the then Transport Secretary, Andrew Adonis, in 2009–10. In January 2012, wi
th the hybrid bill still before committee, the government decided to greenlight Phase One, linking London and Birmingham, with construction set to begin in 2017 and a planned opening date of 2026. In January 2013, the primary Phase Two route continuing the track up to Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield is announced, with a planned completion date of 2032.

  Cameron and Osborne share an enthusiasm, which grows during the parliament, for what Julian Glover, now a special adviser at the Department for Transport, describes as ‘big, nation-changing projects that could match what they both saw being built on visits abroad, especially in Asia’.7 The success of the London 2012 Olympics gives them the impetus and confidence that major projects could be achieved on their watch: the financial, engineering and project-management skills are all there. Recent premierships had been cautious on infrastructure, with some rare exceptions: Thatcher authorising the Channel Tunnel, John Major the Jubilee Line extension, and Tony Blair High Speed One, linking St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel line and Europe. The Transport Secretary post had, despite these iniatives, not been one of the front-rank positions in Cabinet, and turnover of incumbents was notoriously high.8

  The Coalition Agreement in May 2010 signalled positive intentions, backing Crossrail across London, High Speed Two and rail electrification, as well as calling for investment in a national superfast broadband network. However, it came out clearly against a third runway at Heathrow, or expansion of Gatwick or Stansted.9 Money will be the key to see any of these aims realised. The Treasury are not keen on rail investment, unlike in roads, which brings revenue via fuel duty. Some officials assumed Crossrail would be cancelled or postponed, as it had not been formally funded by the Labour government. ‘Don’t forget, the Treasury opposed the M25,’ Osborne reportedly says.10 Philip Hammond, the new Transport Secretary, confirms after the coalition’s first Cabinet meeting that Crossrail will be constructed, albeit with economies. After the Comprehensive Spending Review in October 2010 is complete, £14.8 billion of funding is agreed for it.11 Alongside the construction of the London Olympics site, Crossrail will be the major showpiece for Britain’s growing ambitions in infrastructure, and indeed becomes one of the biggest construction projects in Europe. The new dynamism is heralded in a little-noticed speech that Cameron gives in March 2012, describing infrastructure as ‘the magic ingredient in so much of modern life’.12

  Whereas Crossrail is secure, HS2 has a big question mark hanging over its future. Cameron comes under considerable pressure in 2011 and 2012 to drop it. The concern is that the debate over it is squandering too much political capital as the proposed route takes it through several safe Conservative seats. He is told it will soak up the government’s infrastructure budget for years into the future. The Policy Unit tells him that the economic case doesn’t stand up – the Institute of Economic Affairs produces a report suggesting the total cost would be £80 billion, as opposed to the Transport Department’s estimate of £43 billion.13 But Cameron, readily supported by Osborne, never wavers. ‘I feel so much of my time is being expended on short-term matters: I want to leave a legacy for Britain,’ he would say. The fight appeals to his combative side: as over gay marriage, he relishes a battle, particularly against certain kinds of Tories, who he doesn’t worry unduly about upsetting. He thus brushes aside the placards protesting against HS2 that line the road when he goes to Chequers. He would later retort that it is ‘a national joke how long it takes to get around the country’.

  When appointing Patrick McLoughlin as Transport Secretary in the September 2012 reshuffle, Cameron tells him that ‘I’m very keen that HS2 will go ahead.’14 The appointment is an astute one. As Conservative chief whip for seven years, McLoughlin is well used to working with truculent MPs. He will show understanding to those MPs whose constituencies will be affected, but will constantly urge them to look to the long-term benefits. McLoughlin is a huge fan of the HS1 terminal at St Pancras: ‘When I used to go there twenty years ago, you wouldn’t want to hang around for five minutes. Now, if I’m half an hour early for a train, I’ll go to a bookshop, or have a coffee. It’s fantastic; it’s a destination in its own right!’15 He had been told that he would face the wrath of sixty Conservative MPs rebelling against HS2: but when voting takes place at the second reading in April 2014, only twenty-six rebel on the motion.

  Overall, how has the ‘essay crisis’ PM fared on infrastructure? Cameron may not have found a way forward on London’s airport problems, handing the judgement over to the Davies Commission after giving a ‘no ifs, no buts’ promise in 2009 that there would be no third runway at Heathrow;16 but building Crossrail, investing more in the rail system than at any previous time under British Rail, and promoting the largest road programme for two decades, as well as forging ahead with HS2 – if completed – is not a bad record.

  The newfound optimism makes its way into Osborne’s Autumn Statement on 5 December, in which the chancellor talks positively about infrastructure projects. ‘Britain’s economic plan is working, but the job is not done,’ he says. ‘The biggest risk to that comes from those who would abandon the plan.’ Months of frustration and humiliation since the omnishambles Budget are vented in Osborne’s speech. Labour and other critics have been ‘comprehensively wrong’ in their economic prescriptions, he tells the House.17 ‘This was the occasion when I felt that the plan was working, and my numbers were all heading in the right direction,’ he later says.18 However, as one Number 10 official recalls, although ‘things might have been coming back under control, the money wasn’t coming through in tax receipts’. The growth forecast for 2013 is upgraded in his figures from 0.6% to 1.4%, with the prediction of growth in 2014 upgraded to 2.4%.19 ‘This was the first big revision and the first forecast that started to reflect the improvement,’ says Rupert Harrison.20 Like Cameron’s speech at the party conference, the Autumn Statement has one eye on the general election in 2015 and therefore includes politically significant measures such as the introduction of a cap on total government welfare expenditure. For Osborne, and Cameron, it appears that there is real light at the end of the tunnel. Those around Cameron notice the change in the prime minister. For much of 2012, he had not been himself, absorbing the delayed impact of the loss of Ivan (in 2009) and his father (in 2010), notably over the Olympic summer which he wishes they could have seen. But by December 2013, many notice an altogether new confidence in his stride.

  A sense of relief may explain his gaffe in allowing himself to take part in what is deemed to be an insensitive ‘selfie’ with Obama and Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in Johannesburg on 10 December. Mandela’s long-expected death comes on 6 December, wiping out much of the reporting on the Autumn Statement the day before. That evening, Cameron stands outside Number 10 and delivers a statement, in words written by Foges: ‘A great light has gone out in the world. Nelson Mandela was not just a hero of our time but of all time.’21 He is adamant he will attend the memorial service four days later, which is where the ‘selfie’ takes place in one of the longueurs of the ceremonies. When the media storm breaks with accusations of poor taste at a sombre occasion, the Danish PM says she will happily have the image erased. Cameron advises her not to do so, but instead to auction it off for charity.22

  Cameron returns from a warm Johannesburg to a Britain disappearing under heavy rain clouds. For four weeks, the country has been battered by strong winds and storms that have barrelled across the Atlantic. The St Jude’s storm at the end of October had left four people dead and over a half a million homes without power. December is the wettest and windiest month since 1969, with a wind gust of 142 mph being recorded in the Scottish Highlands. Worse comes in January with the wettest month in the south of England since records began more than a hundred years before. Another storm in early February leads to a section of the seawall collapsing at Dawlish in Devon, leaving the railway tracks from London to Cornwall suspended in mid-air.

  Owen Paterson, Environment Secretary since the Septemb
er 2012 reshuffle, returns before the New Year to take personal control of Whitehall’s response. He chairs some twenty-five meetings of COBRA in January and February.23 Cameron has been increasingly anxious; he has history with floods. When Leader of the Opposition, there had been floods in his Witney constituency in July 2007. Despite making a quick visit before flying off to Africa to look at the Project Umubano initiative, a social action project in Rwanda, in which Andrew Mitchell was a leading light, he received a severe lashing from the media for travelling abroad while his constituents were under water. He and his team vow that they must never make the same mistake again. During severe floods in 2012, a woman had barracked him as he was leaving the town hall in Todmorden complaining about government inaction in West Yorkshire.24 He knows it is a dangerous situation and wants to get the government response right.

  On 27 December, he is at Chequers after Christmas with the family watching breakfast television. He’s alarmed at the images of rising floodwaters in Kent. He immediately calls the senior private secretary on duty and says, ‘I’m leaving at 10.30 for Kent. I’ve told the cops. Make sure you fix me up a good visit.’ This attitude is typical of what even Downing Street insiders describe as his ‘essay crisis’ behaviour. Some think the significance of the floods is being heavily exaggerated by the media and that ‘the scale and magnitude are not nearly as big as how it’s being presented’. They worry that sending him on a personal visit too early, while the emergency services are working flat out, runs the risk of distracting them and exacerbating the problem. Others say ‘leave it too late and Sky has already called, and it’s second-hand news’. But Cameron is insistent that he will go, so the Private Office scrabble around to produce a meaningful visit for him. They manage to find a press officer and a visits officer who live in south London and dispatch them immediately to Kent to find somewhere for him to visit. They alight on Yalding, where the River Medway has burst its banks. The visit is not a success: he’s confronted by another angry resident, making for uncomfortable television and news headlines.25