DAVID Cameron has suggested that his government should have accelerated the implementation of its brutal austerity policies.
In an interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby, to be broadcast at 8pm tonight, the former prime minister also revealed that Boris Johnson expected Leave to be “crushed” in the EU referendum.
A UN report published last year on the impact of the UK Government’s austerity measures found the Tories had inflicted “great misery” on people with “punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous” policies.
Asked to defend the cuts, Cameron said: “I think, look, the cuts were very difficult to make and there were lots of very difficult decisions and I’m not sure we got all of them right, but I’ve never wavered in the belief that it was necessary to make difficult decisions… “There is a case for saying that some of the changes we had to make in year two, in year three, in year four – it might have been better if we did a little bit more a bit earlier.
“When you have that sort of window of permission from the public, I felt after the 2010 election, you know, we’d fought an election, rather untraditionally, saying; ‘If you elect us, we’re going to make cuts and people will look back at this period and there’ll be great big arguments about it.’”
The former prime minister also said Boris Johnson told him in a text message sent shortly before he publicly announced that he was campaigning for Leave that he expected Brexit to be “crushed” in the referendum.
Asked what he thought were Johnson’s motives for supporting Leave, Cameron said: “My conclusion is he thought that the Brexit vote would be lost but he didn’t want to give up the chance of being on the romantic, patriotic nationalistic side of Brexit.
“Minutes before he went out to explain why he was going to be on the side of Brexit, he sent me a text saying, ‘Brexit will be crushed like a toad under the harrow.’ But I can only conclude that – he’d never argued for it before. he thought it was going to lose and that’s why he made the choice.”
WATCH: Boris Johnson met with barrage of boos after Brexit talks
He said Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament for five weeks would turn out to be “counterproductive”. Asked if the decision to suspend was right, Cameron replied: “I don’t. We’ll wait for what the courts say. I don’t think it was illegal. It looked to me, from the outside, like rather sharp practice of trying to restrict the debate and I thought it was actually from his point of view probably counterproductive.
“In the end, we have to work through parliament, and you can’t deny the arithmetic of parliament and the majorities there are in parliament.”
He added that it would be “disastrous” for the Conservatives if the decision to suspend the whip was not reversed.
He said: “I obviously disagree with the idea of taking away the whip from 21 hard-working, loyal Conservatives. I think that was a bad decision, if it isn’t reversed, it will be I think a disastrous decision.
“I hope that Boris will get a deal in Brussels, he will come back, try and bring Parliament together to back that deal – I don’t see why those 21 people shouldn’t be restored to the Conservative whip. If they’re not, I really worry about what could happen.”
Cameron went on to firmly ruled out a return to frontline politics. Asked about the prospect of a comeback, he replied: “No … I love this country. I care passionately about what happens. But I think the idea of going back to frontline politics is not going to happen, nor should it.”
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel