Ten days before polling day in 2010, it was clear that a hung parliament was the most likely result of the election. But when interviewed by The Spectator at the time, David Cameron refused to discuss what parts of the Tory manifesto were up for discussion in any possible coalition. He said simply that ‘all the things in our manifesto are what we want to achieve’. When pressed, he rather irritably replied, ‘I am not going to go through the manifesto in that way. The manifesto is what we believe in, that’s what we want to achieve and that is what matters.’
Even the offer of a pen and a copy of the manifesto, so that he could underline his core commitments, didn’t tempt the Tory leader. As the train whistled towards his Southampton campaign stop, he said: ‘I only have a certain amount of minutes and certain amount of days between now and polling day, I want to use those minutes to persuade people not to vote for a hung parliament but to vote for a Conservative government. It seems to me that spending a lot of time trying to fillet your own manifesto is not a particularly good use of time in the actual campaign.’
The next election is going to be different. The Tory manifesto isn’t even written, but Cameron has already started filleting it. He made clear after his speech on Europe in January that an in/out referendum would happen if he remains Prime Minister — with or without a majority. With that, he marked out the first red line of any 2015 coalition negotiation.
Between now and polling day, every Tory policy will have this test applied to it. Anything that doesn’t have this promise attached will be considered up for discussion.
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