David Cameron: why I want another five years as PM

The Financial Times interviewed David Cameron on the train to Birmingham and found a “breezy optimism” about the Prime Minister. “There may be a few more grey hairs, he is watching his weight and the spectacles are a more frequent sight but his face remains preternaturally unlined by his five years of office,” write George Parker and Lionel Barber.

On why he wants another five years to finish the job:

“With a five per cent budget deficit and still too many people unemployed, with growth that hasn’t worked its way through so everyone feels the benefits, the job isn’t done.”

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On his hopes for Britain:

“The ambition is for Britain to be the best place in Europe to start, grow and run a business, schools where we are not lagging in the tables but we’re absolutely busting through the top, a welfare system where it pays to work, where you’re always better off in work. And from this a sense that the values of the country will have changed to be ones where people feel deep national pride.”

On getting public finances back in the black:

“We should be targeting a surplus after seven years or you never will.”

On the problem of homegrown jihadis:

“We are cracking one of the great problems of the whole world: how do you create a multifaith, multi-ethnic opportunity democracy.”

On why he agreed to the Scottish referendum:

“We would have been in a punch-up situation. Instead we did the decent, proper British thing.”

On his promised EU in/out referendum:

“I think this is the moment when Britain stops sleepwalking towards the exit — I think that’s what’s happening now. The British public can see what’s happening: Europe is changing before their eyes and they haven’t been asked about it.”

Cameron made it clear to the FT that, assuming he can win a better deal for Britain, he will fight for us to remain a member. He acknowledged that some Tory MPs will “vote to leave altogether”, whatever deal he can strike, but believes the schism in the Tory party will be repaired once the referendum is over: “I think there can be a coming together after that.”

Read the Financial Times article in full