Clare Foges: The woman who put words in David Cameron's mouth

Clare Foges was writing speeches for the Prime Minister at just 27. She tells Susannah Butter what she learned from privately-educated politicians and why she’s taking the debate to state schools.
Former speech writer for David Cameron, Clare Foges (Picture: Matt Writtle)
Matt Writtle

"When David Cameron walks into a room he speaks loudly from the get-go,” says Clare Foges, who as his speechwriter of seven years had “a ringside seat to some of the best communicators in the country”. She is telling me about “these hundreds of tiny codes and inflections that affect how someone is in a social situation and influence social mobility”.

“The House of Commons is still far too skewed towards people who had a private education but what do we do about it? It’s no good trying to change the Commons — it is debate-orientated and that works. But there are simple tricks to improve confidence that we need to teach in state schools.”

Foges, 34, is the woman responsible for the speech Cameron gave when he won the general election. They spent the day before at his house in Oxfordshire.

“No one thought we would win a majority,” she says. “So we hadn’t written a speech for that. David Cameron asked if we should prepare something in case we won and I was like ‘someone please tell him it’s not happening’. At one point I had a tear in my eye because the idea of it ending like that was horrific. The next day he said we did need that speech after all.”

Foges has a calm manner — useful in the run-up to an election. After Cameron spoke, she handed in her resignation. “I think he was a bit shocked. He joked that he’d get me back to write his conference speech.”

She has met me to discuss her new project, a children’s book called Kitchen Disco. It’s a charming story with “bright, slightly demented illustrations” and rhymes, which her nieces and nephews approve of (she’s planning to send Cameron’s children a copy too). She has form, having put half-rhymes into political speeches: “Not that I was trying to turn Cameron into the rap PM. I was always trying to get a riff on the poem If into his speeches because it is such a wonderful poem, but he said it was too ham and cheese.”

Kitchen Disco was written “in a day on holiday in Gambia. I was lying on the beach, heard ladies selling fruit, and had a lovely daydream about fruit jumping out of the bowl and dancing in a nightclub. It made me so happy I wrote it down. I can’t chill on holiday; I always have a writing project on the go.”

Kitchen Disco: Foges' first book (Picture: Press)
(Picture: Press)

When she returned to work she stayed late at the office, sending drafts to publishers, but says: “I don’t think I told them what my job was; I thought it might put them off.” Leaving was sad but “I felt like I’d written everything before. It’s an intense job — the late hours don’t fit easily around your life. At one point I was having around 10 chocomilks a day. But David has to eat and train like an athlete because he has such a schedule.”

Foges lives alone in Archway where Jeremy Corbyn is her MP (she’s rooting for him because she lives in the area, not as part of a Tory plot). She was born in north London, the second-youngest of five siblings. Her father, an architect, died of cancer when she was eight, and the family moved to Guildford.

Her mother fostered other children and Foges says this made her interested in politics. “You are aware of the sharp end of state intervention in people’s lives.” But she didn’t become political until she was 24, after studying English at Southampton University and taking an MA in poetry at Bristol.

“I was on holiday staying at Shakespeare and Co bookshop in Paris where I met young Americans and people on the more liberal end of the spectrum. I realised I was a conservative. When I came home I looked up conservatism on the internet. I felt very fired up.” After two months writing speculative job applications to “almost every Tory MP in the south of England” she left her job at the NSPCC and in 2006, aged 25, began an internship with MP John Hayes, now her mentor.

Her family is “broadly Left-wing”, and she argues with her older brother about politics. “He gave me a book about Harold Macmillan with an inscription like ‘For Clare, who has fallen in love with the ancien regime. I’m not sure it’ll love her back’.”

Foges defines conservatism as “common sense incarnate; a positive way of seeing people. It is about believing in what people can do if you give them the opportunity, which is not the same as you are on your own or pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.”

She worked three days a week for Hayes as a PA/researcher, being paid £50 for expenses and supplementing that with a number of “crazy” jobs including in an ice-cream van and medical tests. Despite this she doesn’t believe in stopping unpaid internships: “If you cut down internships the paid ones will still only go to the children of people who know people; there will be fewer opportunities overall.”

Foges’s first speechwriting job was for Boris Johnson in 2007 and then at City Hall in 2008. “Boris is great, full of bonhomie. I was supposedly his speech writer but you can’t really write speeches for Boris; he does his own thing.”

Foges’s first speechwriting job was for Boris Johnson in 2007 (Picture: REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth)
REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

She nearly didn’t apply for the job at Cameron’s office: “I was being a classic girl thinking I wouldn’t get it so I wouldn’t bother. My boss, Nick Boles, who is now an MP, told me not to be so stupid.” She started working for the Prime Minister in August 2008.

“Cameron is open to dissent. We had good debates about things like buy-to- let — I felt enraged about lots of people owning property that others could be buying. I wasn’t in favour of the inheritance tax cut.”

Foges considered becoming an MP but says: “I’m not sure I have the patience. MPs have to be the sort of people who draw their energy from other people.”

Cameron has “a rare talent for putting people at ease. People talk about soft skills in a derogatory way but when people have world-class soft skills it is something to behold.”

Downing Street was a friendly place to work. “David’s children were always around, doing things like selling cookies for charity. When you meet Samantha Cameron it raises your opinion of David. She is his life-support system. But she is not a docile political wife and quick to take the piss out of her husband. He is adoring of her and takes everything she says seriously.” Larry the cat, on the other hand, was “a real annoyance”

David Cameron Selfies

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Having seen political life first-hand, Foges thinks MPs should be paid more and approves of their recent pay rise from £67,060 a year to £74,000. “Lots of people behind the scenes will say that. I’m tired of this self-flagellating mood among politicians that has been going on since the expenses scandal. They do a tremendous amount, give up well-paid careers, which you want; their spouses’ lives often get taken up too.” She admits that it’s still more than most public sector workers are paid.

Since leaving she has been asked to speak on television but turned it down. “I said no because I can’t be arsed with my physical appearance being scrutinised. If you are a woman in the public eye your physicality, fertility and all these other things don’t allow your opinions and achievements to float as free things in themselves.”

As a woman who “looks fairly young”, she is “used to being a bit patronised when I meet people. If I’m sitting next to an older gentleman at a dinner I’ll need half an hour to win him round.” She is a feminist but doesn’t believe in quotas, saying: “Women talk about combative PMQs turning them off but I like combative politics. I hate the idea of all-women shortlists. You want women to know they’ve got there on merit.”

She also thinks Labour is “mad” to open up the leadership vote to everyone. “It undermines the people in the party who do care. A decent Labour leader would be good for the Conservative Party — it’s like a card game, if others are raising the stakes you have to as well. Liz Kendall looks best but sadly it doesn’t look like she is going to do it.”

As well as promoting Kitchen Disco, Foges has started a company advising business people. She is also hoping to set up a programme called Stand and Deliver, to teach debating in state schools. “Parliament can be physically overawing if you aren’t from a certain background. On the other hand, someone who went to Westminster School told me the House of Commons is like a home from home.”

She’s working on other books for children — “I wouldn’t like to do anything older” — including one inspired by her mother. But first she is launching Kitchen Disco at the Edinburgh Book Festival to an audience of 50 three-year-olds — a prospect as “intimidating” as writing speeches to win an election.

Follow Susannah Butter on Twitter: @susannahbutter

Kitchen Disco by Clare Foges, Faber & Faber, £6.99

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