Gavin, Stacey ... and Dave - Cameron's secret crush on comedy star

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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By DYLAN JONES

Over 12 tumultuous months, GQ editor DYLAN JONES, left, was given unprecedented access to David Cameron for a new book. Here he paints the most intimate portrait yet of a Tory leader whose wife makes him come home on time - and who has a secret crush on a 'tidy and lush' comedy star. . .

May 15, 2008. 'What's occurring?' asked David Cameron as he climbed into the back of the black VW people carrier parked outside the Crisis centre in Commercial Street in London's East End.

The night before he had just finished watching the last episode of the first series of the BBC3 hit comedy Gavin And Stacey and had not only fallen in love with it but had started talking to people in the strong Welsh accent used by one of the show's main characters, Ruth Jones's Nessa, the rather statuesque, tattooed ex-roadie.

The Tory leader had also fallen for Bryn, the sexually ambiguous character played by Rob Brydon. He even said he wanted to install sat-nav in his car, just so he could pronounce it the way Bryn did in the series. 'Sat-nav,' Cameron repeated to himself, with great amusement.

'I just love Smithy, he's great,' he continued, eulogising the character played by James Corden. 'And Stacey is very attractive. At first you don't think she is but she just becomes more beautiful the more you watch the show. As she'd put it, she's tidy and lush.

'I've been to Barry three times and now desperately want to go back. From now on, whenever we have any success in Wales I'm going to congratulate my Welsh MPs on a tidy result.'

That morning Cameron had been to launch a Conservative initiative, the Homelessness Foundation, along with John Bird, the rather strident founder of the Big Issue, Adam Sampson, the chief executive of Shelter, Jenny Edwards, the chief executive of Homeless Link, and Leslie Morphy, the chief executive of Crisis.

The Homelessness Foundation was set up as a link between the voluntary sector and those with political influence who can help with policy solutions.

Cameron admits he has a soft spot for Stacey (Ruth Jones)

As Cameron said in his speech that day, even 12 months previously it would have been unthinkable for the Tories to be at the forefront of a charity for the homeless but now it seemed perfectly natural.

'We're not trying to take the "We're brilliant and Labour are rubbish" view here,' he said. 'We've just got to embrace the problem.'

It had been a good couple of weeks for the Tories. Boris Johnson had, against the initial odds, trounced Ken Livingstone in the London mayoral election, while Labour lost an astonishing 331 council seats in other local elections - the party's worst performance for 40 years - perhaps indicating the country was finally ready for a change of administration.

Now, just a few weeks before the anniversary of his first year in office, Gordon Brown was taking another hammering in the polls.

On Friday, May 9, a YouGov poll showed Labour had slumped to its lowest levels of support since records began in the Thirties, putting the Tories on a massive 49 per cent with Labour trailing on 23 per cent - a gap of 26 points.

Two days earlier, another poll showed more than half of Labour supporters believed Brown should step down to make way for a more electable alternative.

As a Westminster insider said to me the day before we went to Crewe: 'There's a feeling in the House now that he ought to just close the door of No10 and put the keys through the letterbox.

'There is nothing that Gordon can do to make people like him. It almost feels as though he is an ex-Prime Minister.'

Cameron's commitment to his party is matched only by his ambition

Back in the people carrier, Cameron was on the phone to his private office, asking about the day's itinerary.

He and his team - Steve Hilton, enigmatic architect of the modern Conservative dream, and Liz Sugg, head of operations - were on their way to Crewe to lend support to the Tory candidate, Edward Timpson, the son of a shoe-repair magnate, who was standing in the Nantwich and Crewe by-election.

'I want to visit shops, I want to meet some real people,' DC said.

This was his third visit to Crewe to drum up support for Timpson, and he would come up again two days before the election. As the West Coast Mainline Virgin train had been cancelled that morning, there was no option but to drive the three long hours to Crewe.

Cameron had told his front bench they had to visit the area at least three times or else they were fired...'And I wasn't joking,' he said, laughing.

For me, it seemed as if I had spent the best part of the previous nine months cooped up in cars and vans with Cameron. In June 2007 I started a book project with him, and since then we have spent a lot of time together.

I am not a Cameron apologist and nor am I even a real Tory. This book is not an endorsement of his policies, merely a glimpse behind the veil and an account of a year I spent watching him and interviewing him.

I wasn't sure what exactly was going on with the Tories under Cameron, so, essentially, I became sufficiently interested to go and find out.

My idea was to have a really long conversation with Cameron - which I did, starting in June last year, just before the disastrous Ealing byelection, and finishing at this year's rather more successful Crewe and Nantwich by-election in May.

Luckily, the Leader of the Opposition found the idea agreeable and so for the best part of a year we spoke every couple of weeks - sometimes at length, sometimes not - in an attempt not just to chart an extraordinary year in politics (one which has seen him very much in the ascendancy), but also to get to the heart of what makes him tick.

Cameron's office: Hansard, The Smiths, and a Politician of the Year award are among the contents. Click on enlarge to read the key

Cameron's office: Hansard, The Smiths, and a Politician of the Year award are among the contents. Click on enlarge to read the key

My year with Cameron also had an amazing narrative arc, because when we started the project he couldn't have been in a worse position. Vilified by the Press, the opinion polls and public alike, Cameron had to watch as Brown experienced a protracted coronation, one in which he was treated exceptionally well by the Press.

But when Brown went on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 in the autumn and prevaricated about why he hadn't called a General Election, the pendulum began to swing slowly back to Cameron and the Tories. Luckily, I was there to follow it all.

Mine is not a book about politics but a book about a politician, a man whose commitment to his party is matched only by his ambition.

What does Cameron have in common with any of us? Why should we be interested? I, like you, I think, want to know the same things: David Cameron, are you any different? What would Britain really be like if you were in charge? So I asked him exactly that.

I spent several hours talking to him about his profoundly disabled son Ivan and how his view of the NHS has been shaped in part by Ivan's reliance on it.

The first time I visited the Camerons' home in North Kensington (which, as anyone who knows London can tell you, actually means Ladbroke Grove and is far from the trendy boho paradise painted by the Press), I saw Ivan's influence everywhere: the specially installed lift, his toys, the medicine being prepared in the kitchen.

The Cameron household is Ivan's own little church and everything the family does at home revolves around him. It breaks your heart but then you get the feeling David and his wife Samantha's hearts have been broken a thousand times over.

Samantha, though working for Bond Street luxury stationer Smythson, tends to wear High Street brands head-to-toe and is surprisingly grounded. Although Cherie Blair came to be seen as a liability while Tony Blair was in office, Samantha is regarded as a glamorous asset, both inside and outside the party.

Cameron obviously discussed going for the leadership with Samantha and talked about the toll it might take on their family life and in particular on Ivan.

When I asked Cameron if his wife objected, he said: 'No. Her view was sort of, "I think you've got the right ideas, I think you could do it" and "Why not go for it?"

'She once said, only half joking, that she was so bored being married to an MP in a party that's going nowhere - "If you think you can sort it out then you'd better get on and do it". She didn't quite put it like that but that was the sentiment. It was a very practical, business-like approach.'

Looking forward: David and Samantha Cameron on holiday in Cornwall last month

Looking forward: David and Samantha Cameron on holiday in Cornwall last month

There were rules, though: they had to have plenty of time together, plenty of time with the children. Two nights a week, he had to come home early enough to be with Sam: one night he should be back for dinnertime, the other he should be back to do bathtime with the kids.

'On the whole I stick to that,' said Cameron. 'On a Wednesday and Thursday I always try to get back at a reasonable time. I do masses of constituency stuff on a Friday but I try to keep Saturday nights and Sundays free.

'You can do it but it needs very strict diary control and saying no to a lot of things. But I think Sam has been absolutely right by saying, "Let's try to make this work." And so it's good to have some rules.

'Actually, because I've got a good team around me, I know that if I'm not at the morning meeting it's chaired by William Hague. I also have a very strong private office.

'If you get exhausted you make bad decisions. If you're away from your family all the time you get fractious and that's not good.

'You've got to try to keep your character and personality together and not let the job change you too much. Because if it does, then all the things you thought you were going to bring to it aren't there any more.'

On the morning of Wednesday, March 5 this year, I even watched him prepare for Prime Minister's Questions.

At 8.30am that day, having cycled to work in the spring sunshine, Cameron was in his office in Portcullis House, opposite the Houses of Parliament. He was dressed in a dark blue fleece, a grey sweatshirt full of holes, blue sweat pants and a pair of not exactly box-fresh trainers.

He always arrives early on PMQs days so he can plan exactly how he will skewer his adversary across the Dispatch Box. Today was the Commons vote on the EU's Lisbon Treaty - which would see a tranche of powers signed away to Brussels - and Cameron fully expected to lose.

'We're toast, frankly,' he said, leaning back in his chair and putting his feet on the long wooden table. 'The big issue today should be the Liberal Democrats because Calamity Clegg has ordered them all to abstain. Because of this we will lose the vote.'

Cameron's casual dress contrasted sharply with the austere surroundings, his crumpled fleece looking decidedly odd juxtaposed against the framed drawing of Harold Macmillan and the photographs of DC with Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela.

'Are you wearing a Che Guevara watch?' George Bush asked Boris Johnson. 'In Texas we execute people for wearing those.'

'Are you wearing a Che Guevara watch?' George Bush asked Boris Johnson. 'In Texas we execute people for wearing those.'

As he quickly munched his way through a banana and then an apple while gazing out over the Thames towards the London Eye, the traffic thundered down the Embankment, making his office seem like an Edwardian oasis of calm. His desk was covered with bottles of spirits, waiting to be signed by him and then given as auction prizes.

'Judging by all the booze on my desk you'd think that all the Leader of the Opposition does all day is sign bottles of whisky...'

He smiled, glancing up at his suit, shirt and tie hanging on his wardrobe. 'Prime Minister's Questions is always a big day, but today is even bigger because of the EU vote, and although I'm fairly resigned to losing it, I need to make Brown's day as difficult as possible.'

He sipped his coffee, took a couple of calls on his mobile, worked his way through the newspapers and carried on talking as though he were planning a family picnic. 'It's also good to get in early before everyone else arrives, as this morning can usually get quite feisty.'

The first person to arrive was Desmond Swayne MP, Cameron's Parliamentary Private Secretary, who careered in carrying a huge bunch of papers, some cappuccinos, bottled water and the obligatory copy of Private Eye.

Michael Gove rushed into the room, full of stories about Hillary Clinton's win that morning in the Texas primary and saying: 'It just prolongs the agony!'

Gove, the Shadow Schools Secretary, is something of an intellectual powerhouse and is considered by many to be the brightest member of the Shadow Cabinet. One of the great debates in Westminster restaurants is whether he could ever be leader. Some claim he has a deal with his wife not to do so and that his constitution is not up to it. There is also the problem of his nationality: he's Scottish.

Then chief policy adviser Oliver Letwin walked in, followed by spin doctor Andy Coulson and, a few minutes later, Boris Johnson, also carrying a copy of Private Eye. This was going to be Boris's final appearance at these meetings, although he had never exactly been a regular.

The discussion turned to various newspaper editors before moving to the London mayoral race and whether they could think of a question-that would force Brown to defend Ken Livingstone.

'Brown hates Livingstone and will hate being drawn on him,' someone said. 'Brown simply cannot stand the man. He dislikes Livingstone almost as much as he hates Blair.'

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne arrived and started discussing Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg's dismantling by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight the previous evening. Like their leader, everyone called him Calamity Clegg, hoping the tag might stick.

I had just asked Piers Morgan to interview Clegg for GQ magazine, so I volunteered some of the more salacious parts of the interview (moral ambiguity over Iraq, cross-dressing and the number of women Clegg said he'd slept with).

Osborne then recounted a meeting between Boris and George W. Bush a few years previously. Bush appeared to be enjoying himself until he spied Boris's wrist.

'Are you wearing a Che Guevara watch?' asked Bush with a confused look on his face. 'It's actually my sister's,' blushed Boris. 'I don't care about that,' smiled Bush. 'In Texas we execute people for wearing Che Guevara watches...'

The meeting, like all meetings in Cameron's office before PMQs, was to work out various lines of attack for Cameron to use at the midday question-and-answer session in the House of Commons.

Traditionally, this is where the incumbent PM gets to defend himself over whatever travesty he's perpetrated that week. And while it can come across as old-fashioned and childish, this is where an MP can prove he is worth his salt, a leader can prove he is worthy of his job and a Prime Minister can show he has the mettle for whatever the world throws at him.

Cameron wanted questions he could ask (the Leader of the Opposition is allowed up to six), on two topics: the failure - yet again - of the Government to offer the public a referendum on the EU Treaty and Livingstone's refusal to dissociate himself from an employee who had been accused of abusing public funds.

Not for the first time, Cameron had woken up in the middle of the night and decided to change the questions he had originally planned to ask.

As another round of coffees was brought in, someone suggested a particular line of attack, but Cameron batted it back, leaning back in his chair so he was almost parallel with the floor.

He then suggested a few more questions, with Gove pretending to be Brown (it is acknowledged that Gove actually does Brown better than Brown himself), getting all gruff and grumpy and banging on the table.

This was like writing a play by committee, with Cameron having the final say; like composing rhyming couplets, with everyone at the table pitching in ideas about what to ask Brown and anticipating his response.

Bosh! This was Punch and Judy. Verbal chess. Shadow boxing. They tried to consider every possibility, working out just how far they could push a line before having to draw back.

'That's very similar to what Michael Corleone says to Luca Brasi,' said Gove at one point, bringing up a plot point in The Godfather.

(A few weeks before, Cameron had made a video of his preparations for PMQs, and while this showed he was more than comfortable in his own skin, one critic unkindly imagined what Brown's version would be like: 'The word is he spends hour after hour practising, with Geoff Hoon playing the part of Cameron. The resulting film would be longer than The Godfather, Parts I, II and III, with nearly as much shouting.')

On and on went the debate before PMQs, with Cameron and his team building up the arguments, fine-tuning the questions and making sure the whole thing wouldn't be too theatrical or give Brown any opportunity for amusing responses (unlikely); all the while DC keeping it as light-hearted as possible. He was definitely the energy in the room.

After two-and-a-half hours, it was all over, with Cameron having the five questions he needed.

Rehearsal over, his team left, with Cameron offering a typically bouncy adieu: 'Gordon Brown better watch out today, as I'm wearing my Blue Peter badge.' (He had recently been on the show).

He sat down at his desk and spent 20 minutes, going over and over his questions, analysing every one in detail. Then he threw the briefing notes away and got changed.

The vote on the Lisbon Treaty may not have gone Cameron's way that day, but on Thursday, May 22, he got a vindication of his leadership, as the Tories achieved their first by-election gain in 26 years, taking Crewe and Nantwich from Labour in a landslide victory.

It looked as if it could be a historic turning point. Edward Timpson won 7,860 more votes than his Labour rival, Tamsin Dunwoody, overturning a 7,000 majority - an enormous 17.6 per cent swing.

Speaking the next day, Cameron said it was 'encouraging that thousands of people who have never voted Conservative before have come across and put their trust in the Conservative Party'.

Although he said he was aiming to show the voters, and the country at large, that the party would not let them down, his most memorable quote referred to Labour's campaign: 'It was backward-looking, it was divisive, it was in many ways the end of New Labour.'

As for myself, the downfall of the Brown Government had been a sideshow, the background noise during my 12-month journey with the Tory leader.

Cameron had, in that time, grown into not just an extremely formidable politician but had done so surely, steadily and without any great fanfare.

For some, I think there was still a worrying sense that he was the default option for the electorate - literally the only alternative. But if my year with Cameron had taught me anything, it was that he not only had genuine political principles - and policies - but also that, when he needed to, he had the ability to articulate them.

Social reform, social responsibility and the breaking up of top-down government - these were the things I was taking away with me, these were the big-tent ideas that were going to carry him forward.

I started this project in the summer of 2007, not really knowing where it would take either of us, not really knowing if I was shadowing a chancer, a maverick or a true visionary.

Cameron is not without faults, although it soon became obvious he has a very clear idea of what he can do for Britain and how he can start to produce change. Not everyone warmed to him - there was still an element of inverted snobbery running through the country - but more importantly, people were now saying they were prepared to give him a chance.

Towards the end of June 2008, almost a year since I'd started my journey with Cameron, I was having lunch with the editor of a national newspaper. The topic of conversation - as was becoming the norm - was the Government, and in particular Brown's ability to cling on and Cameron's chances of becoming PM.

'You know what, no matter what you say about Cameron, he's got it,' said my guest. 'I remember when I first met him. It was after the 2005 conference and he'd just been made leader.' There was a pause, a sip of wine and a nibble on a piece of bread.

'You could tell he was bright, you knew he was charming, but there was something else about him. He looked like a winner. And the last thing Brown looks like now is a winner.'

For Gordon Brown at least, it seemed as if it was going to be a long, hot, uncomfortable summer. A summer during which he had to convincingly show he didn't really have the reverse Midas touch at all.

And for David Cameron there was still a huge amount of work to do; work he appeared to be looking forward to.

Standing outside his home the morning after the pivotal Nantwich and Crewe by-election, clutching a bunch of briefing papers and newspapers and looking like a man with destiny ahead of him, he said: 'I want to build over the coming months, over the coming years, the biggest coalition for change in our country so we really can remove this Government and give Britain a better chance.'

And there were few betting against him doing exactly that.

• Dylan Jones is the editor of GQ.

Cameron On Cameron, by Dylan Jones and David Cameron, is published by Fourth Estate tomorrow at £12.99. To order your copy at £12.99 with free p&p call The Review Bookstore on 0845 155 0713.

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