Props to David Cameron for tackling Buzzfeed News ahead of the 50 Days ’Til The Election milestone. There’s no better way to get down with the kids and in touch with your inner Everyman.
Also, amid Jim Waterson from Buzzfeed’s no bullshit, there was some hilarity in the form of the prime minister staunchly believing if he was a Game of Thrones character he’d be Ned Stark – which is totally mad because he’d definitely be a Lannister.
At first we thought Jaimie, but then realised that it implied some suspect relations with family members and opted for Tywin. Spoiler alert: Tywin while he’s alive, obviously.
Aside from this, though, Daveyboy chatted about some important stuff too – touching on affordable housing, trans rights and not achieving a 50:50 gender split of Tory ministers. Here are the highlights:
The Ned Stark debacle (don't read this if you haven’t watched Game of Thrones)
Just to get it out of the way, the PM really loves Sean Bean and thinks he’d be him. When asked, he responded: ‘That’s an impossible question to answer. Ned Stark, I love Sean Bean, I was a big fan of Sharpe and if you have – switch off now if you haven’t finished series one – but I couldn’t believe they would get a star as big as that and… Let’s put it this way, he doesn’t make it all the way through.’
Well it wasn’t that much of an impossible question to answer, clearly.
David Cameron on what affordable housing actually is
When asked if he recognised there’s a housing crisis, David admitted that yes, he does because yes, there is and that’s down to the fact ‘we’re not building enough houses’.
When questioned about what he felt constituted affordable housing, he said: ‘Well, it depends on where you live, it depends on what your salary is. I think of my constituency in West Oxfordshire – I know what people have to earn to be able to get, say, a flat for £150–160,000.
‘And the truth of the matter is you won’t get more affordable housing unless you build more homes. We need to build more homes and that’s what starter homes, that’s what Help to Buy, that’s what the planning reform is all about.’
**He denied that the Tories chase the elderly vote and ignore young people **
Jim quite rightly pointed out that ‘during the last five years, wages for young people have gone down in real terms, pensioner benefits such as pensions, TV licences, bus passes keep going up and up and are protected’, to which Cameron flat-out disagreed.
‘Now for young people the most important thing is a job, and we have created a thousand jobs every day we’ve been in office and it’s simply not true to say they are all part-time jobs or low-paid jobs or zero-hours contracts, that is not true. Zero-hours contracts are 2% of the jobs in our country.’
He also added that the elderly can’t just change their circumstances. ‘You can’t suddenly dart back to work and adjust your life’ and they need the help that the government is providing.
He does think there should be no messaging service that government security can’t access
David got quite passionate about this – understandably considering ‘when you are prime minister your first responsibility is the nation’s security’ – though he denied that he ever said those words, despite the fact that this is what was reported in the media.
He argued that the UK, just like many other countries, has always been able to intercept communication: ‘So that used to be steaming open a letter between terrorists and reading it, it used to be being able to listen to a fixed-line phone call or a mobile phone call.
‘The point I’m making is we shouldn’t sit back and just say it’s OK for there to be certain unregulated spaces on the internet where terrorists can talk to each other. We should be working with the companies to try and make sure that we can, in extremis, with the signature of the home secretary on the warrant, try to find out what those communications are.’
Sure, that’s sort of exactly what was reported, but we get what he means, now he’s explained it again. If there are terrorists communicating via encrypted messaging, shouldn’t security be able to access them if the correct privacy procedures are adhered to?
David Cameron on the girls who fled to join Isis
Making some fair points that we agree with, the prime minister believes that the girls who ran away to Syria are ‘deeply misguided’ and finds it ‘unbelievably depressing that in our country – which is a brilliant free country with a free press, the rule of law, democracy, great opportunity – that people from an outstanding school in Greenwich can opt to go and join a death cult in Syria that believes in throwing gay people off buildings and cutting people’s heads off in the desert.’
When questioned about why he wants to ‘get them back and get this radicalised nonsense out of their heads’, but has arrested the boys who fled to Syria to join the same ‘death cult’ he refers to, Cameron responds: ‘When they come back it’s right that they are arrested and questioned and all the rest of it, but if you’re asking me is the only response a criminal justice one, of course not.
‘You have got to have deradicalisation programmes, you have got to have programmes to try and turn people away from this stuff.’
So it sounds like he’s up for jailing and deradicalising the guys, and just deradicalising the girls. Interesting.
He wants to combat trans discrimination
While same sex marriage was legalised under Cameron’s government, the prime minister wants to also deal with the discrimination surrounding trans rights.
‘I think one of the most important things is what happens in our schools and combating bullying in our schools, particularly homophobic, biphobic, and other forms of bullying in our schools. That was one of the reasons I became so convinced about gay marriage.
‘I think it is only when a society says that marriage is there for everybody whether you’re straight or gay. It’s a great institution, I’m a big believer in marriage, if we can make that point and ending this idea that it is fair to criticise people or to down people because of their sexuality,’ he said.
‘I think we need to look at what the issues are and the specific issues of discrimination and the problems that trans people have, I think that’s important.’
He doesn’t think the Tories can nail a 50:50 split on the bench for a while
Disappointingly, considering Scotland and the Labour Party have both managed it, our own government currently in power doesn’t think that there’ll be a 50:50 gender split on the bench by 2020. Granted, they promised a third by now and have achieved this – but it’s pretty gross that we’re still not fairly represented.
‘We have the Liberal Democrats in government with us and they have fewer women ministers and MPs than we do, but I think 50% would be difficult to get to by 2020,’ he told Buzzfeed. ‘But if you look at the candidates we’re selecting, including candidates in replacement seats, Conservative-held seats, I think over 33% are women candidates.
‘When I became leader there were 17 women MPs, and I think there were about 50 last time. We are going to see another increase at the next election.’
It’s an improvement, sure, but we want the split please, Cameron. Especially if you end up in power in 50 days’ time.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.