Leveson Revisited: The astonishingly poor memory of David Cameron MP

The following quotes are extracted from British Prime Minister David Cameron's evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into the culture , ethics and practices of the press under questioning from Robert Jay QC and Lord Justice Leveson.

Thursday 14th June 2012 10am

p.2 line 10 it's hard to remember
p.21 line 20 I can't remember what I said at the time.
p.42 line 1 I'm never going to remember
p.58 line 9 I don't remember because it was a long time ago
p.58 line 23 I don't remember, I'm afraid. I can't even remember where the dinner was.
p.58 line 25 The trouble with that one is I can't remember where it was, let alone what we talked about.
p.59 line 8 I don't know, no.
p.60 line 8 I don't recall that, I'm afraid.
p.60 line 15 I don't recall what was discussed directly at the lunch.
p.60 line 21 I don't recall the specifics,
p.62 line 4 I don't recall

p.62 line 7 I don't remember the specifics of that conversation
p.64 line 6 I don't recall that, and I think it unlikely.
p.64 line 21 it's difficult to recall all of these events

p.65 line 8 I don't remember
p.66 line 9 I don't particularly recall what was discussed then

p.66 line 19 I don't particularly remember the dinner
p.67 line 1 As I say, I recall the drink, I don't recall the dinner.
p.84 line 20 I don't recall the exact provenance of this whole issue.

p.85 line 2 I can't remember the exact provenance

p.85 line 11 I don't recall.
p.85 line 12 I don't recall the exact conversations.
p.86 line 17 I don't remember
p.99 line 12 I can't remember the exact dates
p.100 line 25 I don't recall, but if George says that, I have no reason to doubt it.
p.101 line 20 I can't recall
p.101 line 23 Q. Can you remember how many conversations? A. No.
p.102 line 21 I can't recall exactly
p.103 line 4 I'm afraid I don't -- I don't recall.
p.107 line 6 I can't remember.
p.119 line 23 I don't recall.
p.119 line 25 I don't recall.
p.120 line 2 I don't remember the instance.

2pm
p.1 line 19 I couldn't recall that when you asked me the question
p.2 line 7 I do not remember it
p.2 line 18 I don't remember. I don't remember the conversation in any great detail.
p.2 line 23 I don't recall that.
p.3 line 6 I can't remember exactly who and when
p.3 line 9 I don't recall many specifics
p.3 line 15 That's not something I recall
p.4 line 2 I don't recall any conversations with Rupert Murdoch about it
p.6 line 10 I don't recall exactly the conversations that took place.
p.6 line 23 I can't remember the exact sequence of events
p.10 line 1 I don't really remember the specifics.
p.10 line 8 I don't recall the specifics
p.13 line 25 I don't recall
p.14 line 8 I don't recall any discussions about it
p.14 line 15 Well, I don't recall discussing it with him
p.14 line 17 I don't recall specific conversations
p.16 line 17 I don't particularly remember this note, and crucially, I didn't recall its existence on the day of 21 December
p.24 line 8 I can't remember every conversation I've ever had
p.24 line 17 I can't remember
p.24 line 20 I can't remember every conversation I've ever had with everybody, nobody can, but I am clear about this conversation I had with James Murdoch on 23 December.
p.25 line 21 I can't remember if it was me or someone else
p.30 line 23 someone -- I can't remember who -- said we must check the public statements of Jeremy Hunt

Transcripts available at

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140122145147/http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Transcript-of-Morning-Hearing-14-June-2012.txt

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140122145147/http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Transcript-of-Afternoon-Hearing-14-June-2012.txt

Ed Miliband sets out his political philosophy in an interview with the Government Organisation for Broadcasting at Loughborough University

Nick Anti-Socialist (GOB Chief Political Correspondent): I’m talking today with the leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition, the Right Honourable Ed Miliband MP. Welcome Mr. Miliband.

Ed Miliband: Thanks Nick it’s great to be here in lovely Loughborough on this sunny morning.

Nick: You want to expand welfare spending, disadvantaging hard-working families and ruining their lives why is that?

Ed: Listen Nick I’m all about expanding-cutting welfare spending: that will be my focus if I become Prime Minister in the next parliament. I want to reward hard-working families up and down the country by lowering-raising their taxes and cutting-expanding public services. This is my plan and I intend to deliver it, if elected, as part of my ‘One Nation Building Hard-working Britain First’ campaign.

Nick: So you want to simultaneously cut and expand welfare spending, lower and raise taxes and reduce and enlarge the provision of services like healthcare and education. This approach sounds very similar to that espoused by the Conservative party why should anyone believe you’d do it better, you’re not the most convincing potential Prime Minister are you?

Ed M: My answer to that question is no and yes. I believe that new-old Labour provides all of the answers to the problems of 21^st century Britain but we might not be able to deliver them due to the short-term political need to please a small number of oligopolistic press barons who don’t like paying taxes. My Britain will be one where everyone gets rich and no-one is poor. It will be a Pareto optimal Britain wherein everyone has just the right amount of stuff to fulfil their marginal utility requirements.

Nick: Ummm....yeah. So will I have to pay more tax? Let’s be honest you’re going to raise my taxes aren’t you and more importantly you’re going to raise my editor’s taxes as well?

Ed: Listen Nick, I love-hate the rich and welcome-despise all forms of legal tax avoidance. We will-won’t raise taxes for the rich-poor but this will be offset-accompanied by corresponding tax breaks-rises leading to a net gain-loss for all concerned. Did you know I really like animals?

Nick: So you’re intending to raise taxes on people who are just rich enough to notice if their tax bill goes up and just politically engaged enough to notice the colour of the ties of the people doing it: do you intend to change the colour of your tie?

Ed: I tend to wear a yellow-blue-red tie/no-tie, it’s not important what is important is this growing class of people I call the poor-rich. They are rich but they don’t feel like they’re rich enough, they want their children to attend a Russell group university, live in two or three homes in leafy villages with easy access to motorways, airports and high-speed rail networks but away from noise or pollution. They want high quality local public services but don’t want to see poor people when they use them. They want easy access to a choice of golf courses, five or six foreign holidays a year and a local Waitrose that delivers on Saturday morning at no extra charge. These are the people of Ed Miliband’s Britain: occasionally-working families who tend to ignore the problems of others and work from home at least twice a week. Have I mentioned that I think cancer is terrible and I like watching US political dramas on Netflix?

Nick: Do you hate immigrants Mr. Miliband?

Ed: I do hate immigrants but not as much as some other people who are frankly a bit racist. I think it's OK to be a bit racist as long as you don't say anything too racist in public. I’m the son of immigrants but they were the old-style good immigrants who fled fascism and attempted to fundamentally change the social outlook of Britain, not like these new ones who flee violence and economic hardship in their homelands.

Nick: Your Dad was a mad, raving socialist wasn’t he?

Ed: My Dad love-hated Britain and I embrace-despise everything he stood for.

Nick: You’re not as good-looking as your brother are you? He’d be a much better, nicer Prime Minister than you, wouldn’t he? He wouldn't have tried to raise my taxes. How did you feel when you metaphorically stabbed him in the front at the leadership election?

Ed: I have the utmost dis-respect for my brother. When we were kids he used to steal my political encyclopaedias and cut out the sections on Marxist economic theory and eat them: I’ve always wondered how my view of political history might have been changed if he hadn’t done that.

Nick: Mr. Miliband, I think you are a most unlikely candidate for Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and I think all of the viewers will value my sincerely held government-oriented point of view. I’ve been Nick Anti-Socialist for GOB TV; now back to Martha in the GOB News Centre for a story about the Queen’s dogs.

David Cameron talks to Denzil Haberdasher-Aske in a wide-ranging interview on defence and foreign policy at a plumbing supply warehouse in Swansea.

Denzil Haberdasher-Aske: Good morning Prime Minister

David Cameron: Good morning. It’s good to be here in Swansea; the bathroom accessories are truly imaginatively designed and reasonably priced as are the vehicles supplied by one of the Conservative party’s main sponsors Jaguar Land Rover.

Denzil: You’ve recently helped launch an initiative to end the use of child soldiers in conflicts around the world; please expand on the aims and goals of this difficult to oppose but almost impossible to implement humanitarian programme.

DC: Thanks Denzil that’s exactly the question my press secretary told you, I mean me, that you were going to ask. We aim to end the use of child soldiers in all wars by being photographed with celebrities in carefully controlled central London locations. This will almost certainly gain exposure in mid-market newspapers who will comment on the clothes the celebrities are wearing thereby persuading central African and Asian warlords that the use of child soldiers is economically and socially unsustainable with the by-product that both the celebrities and the politicians will seem a little bit more powerful and caring which is crucial to win over voters and movie audiences.

Denzil: Thank you Prime Minister. May I say your face is glowing splendidly, now onto defence? You’ve just announced new funding for 12 to 18 year-olds to take part in military-themed activities as part of a promotion for pseudo-military youth organisations please explain how this re-announced funding will benefit kids of all ages.

DC: The military is the backbone of this country. It provides the great British values and ideals that we live by and is a shining beacon of morality around the globe. We believe every British child should have the opportunity to experience the discipline of military training, see and feel gunfire, enjoy the passion of war, bullets, cordite, rampaging tanks and ultimately the chance to imagine horrific injuries to their friends and other, less economically-endowed children. We believe in flags and free enterprise. We believe in JCB, hedge funds and low corporate tax rates. We believe the poor should remain poor because they are mostly unable to access the elite education network that our father’s money has bought us.

Denzil: So to clarify, you oppose child soldiers in armies whose strategic aims you oppose but you encourage children to engage in warlike activities to uphold the moral values of the UK as a whole.

DC: Yes, that’s correct war is bad except when we start it, in which case it has a clear moral and spiritual imperative. Church leaders, school teachers, news reporters, chat-show hosts they all have a role to play in promoting the moral purpose of British wars. British wars, as opposed to ‘foreign’ wars, are wonderful humanist adventures that spread our values of free trade; colonialism; low wage labour and resource theft throughout the developing world. Of course some will argue that this is not the way a civilised country should behave but I would argue that they are terrorists denying our children and our children’s children the chance to experience the bountiful spoils that just wars can bring to those rich enough to avoid the huge tax bills that such endeavours inevitably incur.

Denzil: Does it not worry you; Prime Minister that such warmongering destroys millions of lives, breaks up families and simply produces more angry people who wish to destroy imperialist elites?

DC: War brings death but it also brings enormous financial opportunities for private sector companies to rebuild some of that which has been destroyed via overly generous and laxly supervised government-funded rebuilding contracts. It is also a tremendous advert for up-and-coming oligopolistic states to show off the types of high-tech, death-dealing weaponry that we can supply them if they are willing to hand over much of their resource wealth. We win the war then we win the peace then we trigger the next war with poorly reconstructed countries with endemic and exaggerated divisions between ethnic and religious groups. It is constant self-seeding capitalist warfare that becomes more brutal and effective with each of its iterations.

Denzil: That sounded almost intelligent Prime Minister, thank you for your time.

DC: Thanks Dennis, great to meet you, I must leave now as I am leading a trade delegation to the Paris arms fair to try and sell over-complicated fighter jets to India. Ciao.

Denzil: I think we can all agree that you are the most Prime Ministerial Prime Minister of this parliament thank you and bless your shiny face sir.