ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well now, the Prime Minister has launched the last full week of election campaigning with a promise to focus 100% on the economy. The Tories have been accused of running a lacklustre and negative campaign so far and this morning Mr Cameron is facing criticism from two of his party’s donors with one accusing him of having a lack of energy and vision.  Well yesterday I sat down to interview Mr Cameron and I should say it was recorded before the enormity of the Nepal earthquake became clear.
Prime Minister, let’s talk about the big policy announcement then, your tax cut law for those on the minimum wage, you’re saying it’s your number one priority.

DAVID CAMERON: What we are saying is that in our Queen’s Speech it will be, if we’re elected, it will be all about the economy because in the end the economy isn’t lines on a graph, it is people’s jobs, people’s pay.  A strong economy means a strong NHS, a strong economy means good schools, a strong economy means we can build the houses that young people want to buy and own for themselves.  It’s at the heart of everything, it’s the heart of the election campaign and we are going to focus on that to exclusion of everything else.

DM: There are some puzzling aspects for this tax cut law for those on the minimum wage, namely the fact that the tax free threshold is …

DAVID CAMERON: £10,600 and it’s going to go to £12,500.

DM: Exactly, so the minimum wage as of October 1st you’ve announced is going to be …

DAVID CAMERON: £6.70.

DM: £6.70 an hour for those on 30 hours a week which equals £201 per week, £201 times – I know this is complicated but it’s important to people on the minimum wage - £210 per week times 52 is £10,452.  So you are already getting that amount tax free.

DAVID CAMERON: What people need is a guarantee that whatever happens to the minimum wage, and it is going to keep going up if our economy keeps succeeding, that you’ll always be outside the tax threshold no matter how fast the minimum wage goes up.  I want to see it go …

DM: But you can’t be trusted on a promise so you have to pass legislation so you will keep your own pledge.

DAVID CAMERON: Well it’s an absolute guarantee because …

DM: But why can’t we take your word for it?

DAVID CAMERON: Well I’m giving you my word and a law and this will bind future governments which I think is important because otherwise you might have a government that comes along that freezes the tax threshold while the minimum wage is increasing and draws people in to income tax.  This is very important because …

DM: But there is even more about this though isn’t there because of course it was the Lib Dems idea originally, you said in the Leaders’ debate in 2010 that raising this tax threshold wouldn’t work, it was too expensive.

DAVID CAMERON: No, I didn’t say that …

DM: Yes you did.  

DAVID CAMERON: I said I wanted to cut taxes.

DM: You said it was unaffordable.  

DAVID CAMERON: I said I wanted to cut taxes and this has been the right way to cut taxes in this parliament, with a Conservative Chancellor and a Conservative Prime Minister we’ve taken three million of the lowest paid people out of tax altogether and if we get to £12,500 we’ll take another million people out of tax and this guarantee is important because no matter how fast the minimum wage rises, we will always have to keep lifting that tax threshold to keep people outside it.

DM: But those on the minimum wage will not pay tax, they already don’t pay the tax so you are saying effectively vote for something you already have. It’s like Arthur Daley selling someone their own car.

DAVID CAMERON: Dermot, I think you’re being ridiculous, with respect. What it means that you know if you are on minimum wage and you work 30 hours a week under the Conservatives you’ll never be dragged into the income tax net.  That’s an incredibly important guarantee because that minimum wage is going to keep increasing.

DM: But it’s not a tax cut.

DAVID CAMERON: Well it is a tax cut, we are cutting taxes.

DM: Well not if you are on the minimum wage because you not paying tax.  We are going round in circles, it’s not a tax cut.

DAVID CAMERON: It is a tax cut for 30 million people because as we raise the tax threshold from £10,600 to £12,500, that is a tax cut for 30 million people, it takes another million people out of tax and it is a guarantee to people on the minimum wage that no matter what happens to the minimum wage you will never pay income tax.  It is a great reform for …

DM: But will still have deductions, won’t you, Prime Minister, even on that 30 hours per week on the minimum wage, you will still have deductions by the state?

DAVID CAMERON: Well you have National Insurance and …

DM: How much?

DAVID CAMERON: Well I don’t have the figures off the top of my head but …

DM: But it is very important to people, every pound counts as you know.

DAVID CAMERON: Of course we cut National Insurance because Labour were proposing that jobs tax, the National Insurance increase, when we got in five years ago and that was our first act, was to stop that jobs tax coming in, to stop that National Insurance increase and we have gone on and cut National Insurance so that if you are an employer and you take on someone between 18 and 24, they pay no National Insurance whatsoever.

DM: Yes, but can you tell someone who is working 30 hours on the minimum wage, your number one priority, how much they will pay in deductions to the state per year?  Have you thought this policy through, are you across it?

DAVID CAMERON: Yes, of course I am.

DM: So how much will they pay?

DAVID CAMERON: I haven’t got the figure for National Insurance but the point is we’re guaranteeing …

DM: £287 a year, it’s a lot of money.

DAVID CAMERON: But the key point is it is only the Conservatives that can say to people, look we’re not going to put up National Insurance, we’re not going to put up Income Tax.  Why?  Because we’ve said we’re going to make the savings in welfare, in departmental spending, to get on top of our deficit, eradicate it altogether whereas the other parties are all saying they are going to put up taxes so frankly the question for me about National Insurance deductions is no one needs to worry, they are not going to go up under the Conservatives because our plans are fully paid for as well.

DM: But you are still earning not an awful lot of money and the state is still taking some of it.  Does this illustrate this kind of policy, that you are actually rather threadbare when it comes to policies and that kind of tells us more about the campaign, that it’s kind of lacklustre, you’ve heard that accusation and it’s negative?

DAVID CAMERON: I don’t accept that at all, this is a very positive policy.  What we’re saying is we’re going to raise the personal tax threshold, we’re going to raise the 50p tax threshold, 40p tax threshold so you don’t start paying it till you are earning £50,000.  We’ve got 30 hours of free childcare for the parents of three and four year olds – these are all about the same thing which is building a strong economy, a very positive vision where people who work hard and do the right thing get rewarded.  People talk about this campaign, there is nothing more positive than saying to people let’s get another two million jobs, let’s fund another three million apprenticeships, let you keep more of your own money to spend as you choose, let’s build those homes that you want to live in, let’s make sure there are good schools for your children.  That is the most positive vision there could possibly be – security at every stage of your life and that’s what our manifesto has been all about.

DM: But let’s turn to the SNP, is it positive continually attacking Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond as being puppet masters and having Ed Miliband in their top pocket and things like that?  Nicola Sturgeon has been thanking you for making them relevant and putting the SNP centre stage.  You’re endangering the Union.

DAVID CAMERON: No, I’m simply pointing out a fact of this election which is it has become apparent, and you can ask any expert, that Labour is likely to suffer very badly at the hands of the SNP in Scotland and that has consequences for everyone in the rest of the country because it means Ed Miliband can only form a government with the assistance of the SNP and that I think is a very disturbing development for our country because the SNP don’t come down to Westminster to make our government stronger or make our country stronger, they come down to Westminster to break it up and I think it is the right and responsible thing to point out the dangers of that.

DM: Are you angry about it?  Are you angry about them?

DAVID CAMERON: Well it worries me what would happen but the point is I don’t just make this as an observation, I have an answer which is there are only 23 more seats that the Conservatives need to win to form an overall majority and to stop this from happening.

DM: Right but you’re not going to win them in Scotland though are you and from the last …

DAVID CAMERON: We are hoping to, yes.  We have target seats and …

DM: No you’re not, you have one and you may not hold on to that.

DAVID CAMERON: We have also other target seats, we have target seats across the country.

DM:  But the problem is, is it not Prime Minister, that post the referendum there, is that the yes vote held together, that’s the SNP and the no vote has obviously fractured, the pro-Union vote, you are all fighting against each other.  There are 400,000 people and more who voted Conservative in the last general election and if they voted for pro-Union parties you could do some damage to the SNP.

DAVID CAMERON: Well I think the emerging truth in Scotland is that if you want a non-socialist alternative to the Nationalists who want to break up our United Kingdom, only the Conservatives can provide that option and that’s why in the recent polls in Scotland of course the SNP are doing well but actually the Conservatives are going up.  We are a party of the United Kingdom, in fact we are the only party that stands in every part of the United Kingdom.

DM: So would say always vote Conservative.  If you’ve got a chance to keep Alex Salmond out of parliament by Conservative voters lending the Lib Dem candidate their vote, you say no, no, no, vote Conservative?

DAVID CAMERON: Always vote Conservative.

DM: Okay, well thank you very much indeed for that.  Let me move on to the issue of Libya and what we heard from Ed Miliband the other day, that somehow British policy in Libya has led or contributed in some part to the crisis we are seeing in the Mediterranean.  Do you accept that you really didn’t have an end game for Libya after the military campaign?  You didn’t stand by Libya.

DAVID CAMERON: I don’t accept that, we did stand by Libya and what I did as Prime Minister was make sure that the new Libyan Prime Minister got the help and the support he needed, I took him to the G8 summit which I chaired in Northern Ireland, got him together with Barack Obama, with the leaders of France and Germany and Italy.  We all pledged support, we all pledged aid, Britain spent aid money in Libya, we’re still working to try and bring that country back together, to get the various different groups into a national unity government but I accept this hasn’t worked, this hasn’t been possible yet but we are working at it.  I would say to people, if you are asking for a different approach do you mean we should have put boots on the ground, troops in Libya after the end of the conflict?  I think that would have actually made matters even worse rather than better but we need to keep going for that national unity government.  

DM: And what about the problem of the traffickers, the criminal gangs that are involved, could you see any form of military action taking place against them and British forces being involved?

DAVID CAMERON: We discussed in Brussels at the meeting of the European Union potential action against these traffickers, everything would have to be within international law.  You want to see good levels of co-operation but if we can do things to break up the gangs, to get rid of the boats, to stop the criminals involved, it’s not just military action that’s being looked at but also criminal intelligence, the intelligence we have, what more can we do, how can we work with the neighbouring countries to help stabilise them?  The truth is, there is no one single answer.  Search and rescue in the Mediterranean which the British, the Royal Navy, will be taking part of is one part of it but if it were just that it wouldn’t work, you need more.

DM: Now the last question, Prime Minister, about the Royal baby expected any time, maybe any hour or any day now.  Now we know the NHS has served your family so very well over the years, it has served so many millions of families, are you disappointed that the Royal Family don’t use the NHS?

DAVID CAMERON: I think it’s a total matter of choice for people what they use and where they have their babies and all the rest of it.  All I hope and pray for is that it will be happy, healthy news for that wonderful couple and for the whole country.

DM: But is there a danger that there is a perception then that the NHS isn’t good enough for the Royal Family?

DAVID CAMERON: Well the NHS is superb and I’ve seen that in my own life in so many different ways but I believe in choice, I believe in people being able to do what they want to do and as I say, I only have one thought about the royal baby which is a happy and healthy arrival.

DM: Indeed, Prime Minister thank you very much indeed, Mr Cameron, a pleasure to see you.

DAVID CAMERON: Thank you, a pleasure.  

DM: Well I should say I asked him about the own goal he seemed to have scored yesterday when he urged people in a speech to support West Ham United forgetting that the team he says he supports is actually Aston Villa.

DAVID CAMERON: Well I have been an Aston Villa fan all my life.  I don’t know what happened, I literally opened my mouth and I was going off piste about the fact that in Britain you can be a supporter of the West Indies, a supporter of Manchester United and a supporter of Team GB and I was then busking about other things you could support and I don’t know what happened to me, it was just one of those things.  I was going off script to add to the examples and I suppose it is just the campaign, by the time you have made as many speeches as I have on this campaign all sorts of funny things start popping out of your mouth.

DM: But it started the old social media going, especially the football fans, saying how can you forget the football team you support.  You’ll forgive me for just asking a few questions about that, you must remember the European Cup Final, you must remember watching the European Cup Final as a kid.

DAVID CAMERON: I am not going to go there … I do, that’s why I became a Villa fan.

DM: When was it?

DAVID CAMERON: I’m not doing quiz time because I’ll get them all wrong but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.  That’s why I became a Villa fan, my uncle was involved in the club and back in the early 80s with all those success and Andy Grey and Brian Little, that’s what got me going but I don’t go very often, in fact I haven’t been for years and years but I try and keep up and I think we are going to escape the relegation zone which we are out of now and obviously the FA cup final is very …

DM: But you said in 2001 in the House that you weren’t actually a football fan.

DAVID CAMERON: I’m not a regular attender, I used to play football as a kid, my son plays football and I try and sort of keep up with what’s happening in the Premier League and see how Villa are doing but when they get snug in the middle of the table I tend to back off a bit.  When we get close to the bottom I get nervous but I don't know what happened to me.  

DM: I know it is not the most important issue but if your team has won the European Cup only once and you support it, you’d know when it was wouldn’t you?  Do you know when it was?

DAVID CAMERON: It was the early 80s, I’m not going to give you a date because I’ll get it wrong.  

DM: There was one goal, do you know who scored it?

DAVID CAMERON: You’re wasting your precious interview time.  

DM: Okay.