We’re still seen as the party of “the one percent”, says senior Tory

It doesn’t look like it’s going to be the best week for David Cameron. Yesterday he let slip that he won’t serve a third term as PM – assuming he even manages to talk his way back in to Downing Street in May – opening a whole can of Tory infighting.

Now, Steve Norris, London former Tory Vice Chair and minister is the one who is perhaps being a little too honest for Cameron’s liking. He’s told a group of people at the think thank Centre for London that “David Cameron has never quite been able to shake off is the image of being the party of the one per cent.” Or, in other words, a party for the very rich.

Norris’s criticism seemed to centre around a personal attack on David Cameron, particularly when he compared him to London Mayor Boris Johnson. He said, “it’s very interesting how Boris is never thought of as being particularly posh despite being by any definition rather posher than David Cameron” – before going on to lambast Cameron’s attempts to make himself seem more ‘normal’:

“There he was taking poor old Samantha on a three star hotel holiday on Ryanair to Majorca. If I’d been Samantha I’d have divorced him. I mean sod it sunshine. I don’t mind if you’ve got a few quid. Go out and spend it. Be who you are. Don’t try and be something you’re not.”

“Unfortunately what it’s meant is we are seen as being the party of the one per cent and a lot of the things he has done have managed to portray him in that way.”

Norris also tore apart the Tories approach to migrants:

“In theory the Conservative party ought to be the party for new migrants. They are almost exclusively people who come here to work and to build and to bring families and to improve themselves and those are all the virtues that a party of people who aspire to improve themselves ought to be attracted to and we’re not.”

“The general sense is that we sort of slightly resent newcomers because we like things just as they were. It’s a more literal interpretation of what ‘conservative’ means. It certainly isn’t why I ever joined the party but it’s there.”

However, he had much more positive words for Zac Goldsmith, MP for Richmond Park, saying that he was most likely to win the London Mayor election next year:

“Zac Goldsmith would be enormously impressive [as mayor]. I love Zac in a bromance kind of way you understand. He’s a terrific MP. He’s massively respected in his seat.”

“He could be sitting on a beach stuffing coke up his nose. He doesn’t. He works very hard for his constituents. He’s got more money than you could shake a stick at. He’s worth hundreds of millions and yet despite that he just works hard.”