For this week’s NS, I’ve interviewed Sarah Wollaston, the independent-minded Conservative MP for Totnes, who became the first parliamentary candidate to be selected through an open primary. We discussed the government’s decision to abandon minimum alcohol pricing (which she is “devastated” about), the malign influence of Lynton Crosby and why David Cameron’s inner circle is still, in her words, “too white, male and privileged”. You’ll have to pick up the magazine to read the full piece, but here are some of the highlights.
Minimum alcohol pricing: “it’s lobbying”
Wollaston, a former GP, devoted her maiden speech to the need to introduce minimum alcohol pricing and warns of disastrous consequences for public health if ministers do not think again. When I asked her what lay behind David Cameron’s change of heart, she unhesistatingly replied:
It’s lobbying. And to those who think that lobbying doesn’t work, well, if it didn’t work they wouldn’t be doing it.
She added: “I think we should fight back against that and I also think we should fight back against policy being driven by pollsters. There are some things that might be unpopular before they come in – a bit like seatbelts – but, actually, you look at the evidence, nobody now would say that seatbelts were a bad thing.”
On Lynton Crosby’s alcohol and tobacco links: “we should all be aware”
The abandonment of minimum pricing, plain cigarette packaging and a lobbyists’ register have all coincided with the arrival of Lynton Crosby as the Tories’ campaign manager. Wollaston is troubled by the influence of the man whose company Crosby Textor has lucrative ties to the alcohol and tobacco industries. She told me:
For someone giving direct advice at the heart of the government to have such close links with industry internationally – I think that’s something that we should all be aware of.
In view of this, I asked Wollaston whether she would like to see Crosby replaced. “It’s probably not sensible for me to be calling for somebody’s removal, because I don’t know enough about what else he’s doing – he may be having some very positive effects of which I’m not aware,” she said, laughing in recognition of her lukewarm endorsement.
When I quoted Crosby’s alleged advice to Cameron to “scrape the barnacles off the boat” and focus on the “core issues” of the economy, immigration and welfare reform, she rolled her eyes and said: “Well, I’m sorry, actually if you look at the Health and Social Care Act, the one area that was left with government was public health. In fact, Lansley at one point wanted to call it the Department of Public Health, so public health is core government business.”
On Cameron’s Etonian inner circle: “it’s a kind of blindess to how this looks”
Back in March, Wollaston warned Cameron that his inner circle looked “too white, male and privileged”. After the appointment of two more old Etonians – Jo Johnson and Jesse Norman – to prominent policy positions, does she feel that the situation has got even worse?
I don’t think, genuinely, that anyone minds where any individual person went to school, I really don’t think it matters. But, you know, I went to excellent state schools, but I bet you that there are not five people from my two state secondary schools at the heart of government right now.
She added:
I think it’s a kind of blindness to how this looks to other people and why it matters to other people. I’ve no doubt, individually these are extremely talented people, but it should be more than having a team of people around you who you feel comfortable with, because they have that shared background and experience. Sometimes, actually, it’s better to surround yourself with people who might challenge and disagree with you, you’re a better member of a team…This is something that they obviously don’t see, they don’t see something that to me seems pretty obvious”
Welfare refom: “I’ve very rarely ever met people who wanted to be on benefits”
I raised the case of Stephanie Botterill, the woman who killed herself over fears she would be unable to pay the “bedroom tax”, with Wollaston and she told me: “It’s right that we look in detail about the circumstances and await what the coroner’s report is, but, in wider terms, when times are tough you really have to focus on what measures help to reduce suicide because we know that this is a pattern in previous recessions.”
When I mentioned the “strivers/scroungers” rhetoric deployed by some politicians, she said:
You do have to be very careful about the language that you use and you have to be doubly careful about the language that you use when times are tough, and also about the effect that it has. Nobody wants to be unemployed; I’ve very rarely ever met people who wanted to be on benefits, but I have met very many people who are trapped on benefits, there is an issue about that.
On the benefit cap: we should be prepared to say “it didn’t work”
Throughout the interview, Wollaston returned repeatedly to the need for “evidence-based” policy (most notably in the case of minimum alcohol pricing). With this in mind, I raised the subject of the benefit cap, which Eric Pickles has privately warned could cost more than it saves due to the likely rise in homelessness.
While she told me that she believed the cap would be “a good thing in the long term”, she added that “if it isn’t, we should be honest about that and change it.”
You have to look at the evidence, so I think down the line, if there’s evidence that it’s costing us more, sometimes you have to bite the bullet and say ‘it didn’t work’”.
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