No longer the nasty party

David Cameron has made it respectable again to vote conservative says Liam Fox..

Dr Liam Fox MP

ANDREW MARR: Well, seems there's been a change in the political wind as well.

For the first time in more than a decade the Conservatives have a scent of real power.

They've brought home a string of election victories as well as of course that top prize, the capture of City Hall in London.

Former incumbent of that post has already cleared his desk and by midnight tonight Boris Johnson has �11 billion and the capital at his fingertips.

But can the Conservatives sustain the momentum over the months ahead and put another old Etonian into Britain's top jobs? Well, I'm joined now by the Defence Secretary Liam Fox, thank you for coming in Mr. Fox. When you look at these election results the first instinct must simply be "yippee". But is there a deeper analysis that matters?

LIAM FOX: I think we have to try to understand why Labour did so badly, and so do they obviously, and why we did so well. And I think there are two reasons for that.

First of all Labour are doing badly. Labour are still caught in this mental rut that Gordon Brown was a great Chancellor, they've got economic stability, and if they say it often enough people will believe it.

But the reality for people out there is they've got the highest tax rates for 25 years, the lowest savings ratio for 44 years, the government have stripped more than �50 billion out of the pension funds, Gordon Brown sold our gold at the wrong time in the cycle, we've had the first run on a bank for 150 years.

And if you ask people on the doorsteps, as we did, what is that they bother about? It's the cost of food when they get to the checkouts, petrol when they get to the pumps, and Labour need to understand there is no economic stability out there, there is economic fear out there.

ANDREW MARR: It is the economy stupid, in Clinton's famous phrase?

LIAM FOX: The economy was a huge issue during those elections and the government need now to understand why people are afraid, and stop patronising them by telling them they've got economic stability when to ordinary families they don't.

And the second thing is why did we do so well? Well clearly I think David Cameron has now made it respectable again to vote Conservative, and a lot of people voted Conservative - in places like Bury - for the first time ever, and that was a very important breakthrough for us.

ANDREW MARR: A psychological moment?

LIAM FOX: It was a very important psychological moment and I think voters now feel comfortable voting Conservative.

ANDREW MARR: Finally you're no longer the nasty party?

LIAM FOX: Well I think people have now got over the things they didn't like about the last Conservative government. They've now looked at David Cameron who's much more collegiate than his predecessors, it looks as though the Conservatives have a better team of leaders and they're dealing with the basic issues that affect ordinary voters.

ANDREW MARR: Boris Johnson has his hands around your sensitive parts however, in the sense that people are going to watch him in London and make judgements about how the Conservatives nationally would be, on the basis of how well he does. So, a lot of responsibility on Boris Johnson's shoulders?

LIAM FOX: Well a lot of responsibility and a lot of wishful thinking in the press today that's saying, you know, it's what Boris does will be writ large and affect the Conservative party.

Of course it will have an impact and everybody wishes Boris well and apparently as you say, even Ken Livingstone, he's got pledges that he has to live up to on cutting out waste in the capital, on making the city streets safer. He'll be judged I'm sure on his record over time.

ANDREW MARR: Is there a rivalry between him and David Cameron as we read?

LIAM FOX: No not at all, in fact I think there's very good working relationship. One thing that people need to understand, I think, about David Cameron is as I say he's much more collegiate than most other leaders.

He does listen and consult much more widely, and there's much more of a team relationship than there has been I think in the past, in the Conservative party or in fact even in the Labour party. So I think that's something that will give us added strength in the years ahead.

ANDREW MARR: Local elections, I mean however good they were from your point of view aren't national elections. What do you, in your view, need to do as a party to pin down between now and when, I mean we could be talking two years before the actual general election?

LIAM FOX: I think we're very likely to be talking two years before Gordon Brown works up the courage to face the general election. I think there are a number of things, some of which are what you would expect the opposition to have to do, we've got to keep making a credible analysis of where Labour have gone wrong, and we have to offer credible alternatives to that, not least as I say on the economy. And we have to start setting out the type of Britain that we would have under another Conservative government.

ANDREW MARR: And candidly you haven't quite offered credible alternatives yet, it's all been very general.

LIAM FOX: Well we don't need to offer credible alternatives this far ahead of an election, in terms of detailed policy. What we do need to set out are the broad approaches we would take. For example, on public finances we've said we want to see the growth in public spending, the growth of government lower than the trend growth of the economy, over time that will bring us back into balance.

We've set out the ideas we wanted to have on immigration of course. Andrew when we have put the specific ideas out they've tended to be stolen by the government. We were the ones who talked about cutting inheritance tax - they copied us. We talked about a points system for immigration - they copied us.

ANDREW MARR: Free trade, it's an open market on ideas.

LIAM FOX: Exactly, but the trouble is that the government is a political vacuum. Gordon Brown is a philosophical vacuum, it appears. He's a man who's spent his entire life trying to get to be Prime Minister but doesn't seem to know what he wants to do with it now he's there.

ANDREW MARR: Well we'll see, but I mean from your point of view, I mean from the point of view of people watching the Conservative Party it's so easy to be general isn't it? I mean generalities always sound rather good. But you have to start to nail down some of the specifics now, don't you?

LIAM FOX: Well we will, as I say we already have when we talked about immigration we said we need a points system - that was pretty specific. When we've been talking about the NHS we say we need to rid of the target culture - that's pretty specific.

ANDREW MARR: But not cuts to taxes, spending, all the really hard stuff?

LIAM FOX: Well, to be frank we will not know what sort of dire position the public finances will be in until we get closer to a general election, and to talk now about the micro-policy and taxation would be just silly, it wouldn't have any credibility.

We've got to set out our broad approach about what we believe is the size of government, how we maintain and encourage the wealth-creating part of the economy, while maintaining the good bits of the wealth-consuming parts of the economy.

All these basic Conservative positions which we've set out in the past and above all I think we've got to show an optimism for the future, which I think was epitomised by Boris in London, which I think is championed by David Cameron in very stark contrast to a government that's just gone past its sell-by date.

ANDREW MARR: Well as my auntie would say you've been casting nasturtiums on the Prime Minister, we'll see how he reacts to that later but for now thank you very much indeed Liam Fox.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy

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