David Cameron has said he would have liked to been Peter Perfect from the kids’ cartoon Wacky Races
However, that’s not what voters thought he would be. They’ve said he reminds them more of the moustache-twirling Dick Dastardly.
A focus group for ITV’s Tonight programme was asked which of the characters from the 1960s show best suited the current Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader.
In remarks to Tom Bradby which may not go down well with his wife, he said: “I used to watch that when I was little … I wanted to be the good-looking one with the beautiful girl, but, anyway, it didn’t work out that way.”
The programme goes behind the scenes at 10 Downing Street and gives more of an insight into what life is like there.
The Prime Minister told Tonight that it might have been better if he had taken more “time out” after the death of their disabled son Ivan in February 2009.
“It’s everyone’s dread to lose a child, that you out-live your children,” said Mr Cameron. “You lose someone you love so much, so young. It does hit you like nothing else and there is a bit of you that thinks, well, if you can face that sort of challenge in your life, then it puts everything else into perspective.
“When it happened we did have to take some time out, maybe we should have taken some more time out, on reflection. It was just a really difficult time and it takes a very long time before you get over it. Well, you never truly get over it, but what happens is that, slowly you start remembering all the positive things and you start thinking about those things, rather than just the gloom and doom and the missing and the pain.”
Mrs Cameron said that their children Nancy, Elwen and Florence “cope really well” with life at Downing Street and “do a pretty good job” of stopping their father let his job go to his head, by “taking the mick all day long”.
He accepted he had to “work harder” to shift perceptions about his privileged background but insisted he had not abandoned his campaign to modernise the Conservative Party and ensure that reforms were aimed at “people who work hard, who do the right thing”.
“I think the Conservative Party’s moved a huge way under my leadership and I’ve never tried to hide who I am,” he said. “I went to a very posh school, I had a very privileged upbringing with parents who were incredibly loving and brilliant. I’ve never tried to hide that, I’m not going to change my accent or talk in a different way.”
Tonight’s Spotlight on David Cameron can be seen on ITV1 at 7.30pm on April 7.
