08/04/2016 Newsnight

at the end of a couple of rough months.

Where does the Prime Minister stand with his people?

Cameron, the competent Prime Minister who looks the part, and

Cameron the posh boy out of touch. The posh boy who was out of touch, I

agree. Eton posh boy. We'll give you the longer

version of the view And take stock of the

Prime Minister's stock. He's not a far-right candidate

in any sense, he's not pitching it

to the skinheads or the Klan He's an Alf Garnett

cheering on his football team. Working in a central London office

for many years, I became incredibly frustrated with the lack of access

I had to the natural world. One lunch break, I took a sandwich,

stepped into the park next to the office

and shimmied up a tree. But is this man right?

Are we overthinking our happiness? So the hashtag #CameronResign

has been trending all day. Ken Livingstone even

tentatively suggested It's not been the kind of attention

a Prime Minister wants, but we do know that neither Twitter

or Ken Livingstone are entirely representative

of broad public opinion. So what, actually, do the public

think about the Blairmore affair? The headline writers

got the first say, So two questions

on what we've learned about the Prime

Minister this week. One, how does it play,

what do people think about it? And two, do they think

that about him anyway? Has it actually changed

anybody's mind? Well, where better to test public

opinion in an unscientific way So, look, we've got these

two pictures of David Cameron, help me out with this one,

and put this one there. So what do we think

of the Cameron on the left, Character, if anything.

Character? I think he looks slightly out

of touch, power. Out of touch.

Yeah. What about the one on the right?

What's the one on the right? That is kind of, I think,

how he would like you do think of him.

Authoritative. Leader. Which of these two is the more...

Which is the real Cameron? or the Prime Minister looking

policy man on the right? I think more the posh

boy, the Eton lad. Yeah, the one on the

left is more Cameron. Has the story this week

in any way changed your view? and he shouldn't necessarily be

punished just for being privileged. He's that position, and it's

an opportunity that a lot of people would like to be in.

I don't hold it against him. What about you?

Has your view changed? You've read about these

Panama Papers, shares offshore. I think, given what he's supposed

to stand for, what the Tories are supposed to stand for,

I think it's slightly hypocritical. I think he should have closed them

prior to the Panama Papers, because we've talked about that,

we need a fair economy, one society, and we are trying to crack down

on people evading taxes. I really wished he'd

disclosed it sooner, rather than waiting for it

to be out in the open, put in a corner now that he

has to say something about it. Joe? A lot of people jump

on people's backs Perhaps he could have

admitted it earlier. Could have handled it better.

Could have handled it differently. You are, I think, the one who has

the least favourable view of David Cameron,

would you take it You put me in a very difficult

position. Be honest! You think you could make

a little bit of money. If I think about the financial

situation I am in now, I think yeah. That is another side

of it, but financially, From the King and Queen pub

to the king of public opinion, In general, he is viewed

as a competent, safe pair of hands, Perhaps he is viewed

as a strong leader. In general, over the last few

months, there has been a bit It seems to have been more among

Conservatives and Ukip voters, which would suggest that it may be

a case of the referendum and all of the events around

that impacting on his ratings. It's only an scientific snapshot

of public opinion that we have right now on the specifics

of the Cameron admission, but the evidence generally

is that it has been a fraught few One YouGov poll did put

Jeremy Corbyn's approval rating That was actually this week

rather than since last night. Significant?

A real change occurring? Let's talk to Ayesha Hazarika,

the former Labour advisor. and Mail on Sunday columunist

Rachel Johnson. Let's just start on public opinion,

how do you think it is playing? Well, I think people have priced it

into how they view Cameron. I think most people do think he is quite

true to the Nadine Dorries, posh boy that does not know the price of

milk. I think they are not surprised at the fact that his father was very

wealthy, they are not surprised that his father's name came up in those

papers, and they are not really surprised that this has happened. I

think people have been surprised by the incompetence with which Cameron

has handled this. As a former PR specialist, to have denied something

four or five times and then had to admitted... Or evaded it. A lot of

the public and people I have spoken to who have been running focus

groups, it ties up with what your own we focus group found out. The

public think it is not great, but they have priced it into their

overall impression of Cameron. I think this is playing extremely

badly with the public, but that is because it is entirely of his own

making. Why didn't he come clean at the beginning of the week and

admitted had this ?30,000, instead of saying it is a private matter?

And then saying he has had no shares in the future. And then backtracking

on that, and then getting aggressive, saying put up or shut

up, then having to come clean. As you say, a terrible PR move. Let's

separate the PR from it for a moment, the essence of the issue,

Rachel, mountain or molehill? It is definitely a molehill that has been

turned into a mountain, but David Cameron has mounted the foothills

himself. As you say, not getting all the bad news out, and then quickly

moving on. How did this happen? What went wrong? He is a PR guy. One of

the big mistakes they have made as well, all the things that Suzanne

said, but it is very hurtful for his family and very upsetting for his

father and all, but he did not take the same approach with Ed Miliband.

With his brother, his father, anyone who had met Ed was fair game. There

is a sort of double standard, his PR handling, and also the cover-up, it

seems worse than what is happening. I don't actually agree. I think the

fact that the pictures of Ian Cameron have been displayed

alongside pictures of Putin and Poroshenko and Gaddafi, every

kleptocratic and mention, has actually, I think the public find

that rather distressing... Do you find it distressing? I think the

public and stand that he does, and the reason that he, for the wrong

reasons, killed the story, because he could not bear his father's name

being dragged through the mud. Suzanne. He didn't kill the story,

he it running. Can I make a point? Some newspaper said that Ed

Miliband's dad hated Britain, so I think there are double standards. Do

you think this is game changing in terms of the perceptions of the

party? Is it going to be big? Another occasions people might have

thought something big was going to happen. We experienced something

with the phone hacking in the Labour Party, when this happens, you can

have the feeling that this will be game changing, and I think it will

have a profound effect on the local elections, on the London elections,

and possibly for the EU referendum. Fast forward to 2020, will it be an

issue that moves the needle? I don't think it will. I think it will move

the needle on the Brexit campaign, because towards the end of the week

what happened was an attempt to deflect personal attention away from

him, but we get this announcement of this piece of EU propaganda, this

leaflet that the Government, having said it will not