British Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday described his deputy prime minister Nick Clegg as being part of his “inner circle” in the coalition government.
“The deputy prime minister is clearly part of the inner core, and when it comes to government appointments and — if I can put it this way — disappointments, of course that’s the Prime Minister’s job. But this is going to be something that we try and do together. I think that’s important,” Mr Cameron said in an interview to BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
Britain’s new government will publish a fuller coalition agreement on a broad range of policies within two weeks, Mr Cameron said in the interview, adding its actions will prove that the partnership works. He also reiterated the government’s view that the brunt of action to tackle a record budget deficit of more than 11 per cent of GDP should be spending cuts rather than tax rises.
The Prime Minister has finished appointing his Council of ministers, which now comprises of 22 Cabinet ministers and 60 ministers of state and parliamentary under-secretaries of state. The make-up of the Council of ministers is overwhelmingly white upper-class men, with just one minister representing the ethnic minorities.
Pakistan-origin Baroness Sayeeda Warsi has been appointed a Cabinet minister, but she does not have a portfolio. The women too are in a minority in the coalition government: There are just 13 women in the whole council of ministers. No new ministers of state or parliamentary under-secretaries of state have been appointed from the ethnic minorities, in a huge setback for the South Asians, blacks and other groups.
Describing himself as a “Liberal Conservative,” Mr Cameron said: “I’m liberal because I believe in freedom and human rights, but Conservative — I’m sceptical of great schemes to remake the world.” The coalition government will launch a pay review under left-leaning economist Will Hutton to find ways of ensuring that the pay gap between the highest and lowest paid in public sector organisations is no more than a multiple of 20, Mr Cameron said.
The coalition partners, who agreed on a policy deal last week, will publish a longer form document “out in the next couple of weeks.” “There are two keys to making this work. One is, yes, you’ve got to have in advance as many of the policy areas settled, so you know how to judge issues as they arise. But the second thing — and I think probably more important — there’s no document in the world, there’s no agreement in the world that will keep you altogether. In the end it’s going to be people working together and the relationship between me and Mr Nick Clegg, the relationship of Cabinet ministers with each other.