David Cameron has moved to win over wavering Liberal Democrats in the party’s West Country heartland with a warning that voting for Nick Clegg would create the sort of uncertainty Forrest Gump experienced over choosing a box of chocolates – “you don’t know what you’re going to get”.
On the penultimate day of campaigning, in which the two leaders of the coalition came close to crossing paths in north Cornwall, the prime minister warned that voting for the Lib Dems could help the SNP dominate the next government.
Speaking in the Lib Dem seat of St Ives, Cameron said: “If you vote Liberal Democrat you don’t know what you’re going to get. The chances are you are not going to get me as your prime minister, you end up with Ed Miliband and the SNP. That is the danger of voting Liberal Democrat.
“Nick Clegg has been clear. He said at the weekend he’d be just as happy to support a Labour-SNP government as a Conservative one. Voting Lib Dem – it’s a bit like Forrest Gump and that box of chocolates. You don’t know what you’re going to get.”
The prime minister used the analogy to warn of the dangers of the Tories failing to gain 23 extra seats to secure an overall parliamentary majority. In an LBC interview he questioned the constitutional convention that the sole qualification for a prime minister is to command the confidence of the House of Commons. Cameron suggested that Ed Miliband would lack legitimacy were he to become prime minister with the support of the SNP if Labour came second in the election.
The prime minister amplified his message with a pitch to Lib Dem voters in St Ives – sixth on the list of Lib Dem marginals the Tories hope to capture. Andrew George, a rebellious Lib Dem, held the seat with a majority of 1,719 in 2010. The Tories need a swing of 3.7% to win the seat, which was held in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s by the Conservative Sir John Nott, defence secretary during the Falklands war.
In a rally at the town’s Guildhall, the prime minister said that a government involving Labour, the SNP and the Lib Dems would bring the economy to a juddering halt. He said: “Let us be absolutely clear about the choice we face at this election because it is a very straight choice. We can wake up on Friday morning and we can find that I’m still the prime minister, George Osborne is in the Treasury, our government is going forward, we are creating jobs, we are sticking to that plan that is working.
“Or we could wake up and find that Ed Miliband is prime minister backed by the SNP. Now I want you to be clear about the consequences of an Ed Miliband-SNP government. It would mean more borrowing and that could put up interest rates. It would mean much higher spending and more welfare and that would mean higher taxes. It would bring our economy to a juddering halt and that would see higher unemployment.
“You don’t have to think too long about what it would mean because every day we hear what Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP want to do. They want to hold the government to ransom, vote by vote, budget by budget, measure by measure. Everyone in this country would pay the bill for that in the form of higher taxes, higher interest rates and fewer jobs. It is something we have got to stop and we can if we get those extra 23 seats.”
Cameron tried to reach out for the English nationalist vote when he said that any government supported by the SNP would deny funding to areas like the West Country. He said: “At this election there is a choice, a choice of leaders, a choice of teams, a choice of records, a choice of plans … Just think what it would be like if Labour are in bed with the SNP, having their budgets dictated line by line by line. Do you think anything south of Bristol would get a look in from a government like that? Of course not. So we have got a big fight these last two days.”
Tory supporters, who gathered outside to see the prime minister leave the rally, were disappointed when he left by a side entrance. Aides had spotted a poster in the Millennium gallery opposite the Guildhall which said: “Cornwall is one of the poorest counties in Europe. Why vote Tory?”
Joseph Clarke, the Labour-voting owner of the gallery who placed the poster in his window and played the Cassette Boy mix of the prime minister’s speeches from an upstairs window, said: “Cornwall is David Cameron’s holiday destination, isn’t it? It is where he comes for a pasty and an ice cream and all sorts of other patronising support of Cornwall. I heard he was coming this morning so we just thought we needed to make some points known so we decided to put a welcome in the window for him and play him some of his words back.”
