Oliver Dowden, Deputy Prime Minister Photo: Heathcliff O'Malley
Few politicians know Rishi Sunak as well as Oliver Dowden Both men became Conservative MPs in 2015, and Mr Dowden, a Downing Street insider during the Cameron years, helped Mr Sunak enter politics. Both men supported Boris Johnson as Tory leader, rose to cabinet under him, and then quit their government within weeks of each other, triggering its political collapse.
And now that Mr Sunak is in eventually succeeded by the ousted Mr Johnson, both men are at the top and Mr Dowden, the deputy prime minister, is at the right hand of his political friend.
Which makes his answer even more important. it's intriguing when he's asked to name something about the current prime minister that might surprise the public.
«He's probably more of a Thatcherite free marketer [than I am],» says Mr Dowden. «He's a staunch free marketer, a staunch Brexiteer.»
So you're an even bigger Iron Lady fan? “He definitely outdid me, much to my chagrin,” he replies with a laugh. “He believes in freedom in a smaller state. Of course, thanks to Covid we have inherited – and these are just facts – a great expansion of the state. That's not what he wants to be.
“But I'm probably more of a traditional Tory than he is. It covers modern Britain. If you go back to Margaret Thatcher, when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, she was quite a bold breath of fresh air compared to what you had previously expected. And I think he’s a breath of fresh air too.”
Comments are about more than just boosting the Tory base. Since this month, there has been a crunching sound inside Prime Minister Sunak of gear shifting.
A new approach
The first year has been something of a fine-tuning, calming markets and easing party tensions. and is trying to put out legacy fires in the economy, the NHS and illegal migration.
But now the Prime Minister is taking center stage. The much-publicised easing of the net-zero policy was the first sign of Sunak's new approach.
The following were a variety of driver-friendly policies. And others — each carefully hidden in Downing Street projects named after trees — will emerge in the next few months.
Some are sure to be unveiled in Manchester at the annual Conservative Party conference, which starts on Sunday. This is Mr Sunak's first election as party leader and may be his last before the next general election, expected in autumn 2024.
The real Rishi seems to be starting to rise. And he, despite the rising tax burden and spending levels of recent years, is, we are told, truly a small-state Conservative.
Mr Dowden, the 45-year-old MP for Hertsmere, is one of few cabinet ministers directly involved in the reset. In a pre-conference interview with The Telegraph, he lifted the lid on his thoughts.
Summary by Oliver Dowden
«I think Rishi and I understand that we as a country need to deal with some of our long-term problems,» Mr Dowden says, a reference to the new slogan «long-term solutions for a brighter future». «, presented on the podium earlier this month.
» People are tired of politicians who take short-term positions. They expect politicians to solve the long-term problems that most people recognize have led to some of the problems we face right now.
“So it’s not like the current government or the previous government. It's a failure to understand some of these long-term problems.
“And secondly, to educate people about these problems. I think what you saw, albeit ultimately unsuccessful, in Rishi Sunak's leadership campaign last summer was that he was willing to be honest and on the same page with people about the challenges we face.
< p>“I definitely see in him and the way he works: a person who is very methodical, very thoughtful and gets into the details of problems. But then, once he decides on a plan of action, he implements it and carries it out.”
The Net Zero move, which primarily pushes back the ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars by five years until 2035, Mr. Dowden falls into this category.
“Let's be honest with people about what we're doing. may or may not be achieved in a timely manner,” says Mr Dowden, while reiterating that net zero by 2050 can and will be achieved.
Others, not yet made public, will be included in this structure. If, as many now expect after a week of denials, the second part of HS2 is delayed or cancelled, then in this context it will be the Prime Minister telling the honest truth about the rising costs and feasibility.
Critics will argue, however, that this slogan rings hollow. Is scrapping interim net-zero targets not a short-term policy decision but a long-term one? The proposal is firmly rejected by Mr Dowden.
“We could go on and pretend that people will do something they can’t do,” he says. “It was simply unrealistic to say that in seven years we would no longer sell a single [new] petrol or diesel car.”
“We have identified China as the number one threat to our economic security.”
As well as his central position in the Sunak project, Mr Dowden has his own set of policy briefs. He heads the Cabinet and is also Deputy Prime Minister.
The official title is Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a British political curiosity dating back to the 14th century and once associated with the administration of dukes. Lancaster estates.
There are historical allusions throughout Mr Dowden's personal account. On one wall hangs a triptych of oil paintings depicting the battles of 1715, the year of the Jacobite rising. A white stone bust of William Pitt the Younger sits next to another.
The Telegraph sits on a stack of newspapers on a wooden coffee table (a coincidence, says Mr Dowden), but it is the digital copies of the first edition he now consumes.< /p>
This remark echoes one of the main challenges of his role — how to protect the UK from the technological advances of the future, given its creaky infrastructure of the past.
In particular, this led Mr Dowden to turn his attention to China. , whose rise is the West's greatest geopolitical challenge of the 21st century.
Sunak's government is taking a middle-of-the-road approach to Beijing, calling out China when necessary but also engaging it, refusing generally to label it a «threat» as Liz Truss became Prime Minister.
Dowden's team calls it «new realism.» And it is being applied with increasing focus to one area in particular: UK universities and research into «cutting-edge» technologies.
“I see it everywhere in the world, wherever I go, the power that comes from United Kingdom. have at least three top 10 world-class universities,” explains Mr Dowden, referring to Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London.
“But we cannot allow places of learning to become places of infiltration. So we need to make sure that we have the right protections in place to ensure that, of course, we have free open academic debate, academic freedom, people researching what they want to research, we just [also need to] have the right protections . for protection against penetration.»
Mr Dowden goes on to explain his fear. It's about British universities' research into areas that will push the boundaries of the future — quantum, artificial intelligence, bioengineering, nanotechnology — and whether this work is under threat from espionage.
He says: “There is no doubt about that China and other countries are looking at the UK and looking at the cutting-edge research capabilities we have. And these advanced capabilities, of course, are of interest to both commercial and other sovereign states, including hostile states. So we need to [do] be careful.”
Later, Mr. Dowden speaks even more frankly: “My goal in all this is that we should be as clear-headed and clear-headed in protecting our national security as the Chinese are clear-headed and clear-headed in defending theirs.”
Warnings carry weight. In March, a British national in his 20s who worked with senior Conservative MPs and had access to highly sensitive or sensitive material was arrested on suspicion of spying for Beijing. The researcher refuted these claims.
A second man, aged 30, believed to be a university academic, was also arrested in March. The two men were released on bail.
Funded by China
There are many joint research projects between UK and Chinese academic institutions. Many UK university projects are also funded by some form of money from China.
What is Mr Dowden's message to universities now? Think twice before accepting such Chinese financing?
«I would say think twice about where the money is coming from and where the technology is going,» Mr Dowden says. “And in this context, remember that we have identified China as the number one threat to our economic security. But I don't want this to be a conflict between universities and the government. It's about working with them to solve these problems.»
It also has some existing powers under the National Security and Investment Act to intervene. Will he do this if critical national infrastructure research at universities is threatened by Chinese collaboration? «Yes, I'm ready to do it,» Mr. Dowden says quickly, firing a clear warning shot.
Movement in this area is expected in the coming months. Proposals are currently being developed on how to better protect university technological developments and foreign funding.
Mr Dowden is also revisiting the powers of the National Security and Investment Act — with a call for evidence coming soon — to strengthen the government's ability to act. Tighter technology export rules are also expected, although details are yet to be determined.
How deep fakes threaten the next election
Another policy mentioned in Mr. Dowden's note is artificial intelligence. From top to bottom, Mr Sunak's government wants to make the UK a leader in this area. In November, Bletchley Park, once home to Britain's Enigma code-breaking experts, will host a leading international conference.
Mr Dowden gave a speech on the topic at the United Nations General Assembly in New York earlier this month, filling in for Mr Sunak, and issued a sharp warning.
“I don’t know if you’ve seen the deep fake Pope in a down jacket? It went around the world, right? Most people saw it before they realized it was fake,” says Mr Dowden.
“In the next 18 months we face two general elections in the UK and the US. Undoubtedly, this kind of technology will affect them, so we should be careful about it.”
When pressed further, he outlines his concerns about the election: “You might think about how deepfake could be used to create images that simply don't exist. So, just like the deep fake of the Pope in a puffer jacket sends the message that the Pope is not exactly a strict man, in fact he is wearing some bling.
“You can think if you want. so that, as political parties or, more likely, slandering third parties, you can interfere with our democratic processes by creating deep fake images that create a completely false [premise].
“Essentially, these are the same threats that we faced in previous elections: disinformation and disinformation. But we need to be very careful about the use of artificial intelligence and deep fakes to create highly credible disinformation and disinformation that distorts public debate. That's why we study things like watermarks and other technologies.»
The potential scenarios conjuring up are alarming: the corruption of fake images or videos, perhaps of a political leader, created by artificial intelligence bots and viewed by millions of British voters before they are debunked.
Potential Solution, above which Mr Dowden says is being worked on is also attracting attention: a solution in which images and videos would have authenticity watermarks, which he said was being discussed with technology companies more widely than elections but could be applied in this situation.
< p>Disinformation aside, the election poses a fairly daunting prospect for the Tories, as even the most cursory glance at opinion polls shows.
Labour still leads overall by 15 up to 20 percentage points in the vote is possible in just a year — although there are signs of a rebound from Mr Sunak's net zero move.
The walls of Mr Dowden's office are reminders of the uncertainty of past battles. The Jacobite uprising was brutally suppressed. The young Pitt Junior ended up leading the country for almost 19 years.
Mr Sunak, another young prime minister, hopes that by opening up more he will improve his chances of emulating the latter a bit.
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