On Sunday I was thinking I probably will be prime minister... I was thinking by the end of Monday I definitely won't be prime minister.
David Cameron
On the eve of becoming prime minister David Cameron was convinced his bid to enter Downing Street had failed, it is revealed in a documentary to be broadcast tonight.
Interviewed for the BBC's 'Five Days that Changed Britain' that tells the story of the extraordinary negotiations that led to a coalition government, Cameron discloses that just 24 hours before he became prime minister he thought he was destined to remain as leader of the opposition, believing that his attempts to woo the Liberal Democrats had failed.
Caught by surprise at Brown's resignation Cameron is said to have called his wife to tell her to "get your frock on" as they were going to the Palace.
Cameron said: "I remember saying 'It's not going to happen, I'm going to be leader of the Opposition'.
"And I remember saying 'I want to go on being leader of the Opposition. I think we can defeat this new government. I'm depressed that it hasn't worked out as we wanted it, but we've got a strong party, had a strong election, we did very well, we made the right offer to the Lib Dems... we behaved in the right way, we made them a big generous offer to have a coalition government. They're going with the other lot, we're going to fight them all the way'.
"And I thought 'That's it, I'm going to be in opposition for another couple more years'.
"On Sunday I was thinking I probably will be prime minister... I was thinking by the end of Monday I definitely won't be prime minister."
In the programme Cameron denies he misled Conservative MPs when he told them Labour had offered the Liberal Democrats voting reform without a referendum.
Asked by Nick Robinson whether he misled his MPs he said: "No because I was absolutely certain in my own mind that was the case.
“And I had I think good reason to be certain I had a number of people had told me what was, what they thought was going on and conversations that were taking place about AV without a referendum and also I'd had a conversation with Nick when I'd argued very vigorously that you couldn't do alternative vote without a referendum - it would be wrong."
But Nick Clegg, now deputy prime minister, discloses that no formal offer of AV without a referendum was ever made to him.
"To be fair I think that’s not in a sense what the kind of perception, the perception which I think was accurate was discussions are out and it might have been an offer that might had been made and might have been considered,” he said.
“In answer to your direct question was it ever formally made to me, no it wasn’t not formally made to me."
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd
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