Prime Minister David Cameron believes that if ever Britain were to have an Indian-origin Prime Minister, he or she would be from the Conservative Party.
“We were the first party to have a woman Prime Minister [Margaret Thatcher], we were the first party in [Benjamin] Disraeli to have a Jewish Prime Minister and when I look at the talent behind me I think we are going to be the first party to have a British Indian Prime Minister,” he boasted speaking at the launch of the Conservative Friends of India here.
Mr. Cameron praised the British Indian community for its contribution to its adopted country and said the Indians had the same values — strong family ties, sense of community and enterprise — as the Conservative Party.
“Shared values”
“The values that you bring are our shared values,'' he said, adding, “There are so many British Indians who had put in hard work to make Britain what it is today.”
Addressing a hall packed with Indian immigrants — men in boring suits, women in designer saris and dresses — Mr. Cameron admitted that the Conservatives had not done enough to cultivate the Indian community.
“For too long, we just presumed that they would join us on the basis of shared values, but we need to do more to bring them in,” he said.
The Conservative Friends of India — the brainchild of the Indian-origin peer Lord Dolar Popat — had his and his party's “100 per cent backing,” he declared describing it as the “start of a beautiful relationship.”
He said he was “proud” of his party's Indian-origin MPs and hoped that their numbers would grow in the coming years.
Mr. Cameron said his government attached huge importance to Britain's relationship with India. It was already “incredibly strong” but he wanted to make it the “strongest-ever.”
He said people often tended to think that the Indian economy was just based on call centres. “Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Indian economy is there as a dynamo to the world economy,” he said.
Mr. Cameron flagged up terrorism as an area where the two countries could work more closely to fight it. Both had been victims of terror attacks and needed to “stand up to together” to combat them.
