David Davis: transcript - Telegraph It's a whole range of things, pasty tax is the most current but the child benefit episode - you wouldn't think it's working class but it is striving classes. It all comes together to make people feel, well, actually, these people don't know how we feel and work and what our lives are like and that's a very dangerous allegation to make. It does make people feel well the less well-off, those who are having to scratch around and makes ends meet, it's that category of people who feel that they have led a decent life, they have paid their way, they have paid their taxes. You often get letters saying, I've never taken a day off in my life. They suddenly feel they haven't been treated fairly. It's a great class divide. It's not a classical class divide because it's striving versus others but it's a new class divide and it's a wider one in a way because of austerity. I don't think it's a flash in the pan. The trouble is, if it sticks, it's dangerous and difficult to get rid of. Governments always have to watch this, that they don't get stuck with an impression that plays against them. In John Major's day it was sleaze, if you remember, today this may be its equivalent. If it sticks it makes almost everything you do impossible to make work. So I would worry about it. If I were advising in Downing Street I would worry about this. It's not an insuperable problem yet, but it's one they've got to get a grip on and solve. The trouble is when governments get into this position when everybody wants to have a bash, then there is no sophisticated and clever way through it. You have to live through it and put right what is at the fundamental fear and what is at the fundamental fear is a sense of fairness. You've got to somehow find a way to establish that. That won't be easy but it's absolutely necessary. Whatever you do, actually acting a part doesn't do this. You can't put this on like a suit of clothes, you've got to come across as sincere. I actually think David does have a strong sense of social justice and what he must do is make that show, not take advice from 25-year-old PR people who are saying 'try this photo opportunity, Prime Minister'. That's not the way, straight sincerity, meaning it, is what will actually get them out of this.