David Cameron is not a 'right wing person' claims Helena
Bonham Carter
With friends like these David Cameron might wonder why he needs enemies.
According to the actress Helena Bonham Carter, a long term acquaintance, the prime minister is far from right wing and not even that conservative.
If her friend of 15-years had been running in America he would be a member of the centre left Democratic party, she added.
The comments were made during an interview to promote her latest film Dark Shadows but the talk inevitably turned to her friendship with the prime minister and his wife Samantha.
The 45-year-old actress, who with her husband the director Tim Burton was photographed with the Camerons walking in the Chilterns on New Year's Day, is famously bohemian and liberal.
But she denied this was any hindrance to a friendship with the leader of the country.
"He's not that conservative, actually," she told the Sunday Times.
"I mean, he's not a right-wing person. If he was in America, he'd be a Democrat, and he's got a hilarious sense of humour, which nobody really knows about."
She admitted that she was amazed when he became prime minister but mainly because she never expected anyone of her contemporaries to rise to such a lofty position.
But the eccentric actress, who received a CBE this year, immediately was worried she had gone to far with her comments.
She said she was worried she had "landed my friend Dave in the **** through careless use of words.
"I worried about 'He's not very conservative' being slung back at him like a boomerang from some back bench," she said.
The comments designed to make the old Etonian appear more friendly may worry his more hardline colleagues but at least they offset recent revelations about his relations.
Mr Cameron and his chancellor George Osborne's have been facing potentially embarrassing revelations about their fathers which went against their assertion we are "all in it together".
It emerged the PM's late father ran a network of investment funds in tax havens such as Panama City and Geneva to build up the family fortune.
When he died in 2010 at the age of 77, Ian Cameron left his son £300,000 in his £2.7 million will.
The methods he used to build up his finances are now commonly used by hedge funds and there is no suggestion that the Camerons have done anything illegal.
But the revelation comes after the Government has promised to crack down on "aggressive" tax avoidance and amid new criticism that the Tories are the party of the rich.
Osborne's father Sir Peter added fuel to Labour claims that the Conservatives are out of touch by boasting about his wealth in the Financial Times' How To Spend It magazine yesterday.
A co-founder of the family's Osborne & Little wallpaper empire, Sir Peter told how he was "lent a villa" on the paradise island of Mustique for a family holiday.
Baronet Osborne of Ballintaylor revealed the next item he hoped to buy was a "wonderful Fornasetti Architettura Trumeau desk". Prices for the desks start at £19,000, the magazine said.
He also disclosed how he plans to fly to New York this month to see one of his favourite operas, Wagner's Ring.
Lord Bell, who advised Lady Thatcher's through three successful general election campaigns, said the comments had been ill judged.
"It was a choice that I would say was ill judged," he said.
If it was up to me I would not have done it. I would have advised them against it.
"We never had thus problem with Mrs Thatcher as she was a grocer's daughter. Everybody now seems to be driven by envy and jealousy.
"I fail to see how making the rich poor it will make the poor rich. We are in a very bad period of time and no matter whether we like it or not we are in this together."
"Everything is now hypocritical. We now despise anybody who is successful. The only people who are now allowed to be good are the poor."
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