David Willets, Shadow Minister For Universities.

I might as well admit it – I am not a Tory, never have been, probably never will and definitely won’t be during this election. And that is why David Willetts (Shadow Minister for Universities and Skills) scares me – a Conservative politician who is engaging, makes sense and genuinely seems to care about government.

With a recent survey finding that almost a third of students intend to slap a big old Tory “X” on their ballot paper, David Willetts has reason to be somewhat chuffed. With this in mind he approached the interview like a student who had done all the revision, flicked over all his cue cards and had an extra good night’s sleep before his finals.

So your starter for ten – how will the university system change under a Conservative government? “A focus on the student experience matching any increase in fees with a matching focus on teaching.” Already it has loomed its ugly head – increases in tuition fees! So I take the bait and ask if they will be raising university fees. “We have no plans to…but we are waiting for the Brown Report into university spending later this year”.

You have got to feel somewhat sorry for these nice politicos. On May 7th, ministers will sit behind their desks, fresh faced and slightly battered after the rough and tumble of the election and will have to actually put their wonderfully crafted policies into place. But then the civil servants show them the account books. Maybe a couple of billion…maybe trillions…maybe quadruplebilliontrillions in the red. (Ok, I might have made those figures up, but no one else seems to know anyway). What’s going to happen to those shiny new policies?

This probably explains the MP for Havant’s carefully worded answers – when I pried into whether students should expect a rise in standards with a rise in price, I got the following response: “It needs to be made clear to Vice Chancellors that they need to focus on standards and contact time and I have been emphasising this to the universities’ governing body.” However, mention New Labour and Mr Willetts seems to get a bit of fire in his belly. “People are increasingly fed up with the way universities have been micro-managed and had artificial targets applied.”

And so we start to chat about the election. It appears that David Willetts has taken on the persona of Bob the Builder during the campaign with all his talk about “fixing” this and “fixing” that! What are the Tories key policies then – “Fixing the broken economy, fixing the broken society and fixing broken poltics.” CAN HE FIX IT? Maybe, possibly, if they are given a large enough mandate and parliamentary majority, possibly. Even David Willetts acknowledges that this is a “tight election” and that “nobody is taking the electorate for granted”.

This appears to produce a rather frank statement from the Shadow Minister when he is asked about the Conservatives’ main electoral strength – “Hopefully, recognition we have changed and we are not simply waiting for the electorate to apologise for voting us out.” And he is not going to be put off by polling (that shows a narrowing lead for his party), stating that “polls are bouncing around all the time” and “we are not allowing them to influence our message”. You do have to wonder whether this is a polling memo David Cameron’s press office forgot to read when they decided to remake a rather expensive election broadcast after the Tory leaders slightly understated performance in the first Prime Minister’s Debate.

David Willetts certainly looks like your classic case of Tory – Oxbridge graduate, middle class, middle aged and more Conservative than a blue lapel. The only problem is, he doesn’t sound like it. He sounds far too nice, pleasant, and maybe even human! He is even turning his talents to intellectualism with a recently published book (entitled “The Pinch”) about how the baby boomer generation have had an unfair effect on younger generations, which has garnered him the title of “the thinking person’s MP” from one Guardian review.

But I still remain cautious – they say they have changed, but have they really? It feels rather like patting a large dog when the owner assures you that it won’t hurt you. Only time will tell whether David Willetts will bite your hand off!