Question: What did you make of the Prescott's response to the egg-throwing protester in Rhyl?

Michael Ancram: I don't think it would be right to talk about the details of this because I understand that it is now the subject of a police investigation. But it is certainly the case that throughout elections for many years there have been incidents of protest and even of egg throwing. And I think all politicians have to learn to keep their cool in the face of that type of provocation.

Question: What would you have done if it had been you?

Michael Ancram: I've had eggs thrown at me in the past in election campaigns and I haven't left a lot of black eyes behind me.

Question: So do you think he should resign over this?

Michael Ancram: I'm not going to comment on the details of this because we don't know all the details yet and it is the subject of an investigation by the police. But I think it is important to understand that politics, particularly during elections, is about meeting real people, and there are times when politicians are provoked. And I think the test of politicians is whether they can keep their cool in those circumstances.

Question: Do you sense in this election that there is increasing anger in the people you come across?

Michael Ancram: There's certainly increasing anger among the voters of what they perceive to be an attempt by the Labour Party to run a campaign which is kept away from the public and which doesn't reflect reality on the ground. And what we saw the other day was Tony Blair coming from a very stage managed launch of their manifesto where I understand journalists who were likely to ask friendly questions were told they'd be allowed to ask questions, coming face to face with the real world in the person of Sharron Storer who made it quite clear that the rhetoric about the National Health Service which Tony Blair had been parading that morning, simply didn't match the reality. And the reality is a deteriorating health service which is causing problems and there is genuine anger about the government's failure to realise that their rhetoric is very different from the reality.

Question: Do you believe that the opinion polls have got it dramatically wrong, or are you expecting to make some progress in the polls as the campaign develops?

Michael Ancram: I don't spend much time studying the opinion polls because the only poll that matters at the end of the day, as we saw in the European elections and the local elections, is the poll of voters in the polling booths. One of the most significant factors we're finding in this election is the number of people who will vote but who have genuinely not yet made up their minds. And those people obviously don't show in the opinion polls so the opinion polls may reflect a certain proportion of the electorate but they don't necessarily reflect the position that will be in place at the end.

Question: Your recent Party Political Broadcast on Labour's record on crime has been criticised for negative campaigning. Do you believe this kind of campaigning will win you votes?

Michael Ancram: It wasn't a negative campaign. It was a party election broadcast which set out the truth, and truth sometimes is rather harsher and rather uglier than this Labour government would like to have us believe. All the figures we used in that election broadcast were actually provided by the Home Office minister in Parliamentary questions, so everything we said in that broadcast was true, and the films state clearly what we will do in government to alleviate the problem caused by Labour which we highlighted.

We've had a very positive reaction on the ground with people saying to us that it was about time somebody showed up the early release scheme for the failure that it's been. And indeed if one believes newspaper comments, there's one report in one of the papers that suggests the Home Office itself is thinking of abandoning this scheme. So it was a perfectly legitimate target for our comment and it is another indication of a Labour government that said it was going to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime actually presiding over and putting a policy in place which is having the opposite effect.

Question: So should we expect to see that tone adopted in other policy areas for future broadcast during the campaign?

Michael Ancram: We are going to be very hard hitting and we're going to be talking in blunt terms about those issues that concern people. It was noticeable that the Labour Party were relying in their broadcast on a whole series of celebrities saying that they liked Labour. That's not what politics is about, it's not what elections are about - it's about real issues that affect real people. And those victims of those crimes which have been committed by people who have been let out under the early release scheme know precisely the importance of what we were saying.

Question: You're promising £8bn in tax cuts. David Willetts said it could be £7bn, Michael Portillo said it's £8bn with aspirations of further cuts in later years, and Oliver Letwin is reported to have said up to £20bn. What's the official line?

Michael Ancram: Our manifesto clearly states, so it is no secret, that we have worked out £8bn worth of changes from the government's prospective increase of £74bn in public expenditure by our third year in office, and we have shown how we will give the £8bn worth of changes back in tax cuts to people who have been hit very hard by this government. And in our manifesto we have clearly indicated both where we're going to find that £8bn and how we are going to return it to hard pressed families and pensioners and businesses and savers in tax cuts. So there's no question about there being a complete commitment to £8bn worth of tax cuts.

We do say in our manifesto that subject to the economy remaining stable and growing, we would like to see further tax cuts, but we don't calculate what they might be because these are things that are not foreseeable at this stage. And the whole way through our campaign and in our manifesto, we have made it clear we are not like Labour who make promises they know they can't keep. We are only putting forward those things we know we can deliver.

Question: So in a sense saying £20bn isn't nonsense - there could be an aspiration of a further £12bn in tax cuts?

Michael Ancram: We very clearly indicated in our manifesto the £8bn that we know we can deliver. That's what our manifesto is about. We go on to say we are a party that believes in lower taxes and therefore if it proves possible, we would look for further tax reductions. The key message of this election is that all parties are not the same - Conservatives bring down taxes while Labour puts taxes up.

Question: So you're promising the overall tax burden would be reduced by a Conservative government?

Michael Ancram: What we are saying, and we are saying it very clearly, is that we can produce by our third year in office £8bn worth of tax cuts. That we know we can do. That is what we're saying and that's what is in our manifesto. On the other side of things, Labour are again making wild promises in the full knowledge that just like four years ago, they will not be able to deliver. We are not going to get into that game. We are only going to put forward that which we know we can deliver.

Question: And the tax burden?

Michael Ancram: The manifesto makes it quite clear. We are a tax cutting party and we will cut taxes by £8bn.

Question: The IFS argues that you cannot finance your £8bn worth of tax cuts without cutting into the quality of public services. They claim that you may have resort to government borrowing to pay for tax cuts. What's your response to that?

Michael Ancram: We worked very carefully for nearly a year on identifying those areas within Labour's increased expenditure plans where we could find this £8bn. And we have set them out in great detail, very clear detail, and we believe they are deliverable. Everything we say in our manifesto we have costed on the basis that it can be delivered.

Question: Labour proposes great private sector involvement in the public services. They've shot your fox haven't they?

Michael Ancram: No. Labour are trying now to square the circle of having made promises on health, education, pensions, law and order at the last election and four years down the road have been found wanting because in each of those cases things have got worse rather than better. And this time they're trying to further muddy the water by claiming they've new ways of delivering the same promises. But the simple fact is that they're making the same promises as last time, they broke those promises and there's no reason for anybody to believe they will keep them this time.

Question: But surely you're pleased they're trying to get the private sector involved in the public sector services?

Michael Ancram: We've always said that there should be a partnership in many areas and Labour has normally had a very hostile reaction to that. But we notice the cynical way which in order to massage the waiting list figures down over the last four months, the government used the private sector in order to carry out operations. And that's another example, if you like, of spin, because what they're claiming is that under them the NHS has improved but they're using all sorts of sideline methods to create that particular image.

The one message that comes through to people is that you cannot believe anything this government says. And the greatest example of that was Tony Blair facing Sharron Storer outside a hospital in Birmingham where he'd made great speeches about what they had done for the National Health Service and were going to do, and she told him what the reality was. The anger that came through in her voice actually indicated the major difference there is between the rhetoric and reality in this government. Four years of Labour spin were blown away by those four minutes of reality.

Question: Do you think it was a turning point in this election?

Michael Ancram: I think it was a very visible indication of what we have been saying all along - that we hear all these great statements by government ministers about how law and order has improved but we don't find it in any of the communities we visit where people say that crime is up but where are the police? We hear all the great things they say about schools having improved but when we go down and work in the constituencies we have teachers coming to us and saying what is this about? Because I had one primary school teacher in my own constituency two days ago saying 'what is this about? I teach a class of 35 children.' And we hear great things being said about the health service but you talk to people about their local hospitals and then you realise what an enormous difference there is between what Labour tries to paint as the picture and what the reality is on the ground. And of course there's anger and resentment towards Labour, and that's something which I believe in the end will help us to persuade people that we can deliver while Labour merely makes promises and breaks them.

Question: You have some candidates who are campaigning for a referendum on whether Britain should withdraw from the EU. This isn't the party line - why haven't you disciplined them?

Michael Ancram: We've always one or two people on both side of the party who've had very clear views on Europe which are not in line with the party. The obvious example of that is Kenneth Clarke. Everybody knows their views, and their views have been long stated. What is important to us is that the vast majority of our candidates accept the party line which has been endorsed by the party membership, and on which we fought and won the European elections two years ago. Our policy is to be in Europe, not run by Europe, and to keep the Pound.

Question: But there's an amnesty on the fringes on both pro and anti - no matter what they're saying, let them say it?

Michael Ancram: There are some people who've always taken that view and it would be very strange if we turned round now and said to somebody like Kenneth Clarke on one side, or Peter Tapsell on the other, that the view you have held openly and clearly for a very long time is no longer acceptable. I think within a party you accept that there are some people who hold different views on certain issues, but the important thing is that we are a more united party on the issue of Europe than we were in the past two elections.

Question: Do you think the public care about the euro?

Michael Ancram: I think the public are concerned about the idea that they are going to be bounced into the euro.

Question: Have a referendum then?

Michael Ancram: If you have the same experiences as I have of referendums, you'll know how easy referendums are to skew. And we know that this government intends to skew it because when this legislation went through they made quite certain that all the advantages built into that legislation were on the "yes" side. I have no illusions about the fact that if the Labour party were to win the election and were they to bring us to a referendum, they would use every device possible to ensure that they got the result they wanted, which is to scrap the Pound and join the euro. We are saying quite clearly to people that if you want to keep the Pound, vote for the Conservatives, because that's the only way you can be sure of doing so.