Transcript of Channel 4 piece on David Cameron's interview with Gay Times as reproduced on Channel 4 on 25 March 2010.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Now David Cameron calls it 'the journey': the changes undergone by the Conservative Party he leads. It's a journey put under scrutiny in a revealing interview filmed by Gay Times for their magazine and website. Mr Cameron concedes he doesn't always know how his MEPs in Europe are voting, even on issues such as gay rights, which are a key part of 'the change'. And he appears less than sure footed in discussing when to have free votes in Parliament on moral issues. Our political correspondent Cathy Newman has been watching the interview.

Newman: On billboards and banners around the country, the election slogan says it all: the Conservatives have changed. Nowhere is this more apparent than on gay equaity.

The Tories have been on a journey and they think they've arrived at their destination. David Cameron's apologized for Section 28, the law Margaret Thatcher passed to stop schools promoting homosexuality. He's voted in favour of civil partnerships. So in an interview with this month's gay times, the Tory leader confidentally declared he'd changed his party for good. 

Cameron: The party has changed and I think, you know all centre right parties, all conservative parties have to go on this journey. I think we've probably gone a bit further and faster than some conservative parties in other countries. Um, and there won't be any turning back. So I understsand the concern, but I think the change that's happened is real, lasting and irreversible.

Newman: But is David Cameron taking his party with him? In the European parliament, his MEPs last year refused to support a motion condemning a new homophobic law in Lithuania. In the interviewed filmed for the Gay Times website, the Tory leader was asked why.

Cameron: I don't control, I don't regularly, in fact (a bit muffled) I barely, I barely ever, issue instructions to my MEPs to vote, ah, in this way or in that way. The MEPs have their own leader, they have their own group. Um, and it's not something, I just don't routinely, um, look at the voting behaviour and say, 'Will you do this rather than that'.

Newman: He repeatedly professed ignorance about the vote.

Cameron: I mean I'll have to go back and look at this particular um, this particular law.

Cameron: You know I'll have to go look at this particular vote in, in the European Parliament.

Cameron: I, I don't know about this vote. So, you know, that's (muffled), I'll have to go and look at this vote.

Newman: David Cameron's pulled his MEPs out of the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament. So they now sit with colleagues from the Polish Law and Justice Party, which is accused of homophobia.

In the interview with the writer and broadcaster Martin Popplewell, David Cameron agrees that gay equality is a fundamental human right. That would suggest that on such issues, his parliamentarians should be made to vote according to the party line. But he then slips up by appearing to imply that MPs, Peers and MEPs, could be free to vote whichever way they like.

Cameron: I try to have free votes where possible on these sorts of issues. Um, but uh, but I'm responsible for the votes here. I, I don't, I'm afraid, sorry it's not a very good answer. But I don't, I don't, you know I'll have to go and look at this particular vote in, in the European Parliament.

Popplewell: When you, when you, you say you often have free votes in this, ah, parliament, the parliament from which you are responsible, if you accept, as you did at the beginning of the interview, that gay equality is basically a, a fundamental right - (interupted)

Cameron: No, sorry actually, you're right, you're right. No I mean, I don't, (know?) the answer about - (muffled as they talk over each other).

Popplewell: (at same time) - it shouldn't be a free vote.

Cameron (muffled) Sorry, sorry. Um. (pause) You're right. The two, sorry the two, um... ah (sigh and pause) the two, the two votes are, are very different, sorry. 

Newman: David Cameron was also asked about a vote in the House of Lords on a proposal to allow civil partnerships in churches.

Parliamentarian: The intention of this clause is to remove the prohibition against civil partnerships from taking place in religious buildings.

Cameron: You know I, I think it's right, it's right that it should be a free vote. This is a backbench amendment. It's, um, Waheed Ali's amendment.

Popplewell: You say, you say it's a free vote.

Camerone: Yeah.

Popplewell: You want us to vote for you. If we vote for you - (interupted)

Cameron: (Starting to talk over Popplewell)

Popplewell: We want you to vote for us.

Cameron: (talking over Popplewell) Yes, you know, I do, I do, I do. Do you know, can we (Popplewell still speaking in background), can we stop for a second? I, I really, I really want to answer these questions. It's really, I'm finding it, it's really - either can we do a television interview, or can we do a press interview? I, I'm finding, I'd almost like to start completely from scratch.

Popplewell: (speaking over the end of Cameron's sentence) (muffled) I won't be asking - (muffled).

Newman: The magazine interview then continued once he'd collected his thoughts. Labour have already tried to make political capital out of what they see is the gap between the Tory leaders public promises and his private beliefs. The party tonight seized on David Cameron's apparent confusion.

Ben Bradshaw MP: I think it's extrordinary that anyone should suggest that a matter of equality and fundamental human rights should be a free vote. It hasn't been for years in, in the House of Commons. And that is a major gaffe. And I think what it displays about David Cameron is that, well his talked a good talk on some of these issues, his voting record hasn't been very good, he's learned to script. But when he's actually scrutinized on it, and he forgets the script, he doesn't have the fundamental core belief, ah, to support him in his argument.

Newman: Today I pressed the Tory leader again on his MEPs' record. You've done an interview with Gay Times in which you said you'd go away and find out why your MEPs abstained rather than voting against what's been called the Lithuanian Section 28. Have you now found out why they did that?

Cameron: Yes, um, I have. The point is in the European Parliament, our MEPs have a general approach of not voting on the internal matters of another country, even if we disagree, ah, with the particular, uh, law that there is.

Newman: The MEP Edward McMillan-Scott who's just defected from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats says that simply doesn't stack up.

McMillan-Scott: This is really just a smokescreen to cover up their problems. Um, and I'm sure that, that the Tory group is divided on questions of uh, on homosexual rights and so on. But, in order not to expose that, they just abstain. It's the weak reaction of a divided group.

Newman: A Conservative spokesman tonight insisted the Party's MEPs have voted for general resolutions in favour of gay rights. But it's simply not true to say that the Tories always abstain on matters concerning other member states. In fact, just a month after the Lithuanian motion was passed, Tory MEPs themselves tabled one on press freedom in Italy. To David Cameron's critics, that smacks of double standards.

Cathy Newman, Channel 4 News at Conservative campaign headquarters.