Three ways for Cameron to get back on the front foot - and stay there

By Paul Goodman
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Here are three measures that, if implemented -

• Will help to quell the charge that the Party is being led by a "Chumocracy" unrepresentative of its MPs and members.

• Will stop David Cameron being ambushed by Conservative backbenchers on EU policy, as he was by John Baron's amendment to the Queen's Speech.

• Will thus prevent these two problems from inter-acting with each other to suggest that the Party is divided.  (If a perception of division persists, victory in 2015 will certainly be impossible.)

They are as follows:

• The Prime Minister should create an Inner Cabinet - to build collective Party leadership and kill the Downing Street chumocracy charge.  As I've previously explained, the Cabinet is too big: 32 people are entitled to attend it.  And the Quad, at only two people, is too small (besides, two of its members are Liberal Democrats - giving the junior Coalition partner equal representation at the top, a cause of Tory resentment).  The Prime Minister needs a Conservative Inner Cabinet which meets weekly to shape policy and make decisions.  Attendance should be formal and collegiate, with the following membership: the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Leader of the House, the Chief Whip and the Party Chairman.  Obviously, the right people are needed to fill those posts - but that's a matter for another day.  What matters is that membership of the Inner Cabinet should be strictly related to Ministerial and Party function, and that it should consist of senior politicians only.

• The standing, morale and effectiveness of the Whips Office should be raised by it becoming a vehicle for promotion - not sacking.  The natural complement to an Inner Cabinet - and thus proper collective leadership - is a Whips Office with real authority.  That able MPs such as Dominic Raab, Ben Wallace and Rob Wilson turned posts in it down at the last resuffle, as was reportedly the case, is a sign that something is wrong.  Perhaps there was a connection with the fact that several Whips simply left the office at the same time: James Duddridge, Brooks Newmark, Shailesh Vara, Bill Wiggin.  There are always special circumstances, but the status of the Whips Office was not raised by so many of its members failing to move on to Ministerial posts.  Cameron will also need a new Chief Whip, since Sir George Young - loyal trooper that he is - only returned to the Cabinet to help the Prime Minister out.  Again, who his replacement should be is a matter for another day.  Enough for today to point out that improving the standing and effectiveness of the Whips Office must be a priority.

• The Prime Minister can't cure his EU problem until he grips it.  As a wise old hand put it to me, Cameron mistook his EU referendum speech for a process.  He hoped by offering his Party an In-Out referendum to halt internal Party debate on Europe - at least for a while.  The gambit failed.  And it won't succeed while his stance on the repatriation of powers is unresolved.  The lesson of last week is that if the Prime Minister hopes that the Government's review of EU competences and the Party's own manifesto formation will quiet discussion of renegotiation policy within his Party until 2014, he is mistaken.  Two courses of action are open to him.  The first is to make it clear that he favours a minimal repatriation of power after 2015 - social and employment policy plus protection for the City, perhaps.  The second is to put Conservative policy-making on renegotiation in the hands of his Party - the 1922 Committee, the Conservative Policy Forum, and so on - and accept that what would emerge would be, most likely, "Common Market or Out".

Having been in the Commons for the best part of ten years, I appreciate that logic isn't everything in politics: sometimes, even often, there's a role for fudge.  But a lesson of so much that's happened to Cameron on EU policy - from the dropping of the Lisbon referendum commitment in opposition to the EU referendum revolt last week - is that by consistently seeking to put off making decisions on the EU issue, the Prime Minister has merely stored up trouble for himself later.

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Lord Feldman should ring each Conservative Association Chairman to thank local activists for their work

By Paul Goodman
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This weekend of the “mad, swivel-eyed loons” row will swiftly be followed by Commons debate on the same-sex marriage bill. Will Conservative MPs accept Lord Feldman's denial, view the incident as yet another instance of media irresponsbility, and look more sympathetically on the measure - on which David Cameron has staked part of his political reputation?  Or will the report only harden the opposition to it - since some will conclude, regardless of what they think of Lord Feldman's denial, that his words represent what Downing Street thinks anyway?

The answer will become clear over the next few days.  What is evident this morning, however, is that what Cabinet Ministers do and say about the bill will be watched very closely indeed.  The Sunday Telegraph confirms that Chris Grayling will support amendments that aim to protect people who work in the public sector and believe that marriage is between men and women - and that Owen Paterson and David Jones will oppose the bill at Third Reading.  The logical extension of Philip Hammond's pointed remarks on Question Time last week is that he should, too.

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How Jeremy Hunt plans to improve the NHS (and boost his own standing)

By Paul Goodman
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The Financial Times this morning reports the conduct of a Cabinet Minister who arrived at his Department in a position of strength. Philip Hammond is digging in over cuts to his budget.  Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reports the plans of another, who came to his Department in a position of weakness.  Jeremy Hunt is planning for prescriptions to be available online.  The latter Minister is more exposed to public wrath than the former. Rightly or wrongly, voters are more concerned about the NHS than defence, and the Conservatives have long been targetted on the health service by their opponents.  Remember Tony Blair claiming in 1997 that Britain had a fortnight to save the NHS?

Tim Montgomerie set out on this site last year how the Health Secretary aims "to be angrier than any voter at NHS failures".  But Hunt's plan to champion the interests of patients is only part of his larger strategy to improve the health service - and, in the process, leave the Department stronger than when he arrived. To understand it, it's essential to grasp that the NHS is experiencing the tightest financial squeeze in its history: its budget may be protected, but the rise is planned to be 0.1% a year until 2015.  Like other western countries, Britain is experiencing a rise in the number and proportion of older people, and is struggling to contain the health costs that follow.

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Duncan Smith, Gove, Hague, Hammond and Grayling top the latest Cabinet league table

By Peter Hoskin
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Below is the Cabinet league table derived from our latest survey of Conservative party members. It’s rather traditional for IDS, Michael Gove and William Hague to be at the top – and for Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and Ed Davey to be at the bottom – so I’ll highlight three other things that stand out to my eyes:

• Theresa May has become markedly more popular since the survey we conducted at the end of last year. The intervening period, of course, featured her speech to the ConHome Victory 2015 conference, as well as some strong words on the ECHR and resistance to further spending cuts for her department. Another member of the “National Union of Ministers” – namely, Philip Hammond – has also performed well.
• Grant Shapps scores a meagre +12. The Tory chairmanship is still an uneasy role.    
• George Osborne has recovered some of the popularity he lost last year, perhaps as a result of a Budget that was considerably more stable than its predecessor. But he’s still outranked by Danny Alexander. Indeed, in the background figures, more Tory members (62.8%) are satisfied with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury than with the Chancellor (58.6).

Anyway, here’s the full table:

Just under 2,000 people responded to the survey, of whom over 900 were Conservative Party members. The figures above are taken from the latter's views.

Boris remains the activists' favourite to succeed Cameron as Party leader

By Paul Goodman
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According to the latest ConservativeHome survey, the figures are:

• Boris Johnson: 30%

• Michael Gove: 17%

• David Davis: 16%

• William Hague: 16%

• Theresa May: 12%

• Philip Hammond: 6%

• Adam Afriyie: 2%

• George Osborne: 2%

The Davis support is hardcore.  When asked who should lead the Party into the next election, 14% of respondents name him. 15% plump for Boris.

But the overwhelming favourite to lead the Conservatives into the next election is...David Cameron, with over half the vote: 55% to be precise.

Apart from Davis and Boris, no other leading Tory gets out of single figures.  William Hague comes the closest, at just over 5%.

Just under 1850 people responded to the survey, of whom over 800 were Conservative Party members. The figures above are taken from the latter's views.

Fallon should be in the Cabinet

By Paul Goodman
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Michael Fallon will have had a twinkle in his eye when he told the Daily Telegraph that “Energy policy shouldn’t be ideological". The Climate Change Department Minister is one of the few Thatcherites from the lady's era in government, and little to him comes ideology-free - not even, one suspects, his choice of breakfast marmalade as he reads the paper's report this morning.  It says that he is to give local communities the power to veto wind farms near their homes: the proposed scheme seems to be similar to the take-or-refuse-money-for-new-homes Policy Exchange housing scheme that Nick Boles has taken up.  Local residents will have the choice of accepting money and approving wind turbines or refusing it - and thereby vetoing them.

Readers will be mindful that deep blue pledges of this kind tend to pop up just before the local elections.  Downing Street's reminder to me earlier this week that "the Prime Minister is the first Lord of the Treasury", a mild dig at George Osborne's resistance to tax breaks for married couples, provides another example.  But Fallon claims that he has got "a package of proposals ready", and the Telegraph says that "it is understood that the “relief for the shires” package, to be unveiled next month, will include new planning protections and a community benefit scheme".

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When IDS and his girlfriend were living in a single room with a one-ring gas oven

By Paul Goodman
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It's characteristic of George Osborne, professional politician that he is, to have dodged the inevitable question this week on whether he could live on £53 a week, and also characteristic of Iain Duncan Smith, who is not a professional politician at all, to have confronted it.

Andrew Pierce of the Daily Mail, which is very supportive of the Work and Pensions Secretary, has a sympathetic interview with IDS today in which he describes his period as "an unemployed soldier returning home each day to his girlfriend’s tiny bedsit in a bleak Victorian house, trying not to lose hope at a time when unemployment levels were nudging to a post-war high of 3 million".

‘The honest truth is that I lived illegally with Betsy in the bedsit, trying to pretend I was not there. I didn’t have any money, which is why I tried to avoid the landlady,’ recalls Duncan Smith.

IDS and his future wife were living in one room with a one-ring gas oven, and had to keep the meter fed in case the gas ran out halfway through cooking dinner.  Each day he put on his only suit and went to the nearest job exchange - rather in the manner of Norman Tebbit's father, who famously got on his bike and looked for work - before going on to the library.

The man who is now Work and Pensions Secretary, and has been the party's leader, was never going to starve.  But Pierce's interview is a fascinating study of part of his life.  He has had his ups and downs, has IDS - more, I think, than most of his fellow Cabinet members.

Artless he may, but his quirky combination of spontaneity, social concern and doggedness have stood him in excellent stead in the welfare reform debate - so far.  As we've seen this week, it's livening up...and he has the Universal Credit to deliver.

When it comes to Attack Dogs, Osborne's still a Big Beast

By Paul Goodman
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George Osborne is no less a pupil of Gordon Brown than Ed Balls, at least when it comes to moving pieces on the political chessboard.  To change the image, Brown was a believer in "dividing lines" - gambits designed to throw his opponents on the defensive.  "Labour Investment versus Tory cuts".  "Labour's 50p rate versus Tory posh boys."  "Labour's NHS investment versus Tory privatisation plans."  Osborne usually swerved to avoid the traps, and has been lambasted for it - especially for his early decision as Shadow Chancellor to stick to Labour's spending plans.  But it's worth noting that after the single occasion when he walked knowingly into one, the party's poll ratings slumped, and the right didn't back him up.  I refer, of course, to the cut in the 50p rate.

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Two of the Conservative Party's success stories get bigger roles: Fallon and Hayes

By Tim Montgomerie
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David Cameron has conducted a mini reshuffle this morning. He has appointed John Hayes MP to the Cabinet Office and Michael Fallon will be taking over John's Energy brief. Both men have been two of the Coalition's success stories.

Taking John Hayes first. In his previous ministerial incarnation Hayes oversaw the Coalition's skills and apprenticeships policy. He was a master of the subject - having shadowed the portfolio for most of the last parliament. In government he worked closely with George Osborne to ensure that, in this era of austerity, this long-term investment in our nation's future got extra funding rather than less. Hayes has had a rocky relationship with Ed Davey at DECC, with the two men disagreeing rather publicly over windfarms policy. Nonetheless, I understand that one of John Hayes' last acts was to sign off a settlement of the government's onshore wind policy. It's not exactly clear what John Hayes' new role will be but the MP for South Holland and the Deepings and co-founder of the Cornerstone Group understands the Right of the Tory Party (including the 2010 intake) and Number 10 doesn't. Hayes will be acting as a political and parliamentary adviser to the PM and will, I hope, be doing a lot more media. His non-southern, non-posh voice is one the Conservatives lack. He is a curious mix of Right-wing and One Nation. He signs up to nearly all traditional Tory positions on immigration, Europe, crime and the family (especially the family) but he's not much of a liberal when it comes to economic matters. Although a businessman before entering politics he's never been much of a fan of free trade. He sees a large role for the state in providing a social safety-net and underpinning UK manufacturing. Cameron's decision to bring Hayes into his inner team - a team that doesn't understand working class Conservatives - is a very good one. Hayes recently claimed to be the personification of blue collar conservatism.

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Margaret Thatcher listed her Cabinet allies and opponents. Who would Cameron list today?

By Tim Montgomerie
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Newly-released papers from Lady Thatcher's personal archive have been widely reported today. One that caught my eye was Ken Clarke's opposition to the Falklands War. The man who was a regular thorn in Margaret Thatcher's side but was then a very small Tory beast is reported to have said that Britain should “blow up a few ships but nothing more”.

In terms of thorns in her side The Independent's Andy McSmith has highlighted Maggie's own list of people who she regarded as on her side and against her. Only Cecil Parkinson, Norman Tebbit, Keith Joseph and Nigel Lawson were seen as truly one of us. Nigel Lawson, of course, failed to stay true by the end of the 1980s. Normal Fowler also appears in the "for us" list but only gets a half mark!

In the list of opponents Michael Heseltine doesn't even merit a mention. Mrs Thatcher's Chancellor - Geoffrey Howe - is listed. The man who would later precipitate the successful leadership contest against her wasn't, it seems, trusted from the beginning.

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