toryleadership

Cameron attacks "unacceptable backstage" briefings on his reshuffle plans

Yesterday's newspapers buzzed with reshuffle speculation but today's Guardian and Telegraph suggest that the stories were completely unauthorised.  A "furious" David Cameron is said to be particularly concerned at suggestions that David Davis was to be demoted from his Shadow Home Secretary post - in favour of Liam Fox.  Both newspapers report Cameron aides blaming Fox supporters for the briefings.  An aide to Mr Cameron told The Telegraph: "There is absolutely no desire to humiliate or demote David Davis. He has made clear that he wants a shadow cabinet of all the talents."

It will be essential for Mr Cameron to quickly strengthen his press team in order for similar speculation to be better controlled in future.

Alan Duncan tipped for big promotion

There is all sorts of gossipy speculation about David Cameron's first shadow cabinet including a suggestion in The Sunday Telegraph that Alan Duncan will be given a big job:

"The diminutive and dapper MP for Rutland and Melton has had a chequered front bench career, edging closer to one of the popular portfolios. Mr Duncan, 48, is currently shadow transport secretary. The wait for a post that will allow him to shine could be near an end, however, as Mr Cameron is said to have the highest regard for his relaxed, televisual style and appeal to younger voters. He was the first Tory MP openly to declare himself gay."

The consensus points to Osborne staying as Shadow Chancellor, Hague returning as Shadow Foreign Secretary and Fox moving to Home affairs.

Davis is expected to be demoted to Defence - a position he may refuse.  Replacing Davis with Fox will be controversial but one Cameroonie tells The Telegraph:

"Davis's reputation has fallen dramatically. There is no question in our minds that the leader of the Right is now Liam Fox."

The Davis-ites might be mollified with jobs for Davis allies.  Damian Green and Andrew Mitchell may be kept sweet with top jobs, for example.  The highly-regarded Nick Herbert, and close friend of Mr Davis, may also be given a junior role.

Oliver Letwin will oversee a comprehensive policy review and may also retain the environment portfolio.  This will be a controversial appointment as Mr Letwin's support for Kyoto environmentalism and his cautious approach to tax policies are strongly opposed by let-the-economy-grow conservatives.  Only yesterday sixty business leaders warned that Labour's tax rises threatened long-term decline for the UK economy.

Theresa May, Caroline Spelman and Boris Johnson are all expected to get big promotions.

Francis Maude is expected to stay as Chairman and will pursue a radical approach to candidate selection.  This may include a gold list of candidates for the most important target seats.

The Right will be watching to see if their leading lights are included around the top table.  If there are shadow cabinet positions for the likes of John Hayes and John Redwood the Right will be happy.  Many on the Right remember how John Major sidelined right-wing MPs after he was re-elected Tory leader in 1995 after defeating Mr Redwood in a confidence vote.

The Observer reports that Mr Cameron will begin his leadership with a speech heavy on themes, light on detail.  He will stress optimism, public services, climate change, social justice, social enterprise and work-life balance.

Osborne dampens expectations of Cameron honeymoon and launches punchy attack on Brown

Interviewed for today's FT George Osborne attempts to lower expectations of (a) the scale of David Cameron's victory over David Davis and (b) the nature of any honeymoon.

Mr Osborne predicts that the victory over Mr Davis will "be closer than people think" and not a "walkover" (today's two surveys of opinion amongst Tory members suggest a two-to-one victory).  He says that anyone who expects that there will be a "complete turnaround in the political environment which has existed in this country for ten years... is going to be disappointed." "I think this is going to be a long hard slog," he predicts.

Mr Osborne's long, hard slog will begin on Monday when he responds to the Chancellor's pre-Budget report.  Mr Osborne's message will be 'Blame it on Brown' - 'it' being "poor productivity, investment, skills and transport infrastructure".  David Cameron may be promising less 'Punch & Judy' politics but there is a lot of punch in Osborne's assessment of Gordon Brown:

“It’s very difficult to have any kind of relationship with him as the shadow . . . Perhaps the prime minister’s people put it best when they said he had psychological flaws. In my dealings with him he’s just pretty unpleasant and brutal. That character may have suited him in the job he holds at the moment but it will not be what people want in a prime minister.”

Writing for The Times after last year's Republican Convention George Osborne noted how Bush used surrogates to attack his principal opponents.  Mr Cameron may be unleashing Mr Osborne as his surrogate against Mr Brown whilst remaining above the fray himself.

Cameron and Osborne - who is now strongly expected to stay shadow chancellor - are often compared to Blair and Brown.  Mr Osborne believes that they represent tomorrow's fresh start in a similar way to that represented by New Labour in 1997:

"Gordon Brown looks like a figure from the past, and we're going to look like figures from the future... We're of a new generation... We learnt our trade in opposition, we were never government ministers, we don't yearn for the old days."

Mr Brown appears aware of this threat and in today's Independent Andrew Grice suggests (payment required for access) that he will "reinvent himself".  Grice says that Tories will be presented as a leap in the dark whilst he will be the candidate of "continuity and change" - offering "a re-energised leadership and experience, moving beyong Blairism by building on its successes."  ConservativeHome expects Mr Brown to attempt to fashion and then lead a domestic equivalent of the Make Poverty History campaign.

An article in Saturday's Guardian by the always interesting Martin Kettle warns against a strategy that presents Brown as a "block to progress": "Brown's vulnerability is in the way he works. Attack him as a control freak whose plans don't work."

DC's three stage plan to transform a crappy brand into a winning brand

You can expect the profiles of David Cameron to come thick and fast now.  Last night's Channel Four News was quick off the mark with a brief profile and you can watch that by clicking here.

Today's Indy offers an eight page pullout profile by Malcolm Macalister Hall and, unusually, for features in that newspaper it's all online.

The most interesting section of the interview/ profile, which is stuffed full of insights into DC's personality, comes in a section when the former TV PR man rejects the idea that the Conservative Party has an obvious Clause IV or can be rebranded with a simple name change:

"Some people have suggested adding a word, but I don't think it's actually the answer. I mean, look at Tesco - that used to be the cheap crappy supermarket, and over time it's transformed itself, and it didn't change its name."

David Cameron proposes a three stage process of change:

(1) "It's about making sure the party reflects the country; which is about the representation of women, and appealing to young people, and getting back into the cities."
(2) "It's expanding the policy portfolio to encompass things like climate change."
(3) "And the third thing is all the key principles, and trying to explain what they mean today: that 'low taxes' doesn't mean tax cuts for the rich - it means keeping taxes down to have a competitive economy and jobs for all."

Hague set to return as Shadow Foreign Secretary

According to your Fantasy Cabinet predictions William Hague should be Shadow Chancellor.  Today's Guardian suggests that Mr Hague will return as Shadow Foreign Secretary, however.  Mr Hague is reported as saying that existing commitments - including a forthcoming book on William Wilberforce - would mean that he would not have the time for the demanding finance portfolio.

If Mr Hague becomes Shadow Foreign Secretary he will be responsible for timetabling the promised exit from the EPP but such an appointment would deprive Liam Fox of his current - and favoured - post.  The obvious place for Dr Fox to go is Shadow Home Affairs but that would mean moving David Davis.  The Cameron Camp are waiting to see the scale of their victory before deciding what to do with Mr Davis.  If they only win by 60-40 they may have to keep Mr Davis in his current job and, perhaps, give him the deputy leadership if the race ends up even tighter than that.  If their margin of victory is bigger than 60-40 they will offer a diminished Mr Davis a lesser portfolio - like defence.  Mr Davis may refuse this position and cause Mr Cameron the first major headache of his leadership.

George Osborne, DC's campaign manager, is apparently only prepared to give up the Shadow Chancellorship for Mr Hague.  The differences between Mr Cameron and Mr Davis on tax would, in any case, make it difficult for this post to end up in Mr Davis' lap.

Either Fox or Davis at the Shadow Home Affairs post will reassure social conservatives who believe that Mr Cameron's drugs policies are too soft.  Mr Cameron has promised to decide drugs policy with his shadow cabinet.

If Mr Osborne remains Shadow Chancellor there is an increased possibility that Francis Maude will stay in charge of CCHQ.  Today's Telegraph reports a speech in which Mr Maude (a regular contributor to this site's Platform blog) calls on Tories to form a broad alliance with Blairite Labour MPs and Orange Book LibDems in favour of public service reform.  Mr Maude echoes Mr Cameron's more consensual approach to opposition.