Politics

It is time for Cameron to shape the team that he thinks can chase Brown from office

23 June 2007

Andrew Lansley’s critics argue that his personal mission to befriend doctors’ and nursing unions has shaped party policy in precisely the wrong way, siding with the provider rather than the user. But these same critics concede that he is safe as shadow health secretary. ‘Cameron’s very keen on him, and that’s the end of it,’ says one colleague, gloomily. What’s more, people who are sacked need to be replaced, and this — for Mr Cameron — is a problem. His pool of potential recruits is depressingly shallow.

Of his 195-strong parliamentary colleagues, just under half entered parliament at the last election. ‘The problem is that, with a few exceptions, the 2001 intake were pretty hopeless,’ says one shadow Cabinet member. ‘There’s a lot of talent from the 2005 intake. But you can’t really put someone who has two years of parliamentary experience on to the front bench.’

You can, however, if one of them is named Michael Gove. As shadow housing minister, he has already scored a significant hit over the home information packs, and is extremely popular within the party and outside it. Ed Vaizey, his best friend and closest ally, is also tipped for elevation. After becoming party leader four years after entering parliament, Mr Cameron is an unlikely stickler for parliamentary gestation period.

The most important appointment of them all has already been made. Andy Coulson, former editor of the News of the World, starts on 9 July as communications director. The party’s communications strategy has been largely the work of Cameron himself and Steve Hilton. To adapt Diana, Princess of Wales, there will soon be three of them in this marriage.

It will be a challenge. Failure to prise open the Cameron–Hilton relationship is understood to have to led Nick Pisani, former editor of BBC1’s Question Time, to resign as the party’s presentations director last October. It is unlikely Mr Coulson’s appointment will be allowed to fail, and not least because of his £275,000 annual salary. He brings to the Cameron team something it needs beyond media skills: an ability to understand and communicate with C1s and C2s, who traditionally decide British elections.

Mr Cameron knows there is much riding on his next reshuffle. If he wants his shadow Cabinet team to stir even the vaguest recognition in the public, he can’t afford to keep changing them. He needs to convince the voters not just that he’d make a good prime minister, but that, for example, Mr Davis can be trusted on crime, Mr Lansley with the National Health Service and Mr Willetts with schools. If one of these faces does not fit, now is the time to change. Mr Brown will allow him no margin for error.