Politics

27 June 2009

Fraser Nelson reviews the week in politics

Mr Brown’s strategy has as its core premise that there is no coherent Conservative agenda to supplant his own. He genuinely regards Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne as lightweights, constitutionally incapable of mastering the mechanics of government. No one in Number 10 dares mention the word ‘legacy’ to the Prime Minister, as it implies an imminent defeat he does not want to contemplate. But judge him by his deeds: he is busy hard-wiring Labour rules, presumptions, orthodoxies and targets into the government system with specially chosen laws, accountancy tricks and long-term plans. This, he hopes, will be his true legacy: a Brownite prison for his successors.

But on the issue of the Speaker, at least, the Conservatives are ill-inclined to accept defeat. Anger on the Conservative benches has hardly dissipated, and the initial mutterings about deposing Mr Bercow in due course are already taking shape into a more organised, discreet plan of action. Traditionally, no party fields a candidate against the Speaker in his or her seat. But now that Mr Bercow has offered himself to Labour as a willing agent to irritate his own party, might an ‘independent Conservative’ stand against him in Buckingham? ‘Don’t think we wouldn’t try to arrange something like that,’ says a shadow cabinet member.

This is precisely the right spirit. From the choice of Speaker to the failed NHS system, there need be nothing inevitable about the survival, post-Gordon, of the failed Labour agenda. Changing government should mean changing not just the personnel but the language, metrics and yardsticks of success. Mr Cameron’s mission should not just be felling Mr Brown, but rooting out his ideas from the soil of Whitehall: to identify and eliminate the plans Labour made for the post-election years. Dealing with Mr Bercow should be only the start.

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Carly

June 25th, 2009 6:16pm Report this comment

Never mind Speaker Bercow, it's the top civil servants and mandarins that will be the real problem. They should start with an immediate purge starting with Gus O'Donnell.

Ken

June 26th, 2009 10:15am Report this comment

Well the Conservatives could announce a joint ministerial mission for Day One in Office: the immediate repeal of all 5000 marxist-tainted laws passed by the socialists since 1997; call it "Conservative Clean Slate".

Then put all civil servants on notice that they will be required to resit Civil Service exams, sign new contracts with the incoming administration and compete in the open market for the 30% of posts left once the axe falls on the over-abundant non-jobs.

That should alert the civil service to sit on its hands whenever BrownGang orders bridge-burning and constituional fiddling.

JW

June 26th, 2009 2:47pm Report this comment

"Traditionally no party runs a candidate against the speaker" - I used to live in Selwyn Lloyd's constituency when he was speaker - both liberals (as they were then) asnd labour would routinely put up candidates, both eould routinely lose their deposits

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