Cameron and Osborne must listen to their backbenchers — or face revolt

Wednesday, 27th January 2010

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics

A sign of the irritation felt by shadow Cabinet members is the fact that the griping which has long gone on in private about the influence of Steve Hilton and Andy Coulson, Cameron’s strategy and communications chiefs, is now making it into national newspapers. This can be seen as displacement anger: as always, the favoured courtiers are a proxy for the monarch himself.

At the beginning of his leadership, Cameron did try to keep the troops happy. He set up a series of policy groups that included backbench MPs like John Redwood — and it worked, engaging them in the project. But since these groups disbanded, the backbenchers have been left to wander around discussing how they all feel out of the game. As one normally supportive MP concedes, ‘there is no enthusiasm, no sense of anticipation in the parliamentary party’ about a Tory return to government.

Team Cameron’s decision to base itself away from most MPs in the old Met headquarters, Norman Shaw South, has heightened the sense of distance between the leader and his foot soldiers. As one party official admits, ‘making MPs feel loved is not a priority for us’.

They will come to regret this if (as polls suggest) a Conservative government is returned with a majority of less than 60. In these circumstances, a relatively small group of Conservative MPs — 30 or less — could cause the leadership real trouble. The Cornerstone group of traditionalist Tories MPs has more than 30 members and there is already talk of a ‘Cornerstone whip’, which could put pressure on the leadership on various issues.

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quiet integrity

January 29th, 2010 9:35am Report this comment

Perhaps DC won't get his majority? As well as ignoring his own backbenchers, he has dismissed the concerns of Tory voters: lack of grammar schools, expensive membership of the EU that brings us only disadvantages, multiculturalism, the hard-pressed middle class bank-rolling both the bankers and the Underclass, to name but a few. It's highly likely that the Tory vote will be decimated by defections to UKIP and BNP. We can't afford another presidential-style government: Blair is too recent a memory.

The Man

January 29th, 2010 4:05pm Report this comment

Dave is making a bad fist of this. Does Tony Blair's apprearance before the Chilcott Committee today not make Cameron realise that emulating Blair is neither the way to win the trust of the electorate nor of governing the country?

Kirsty Richards

January 29th, 2010 4:38pm Report this comment

James, can you please explain the presence of Dominic Grieve in the shadow cabinet. Is he a friend of Cameron/Osborne? I do not understand why he is in a front bench job when there are others just as well qualified more signed up to the agenda.

Scary Biscuits

January 30th, 2010 10:44am Report this comment

The disillusion and unenthusiam of MPs is shared by party activists and the electorate (which is why he's now averaging under 40% in the polls). He is ambivalent or on the wrong side of the popular argument on a whole range of issues: bribing foreign countries ("international development"), crime, enthusiasm about europe (weakly accepting Lisbon and confirming his belief in the wider project), higher taxes 'for the environment', cuts to the army and - most of all - his luke warm at best support of a small state and the individual freedom and low taxation that this implies. He clung ridiculously to his unpopular mantra of 'sharing the proceeds of growth' long after it became untenable; he now repeats the mistake by suggesting he will proritise protecting Labour's unproductive client state over tax cuts. His supporters argue that Mrs T also increased taxes, conveniently forgetting that in 1979 she started from a much lower base of overall taxation.

In his speaches, like the one to Conference last year, he makes the right noises but these are unsupported by his actions making him seem shallow and opportunistic.

As this articule illustrates, he intends to govern from the sofa, like Blair, (or if he is less popular, the bunker, Brown-style) with PR men and unaccountalbe and often incompetent flunkies outranking government ministers and experienced Civil Servants. MPs such as Michael Fallon, whose long period in the wilderness has been justified by events are ignored.

No wonder there is no enthusiasm for Cameron. In fact, if you are a Tory you fear that like Heath or John Major, he will be yet another poor leader who, by calling himself a Conservative but governing like a high tax establishment socialist, undermines the ideals of the party he stands for.

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