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Tuesday 2 December 2008

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The view from 2018: how it all went wrong for Prime Minister Osborne

Of course there were scandals. The Johnson resignations, the defection of David Davis to Ukip, the questions raised, perhaps unfairly, over the way that Caroline Spelman was able to buy that house. It was water off a duck’s back at first. Then they grew overconfident, and then they grew lazy. Cameron put on a stone. Parliamentary candidates were allowed to use the word ‘black’ in interviews without being sacked. Michael Gove started wearing his glasses again. The Treasury briefed one way, Downing Street briefed the other. Theresa May appeared in a shoe commercial, Cameron put on another stone, and things started to go wrong.

Out of nowhere, the government was suddenly split over the inconsequential issue of whether Britain should one day join the rouble. There were still failing schools, there were still failing hospitals. Impatient and bored, the Tories began to clamour for change. They wanted a real Tory, a thinner Tory, perhaps from only the fifth or sixth poshest school in the land rather than the first. In time, Cameron slipped away; a grand-standing, tear-jerking performance at the party conference, followed by an American lecture tour. By the time he started his improbable new job as the United Nation’s peace envoy to war-torn Belgium, Osborne was already in trouble.

And such trouble. Some dubbed him the worst Prime Minister in history. Every by-election was a disaster. Ken Livingstone became the Mayor of London again. Others, the young Turks, began to plot. And, as the polls plunged to unprecedented levels, the media screamed, and the resurgent, fragrant Labour party talked a lot of sense, many declared the Conservative party to be finished for ever, like the Whigs. Some protested that it was all cyclical and nothing new, but nobody listened to them. They listened to the exciting ones, the doomsayers, who were certain, this time, that it was real.

I struggle, come 2018, to think of a suitable Conservative equivalent to John Prescott, who has waded into things so supportively this week by likening Gordon Brown to the captain of the Titanic. Will the Tories have anybody of his stature even ten years from now? I doubt it.

One of my favourite facts about Prescott (and I have many) is that the former sailor was born on the same date that the Titanic was launched (31 May), albeit 27 years later. Call me self-indulgent, but I couldn’t stand the thought of this brief fuss passing by without anybody pointing it out.

Hugo Rifkind is a writer for the Times.

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