The Tory leadership held one of its election strategy meetings yesterday at Chequers. The Prime Minister and his colleagues will have been reassured that their party certainly seems to be turning its face towards 2015, with some of David Cameron’s fiercest critics preferring to get behind the campaign for James Wharton’s referendum bill. I look at some of the ways Cameron and his colleagues are trying to repair relationships in my Telegraph column today.
But Tory anger comes in waves, and there’s one racing towards the shore that, according to backbenchers, has a great deal to do with the party’s chances with its core vote at the next general election. The FT’s Beth Rigby reported last night that Tim Loughton, the ex-minister who has gone rogue since losing his job at the Education department in last September’s reshuffle, has decided to push the Chancellor on introducing a transferable tax allowance for married couples. This is in spite of assurances from George Osborne to his colleagues that he does plan to introduce the allowance. Loughton has tacked the amendments onto the Finance Bill.
Even though colleagues are calm at the moment, a poor response from the leadership to these amendments will make them start wondering whether things really have been patched up after the recent rows on Europe and gay marriage. They see this as the balm to soothe the wounds from the latter. If the leadership didn’t discuss the allowance at yesterday’s Chequers summit, they soon will be.
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