Can Cameron assuage the Tory tribes?

Amid the chaos in the House of Commons, with newly elected MPs finding their offices and newly appointed ministers being kicked out of them, Graham Brady is the picture of calm. As the only MP to resign on principle from David Cameron’s front bench (over grammar schools), he knew there would be no phone call from Number 10. Yet next week, he may end up being more important than any minister of state. He is favourite for a position that has suddenly started to matter again: chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs.

In the era of Blair-style landslides, the likes and loves of backbench MPs mattered little: the government’s majority was big enough to force through most votes. But the loyalty of Tory MPs to a coalition government is untested. Sitting underneath a framed copy of Baroness Thatcher’s signature, Mr Brady says that the Lib-Con deal has changed everything. ‘A majority government can largely presume the consent of its MPs,’ he says. ‘A coalition government cannot.’ Most Tory MPs, he says, would have preferred minority government.

Relations with Tory MPs was never Mr Cameron’s strong point. The new Prime Minister has taken to walking the House of Commons alone, shaking hands with MPs, in a way he never did before. He used to have Sir Michael Spicer, the former chair of the 1922 Committee, to be his link man with the party — or Andrew MacKay, his backbench spy. Both stood down at the last election. Mr Brady says that, under his chairmanship, the 1922 Committee would rebuild this link.

‘We need to get into the habit of talking to each other again,’ he says — not even pretending that the Cameron leadership talks to the Tory party at present.