Jane Merrick has a post over at The Independent speculating that David Davis could be made shadow defence secretary in the 2009 reshuffle. Certainly, back when Cameron was putting his first shadow cabinet together it was thought that Davis would get either the Home or Defence briefs. But I don’t think Davis will get defence for one of the reasons Jane Merrick thinks he might get it: Afghanistan. (I’d also be surprised if Cameron moved Fox).
Jane Merrick notes that Davis “has been asking a lot of questions in parliament recently about troops in Afghanistan”. But I suspect Tory high command, which thinks about Afghanistan more than any other foreign police issue, would be wary of putting Davis in charge of it given that a few months ago Davis mused to a couple of colleagues that maybe Britain could do no good there and should just get out.
What Davis had said reached the party leadership, who became worried that Davis might say this publicly. The polls consistently show that most of the public do favour a withdrawal—which would be a strategic and moral disaster; it would allow the terrorists to re-establish their safe haven there, as well as be a betrayal of the Afghans who have taken the coalition at its word—and if Davis had called for it on the record, it would have caused a lot of problems for the party hierarchy.
I personally think that Davis should be brought back at Home, he would be a vast improvement on Dominic Grieve who is simply not a good enough media performer for such a frontline role. However if Cameron doesn’t want to bring him back at the same level, what about having him shadow Mandelson? He’d certainly be more effective than Alan Duncan.
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