It’s a new year but Lord Cruddas is not giving up an old causes. The onetime milkman turned billionaire led the campaign last summer to put Boris Johnson back on the ballot after the latter was forced out of No. 10. After that failed, Cruddas suggested he would stop funding the Conservatives unless it rewrote its constitution to prevent another PM being toppled. In October, he unsuccessfully urged Johnson’s return in the brief contest that followed Liz Truss’s downfall. And now the former Tory treasurer is ploughing his considerable energies into a new initiative: the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO).
The grassroots group is supporting a raft of measures to give party members a greater say in the running of the Tory machine, including a headline-grabbing proposal that ‘any Tory MP who gets the support of 15 per cent of their colleagues should be able to run for the party leadership.’ In October’s contest, the threshold for a candidate was set at 100 MPs. The CDO is not formally aligned with Johnson or ‘any one policy or one person.’ But, in the words of the Telegraph, ‘if adopted, the proposal would significantly increase the chances of Mr Johnson making a successful comeback as Tory leader.’ Penny for the thoughts of those in CCHQ and No. 10…
And Mr S can’t help but notice that Lord Cruddas seems to have a penchant for his own bit of mischief-making. For the noble lord yesterday shared a letter on Twitter, from an anonymous former Conservative councillor, addressed to Jacob Rees-Mogg. It claimed that at a Treasury Select Committee meeting in November 2021, Rishi Sunak – the then Chancellor of the Exchequer –described the possibility of the UK entering the Euro as ‘an opportunity’ in response to a question by fellow Tory Anthony Browne ‘who voted EU remain in the EU opportunity.’
Sunak was an ardent Brexiteer, who staunchly backed Leave as a backbencher in 2016. What could have changed? Well it actually transpires that a quick check of the exchange transcript shows that Browne was asking Sunak about New Labour’s fiscal rules. Sunak highlighted that they were formulated in the context of the UK potentially joining the Euro in the 1990s under Tony Blair – very much past tense:
Anthony Browne: Your target on national debt is that it should be coming down towards the end of the forecast period of three years, whereas I remember, when Gordon Brown first introduced a national debt target, it was 40 per cent of GDP. Wouldn’t it be nice to have such low national debt? I remember at the time reading with shock about the national debt levels of Japan and Italy, but we are now up there. Why have you decided to target simply going downwards, as it were, rather than targeting an absolute amount?
Rishi Sunak: It is probably more credible. When you talk to investors and think about what will make us credible and provides people confidence, the trajectory is probably more important than the absolute level. That is something that has changed, because people’s perception of all these things has changed slightly over time. The 40 per cent was a Maastricht rule, so it was probably also making sure that, should the opportunity arise, one might be able to take to the UK into the single currency, but that is a separate discussion. In terms of where we are, what people say, what matters and what I am trying to project is for people to have confidence and reassurance in the UK government, in our financing and in our borrowing levels. Having a trajectory that is clearly on a downward slope provides people that at this juncture.
The insinuation therefore that Sunak was promoting the single currency is simply false. Here’s to more adjudicating on Tory wars in 2023…
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