The bad headlines continue for Downing Street this morning, with the Telegraph front page declaring ‘Tory MPs round on Cameron and Osborne’. Of course, Tory backbenchers griping about their leadership is nothing new and, usually, ‘concern that Government policies are being poorly explained to voters’ or a suggestion that ‘a senior MP should be appointed as full-time Conservative Party chairman’ wouldn’t make the front page. But after the two week onslaught Downing Street has just suffered — from granny tax to cash for access to petrol panic to pasties — the disgruntled chattering reverberates that bit louder.
And the nature of these complaints is different than, say, the ones we saw over Europe in the run-up to Cameron’s no-vote before Christmas. Then, the disagreement was — at least partly
— about policy and ideology. Some Tory MPs worried that Cameron wasn’t sufficiently standing up for their values. But today’s Telegraph story is not about problems that the Tories
in question — ‘MPs from all sections of the Conservative Party’, apparently — have with the substance of government policies. Instead, it’s all about presentation and
political strategy. Hence the four specific changes the MPs have told the Telegraph they’d like to see:
Particularly noteworthy is that second point, and its singling out of George Osborne for criticism — which the Telegraph’s James Kirkup discusses in more detail here. Before last month’s Budget, Tories would regularly speak in reverent tones of Osborne’s ‘strategic genius’. But following the furore over the ‘granny tax’ and ‘pastygate’, that admiration has been diminished and the dissent has grown. Take this, from Nadine Dorries’ article on Conservative Home yesterday:‘The Downing Street machine should be overhauled amid widespread concern that Government policies are being poorly explained to voters, especially those in key marginal seats. Mr Osborne is under mounting pressure to end his dual role as both Chancellor and head of Conservative political strategy. A senior MP should be appointed as full-time Conservative Party chairman, ending the current arrangement where job is shared by two peers. This year’s ministerial reshuffle should be used to promote more MPs from working-class and northern backgrounds, to counter the perception of a Government dominated by privileged public schoolboys.’
In the past, Cameron hasn’t seemed too concerned about taking on criticism from his backbenchers, and has sometimes even made a virtue of it — as he did over the EU. But that was before his approval rating dropped to its lowest point yesterday. Downing Street may be saying for now that there’ll be ‘“no big change” in the way Mr Cameron does business’. But if Tory MPs are beginning to see Cameron as an electoral liability, rather than an asset, he may have no choice but to acquiesce to at least some of their demands.‘At the root of much of the catastrophe we have become is George Osborne. He drives the liberal elite agenda. He is the man who splits the party Chairmanship to prevent other Ministers gaining prominence because, somewhere, in his secret moments, he believes that one day he will be leader. He is the man who hubris has infected far quicker than it did Gordon Brown. The man who has No 10 and David Cameron manipulated around his little finger.’
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