The Tories are back

This week marks 50 years since Harold Macmillan’s ‘Night of the Long Knives’, in which he sacked a third of his Cabinet. As if to mark the anniversary, Tory MPs this week sunk the dagger into the Liberal Democrats’ plans for House of Lords reform. So great was the potential defeat — the largest in Tory party history — that the government cancelled its vote on its attempts to place a time limit on debating the Bill. The proposals would have been rejected entirely had it not been for the opportunistic support of the Labour party.

Coalition government was not supposed to be like this. Many of those who welcomed its formation two years ago argued that it would lead to ‘grown-up politics’ — the raucous squabbling of the House of Commons would somehow be replaced by constructive debate. Coalition, it was said, would bring back true Cabinet government and weaken the stranglehold on policy-making exerted by party leaderships, reversing a trend which had been evident since Mrs Thatcher’s day. David Cameron and Nick Clegg would not be able to take their backbenchers for granted. They would be forced to listen more to the views of a wide spectrum of MPs.

The reality could hardly be more different. The effect of coalition has been to concentrate power even more in the hands of a small kitchen cabinet — the only difference being that it is now a cross-party affair, formed of David Cameron, Nick Clegg, George Osborne and Danny Alexander. As for ordinary MPs, inconvenient views are treated with more disdain than ever. After two years of such treatment, the disdain is being reciprocated.

Since coalition, the Conservative party’s identity had been subsumed within that of the coalition.