James Forsyth reviews the week in politics
If a committee of David Cameron’s advisers were to design what they regarded as the perfect Tory candidate, the result would look something like Joanne Cash. She is intelligent, successful, a talented lawyer, educated at a state school and with staunch, considered conservative principles. She was duly earmarked for a must-win Labour-Tory marginal: Westminster North. After she was selected she became even more of a Cameroon poster child as she is expecting a child. She could be used as living, breathing proof of how Mr Cameron has succeeded in modernising the party.
But the best-laid plans of Cameron HQ can go awry — and, in the case of Ms Cash, spectacularly so. Instead of being lauded, she has been undermined. Her status as a candidate with the backing of the leadership has solicited hostility, rather than loyalty, from the Tory grassroots. The infighting has been so unpleasant that she resigned as a candidate on Monday night — but then announced (via Twitter) that she was staying after all. What she did not reveal, and what has not been properly reported, is the full story of what happened.
Like many a Tory looking for a seat, Ms Cash started with a distinct disadvantage: she was a member of Mr Cameron’s much-derided ‘A List’, which was designed to promote women, gays and ethnic minority candidates. She is also pure Cameroon aristocracy. Her husband is an Etonian friend of the Tory leader, and Michael Gove and Ed Vaizey were at her wedding. When the leadership was receiving a torrent of criticism for suggesting the introduction of all-women shortlists, it was Cash who stepped up to defend the idea on conservativehome.com, an activists’ website which was fiercely opposed to the plan. Fatally, she would refer to Mr Cameron as ‘Dave’.
All this went down badly with certain members of Westminster North Conservative Association. There were grumblings that Ms Cash ‘was too busy walking Michael Gove’s dog to go leafleting’, others complained about how she talked about ‘Dave and Sam’. One might have thought that the Tory leadership — one that looks certain to deliver general election victory — would be popular with the constituency party, but the reverse is true. Here in central London, the conditions were brewing for a repeat of the ‘Turnip Taleban’ fiasco in Norfolk North. If the row about her selection went public, it would again fill the headlines with stories about Tory splits.
The catalyst for the drama of Ms Cash came in the form Jonathan Fraser-Howells, who was appointed the agent for the seat. Fraser-Howells wasn’t keen on Cash’s social action projects and her desire to concentrate her campaigning in Labour wards. It is said that he made deeply insensitive remarks about pregnant women — remarks which, I am told, would reinforce the very worst stereotypes about the party if they were to become public. Ms Cash expressed her concerns to her association chairman, Amanda Sayers, who was unsympathetic. Ms Cash duly contacted the Tory high command, and made it clear she would quit if she was not supported. The red alert duly sounded.
Instantly, they grasped the potential public relations disaster that was about to hit them. Three months before an election campaign is not the right time to lose a high-flying candidate who is close to the leadership and tipped for great things, or to have stories about Tories making disobliging comments about pregnant women. The most junior spin doctor could see the headlines: ‘Westminster Tories force out Cameron’s pregnant friend’.
Yet despite being aware of the problem and devoting considerable time to it, CCHQ failed to act decisively. There were two options. One was to put the association in ‘special measures’, remove Sayers and support Cash fully. The other tack was to tell Cash that politics is a rough trade and that she should tough it out. That having to deal with the Sayers and Fraser-Howells of this world is the price paid for becoming a Tory MP. After mulling the two options, Tory HQ decided on a third: send Eric Pickles, the party chairman, to calm the situation.
He was dispatched on Monday night. Also in attendance were Lord Strathclyde, the Tory leader in the Lords and the outgoing president of the association, and Matt Hancock, George Osborne’s consigliore. However, these Tory bigwigs couldn’t win over this meeting of 50 people. Indeed, the situation became even worse as Ms Sayers was elected president of the association (remarkably, CCHQ had failed to line up any alternative candidates). A furious and dismayed Ms Cash then tendered her resignation.
A panic-stricken rescue operation began on Tuesday with everyone from Mr Cameron downwards involved. Ms Sayers was summoned to CCHQ in the afternoon and asked to resign. She was let out to consult her husband, and after doing so was reluctant to quit. At this point, Mr Pickles’s team finally realised that they did not need her agreement. They could just sack her — at which point she resigned. The only success was that these details did not leak to the newspapers.
The episode, and how it has been handled, has frightened those close to Cameron. There is now considerable concern that there are other candidate disasters waiting to happen and that these could derail the opening weeks of the Tory election campaign. The failure of Pickles’s office to resolve this situation earlier and without fuss has left his future prospects looking bleak.
But perhaps most worryingly, it has revealed how Cameron’s office lacks someone who can sense political trouble coming and defuse it. If this post is not filled before the phony war turns into the real war of the election campaign, even more trouble could lie in store. If the Cameroons can’t protect themselves from trouble springing from the Westminster North Conservative Association, it bodes ill for their chances against Labour’s attack machine. To see the Cameron operation encountering this much resentment a mile away from its base raises questions about how it is received in further, foggier reaches of the country.
More worryingly still, Cash’s experience proves that the Tory wars are far from over. The internal battles and factional fighting may now be about personality not policy, but they are all the more vicious for it.
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