Theresa May’s Government is safe – for now

The Government’s deal with the DUP is done – but it has come at a price. The confidence and supply agreement – which falls short of a formal coalition but will be enough to keep Theresa May in power – will set the Government back £1bn. The deal spells out £200m for infrastructure, £75m for ultra-fast broadband, £100m over five years to tackle deprivation, £50m on health and education, £100m on health service reform and £50m on mental health funding in Northern Ireland. Despite the cost, though, there’ll be a big sigh of relief among the Conservatives that the deal (which you can read here) is now, finally, across the line. With a Queen’s Speech vote looming on Thursday, it was vital that an agreement was reached beforehand. The Tories could have survived this vote even without a deal having been reached. But it would not have looked good for a Government trying to get on with the job of governing still being embroiled in talks aimed at keeping them in office. There’ll also be some relief that the size of the bill isn’t quite the £2bn which was widely mooted last week. For now then, Theresa May is safe.

Yet the relief will be short-lived. When Theresa May wasn’t busy talking up her own ‘strong and stable’ credentials during the election campaign she was repeatedly mocking Labour’s ‘magic money tree’. As with her now much-derided campaign slogan, those words are likely to come back to bite her, given the apparent ease with which such a big sum of money was found down the back of the Downing Street sofa (the deal also agrees to keep the Pensions Triple Lock, another pricey gesture). Expect to hear Jeremy Corbyn hammering home exactly this point at the despatch box come PMQs on Wednesday. While the SNP are likely to also try and make political mileage out of more money being allocated across the Irish Sea rather than to Scotland (the government is not obliged to match funding under the Barnett Formula, which would have given more money to Scotland and Wales, because this cash comes in the form of targeted investment).

The manner in which the confidence and supply agreement was struck also doesn’t paint the Government in a particularly good light. It’s been nearly three weeks since Theresa May announced a deal was imminent. They’ve finally reached that agreement – but it’s not difficult to see how the Tories could have played their hand more wisely during this messy process. With Brexit talks now looming, the best that can be said is that behind the door of No.10 important lessons have been learned – and hopefully the Tories’ new friends in Government can teach them a thing or two about getting a good deal.