That senior Tories are urging David Cameron to break up the Coalition early so the Conservatives can fight the election unencumbered by those pesky Lib Dems is hardly going to dent the Prime Minister’s chillaxing this summer: his party is in a good shape and the timing of Graham Brady and Bernard Jenkin’s intervention in the Sunday Telegraph suggests they are genuinely trying to be helpful rather than cause internal party strife to damage the Prime Minister.
All the indications from the top are that both Tories and Lib Dems want to go all the way with this Coalition, and those who might benefit from an early split, such as Vince Cable, don’t currently seem to have much purchase in terms of leadership coups.
But this doesn’t mean that Cameron won’t be thinking about the red meat he should be offering his backbenchers this autumn. He served them red meat at a recent barbecue as part of his lovebombing campaign, and that has largely paid off. We are now seeing more policy red meat too, in the form of organised differentiation, particularly when it comes to human rights and welfare. Both of these are areas where both parties feel they benefit from expressing outrage as they reject the other side’s policy posturing. If MPs see a steady stream of well-organised interventions from Tory cabinet members that are not leadership bids but 2015 victory bids, then they may well feel more content about the coalition staying closer for longer.
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