Responding to this tweet from Adam Bienkov:
Gary Gibbon: Discontented Tory backbenchers want Philip Hammond or Liam Fox to replace Cameron. Boris doesn't even register #channel4news
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) September 10, 2012
It struck me that I actually had some political gossip that was relevant. A while ago I saw an old university pal who is now a professional Tory (not the one who’s an MP, good god, or the one who works for Donal Blaney for his sins, the other one). His take on Tory internal politics was that there were three important facts.
- Everybody is furious with George Osborne, and they feel he let them down after promising the earth
- All the party’s micro-currents are united by their deep mistrust, bordering on hatred, of Boris Johnson
- The only Tories who actually think Boris is a good thing are personal followers of David Cameron
Now, the condition of Boris or anyone else becoming Tory leader is that he has to get rid of Cameron, so 3 makes it very unlikely that Boris can do it, unless something dramatic happened to Cameron and his personal following glommed onto Boris. But there is a further problem, which is that Cameron’s personal followers aren’t really a winning hand in a game of Which Politician Would Win A Knife Fight.
Adam’s sources apparently suggest that either Philip (“Spreadsheet” or “Greasy” Phil) Hammond or Liam “The Man Who Knew Too Little” Fox is in the frame. As far as Fox goes, they must be crazier than we think, but Hammond? Nobody’s going to love him, but his term at MOD has been significantly less bad than Fox’s was, or really anyone’s since George Robertson. At least neither of them is Michael Gove.
The part about hating Osborne is interesting – I’d assumed it was common knowledge, in a not-in-front-of-the-children kind of way, that destroying the public sector was an end in itself. Perhaps we need to factor in a substantial bloc of well-meaning Telegraph readers (I know, it goes against the grain to say it) who bought the pitch and didn’t read between the lines. The real irony is that I don’t think Cameron actually believes in slash-and-burn economics, or in anything else in particular – he’s steering towards that end of the Tory party because they’re the ones with the energy and ideas, neither of which he and George are rich in.
I think Bienkov must’ve seen the same Gibbon piece on Channel 4 news as I did. He’s missed out the third name Gibbon mentioned – Graham Brady, head of the 1922 Committee.
Phil, I don’t agree. These people are the true believers in slash-and-burn. Their criticism of Cameron is from two fronts:
1. Not doing enough spending cuts. Some even argue there has been no austerity at all, because they fail at any mathematical relationship that involves more than one variable. Hence the call by David Davies last week for “shock therapy” (paging Naomi Klein…).
2. He’s the “heir to Blair”, “liberal conservative”, a part of what they see as the metropolitan establishment. They don’t see him as principled. Hence Nadine Dorries’ “two arrogant posh boys” remark (translation: they want someone from the lower middle class like Thatcher). This makes their views on planning reform amusing and why we get the government deciding that what the economy really needs right now is bigger conservatories.
Well, you’ve also got to deal with the fact that MPs usually want to stay that way. They have their own interests.
Good point. That’s the constraint they’re working from, to save their own skins.
But they’re also looking over their shoulder at UKIP, and with their own policies they’d like to see implemented, they know that the whole “change the leader, get poll boost” thing could work in their favour. Which is why they’re not simply pushing for a leader who’s sorta popular, otherwise they’d just go for Boris – they want the public to vote for someone who’ll do what they want, not a buffoonish insider.
Over 2.5 years to go of this Parliament. We may yet see a replay of 1995.