Warring cabinet big beasts need booting in the goolies
It is an unholy mess. Things are as bad as they were in the worst days of the Major government. Apropos of holiness, we should thank God that Jeremy Corbyn is not Tony Blair (oddly enough, Mr Corbyn would almost certainly join in the thanks).
So what should the Tories do? After the election, George Osborne described Theresa May as a dead woman walking. Truth is often a potent source of cruelty. But the walk has now been extended. It appears that the PM has put herself at the party’s service. Such honourable conduct should earn her a respite. Duty deserves chivalry.
Yet it is not enough to refrain from turning off the life support machine. The Prime Minister is not poor little Charlie Gard. She – still – has a government to run and this means addressing two mighty and related problems: policies and personalities. What is the government’s policy on Brexit and what is going to happen about public sector pay?
In both cases, it seems to be a case of Philip Hammond versus several other senior ministers. On Brexit, the Chancellor is unimpressed by machismo strutting. He wants a deal that is in the national interest. On public sector pay, he sees real risks of unconditional surrender which would, inter alia, lead to higher interest rates. Mr Hammond has a weakness. He is incorrigibly rational. He believes that it should be possible for all men of good will to identify a common sense solution to a problem, which would then become a consensus.
There are two difficulties with that. First, there is not much good will around. Second, common sense is an uncommon quality. Mr Hammond made a couple of obvious points: that women could drive trains and that some public sector workers are overpaid. In response, the heavens fell in.
There are moments when large sections of the population seem to have taken leave of their senses. Sense must be restored, and only Theresa May is in a position to do so. She ought to summon an inner Cabinet to Chequers – Philip Hammond, David Davis plus a couple of others – and tell them that they will not be allowed to leave until there is agreement on Brexit and public sector pay. She should also implore them to set a good example to their colleagues by not leaking the proceedings. Surely they would all agree that the Conservative party should not approach every problem with an open mouth? If so, is it not time to turn agreement into action?
I suspect that there will be two polarised responses to this suggested Chequers compact. The first, incredulity; surely it should not be necessary to summon ministers to ensure that they behave properly? The second, incredulity: how could anyone be so naive as to think that this might work?
That brings us to personalities. By the beginning of this decade, David Davis was widely distrusted in sensible Tory circles. Always self-obsessed, always a difficult colleague, he had finally driven those with whom he should have been working beyond exasperation by insisting on forcing a by-election, for reasons which no-one could fathom. It was a ridiculous self-indulgence in vanity. Politics is a team game and he was incapable of being a team player. It might have been different if he had been running the team; otherwise, he was just a dagger in a perpetual hunt for a shoulder-blade. A phrase did the rounds among chuckling Tory MPs: ‘He swaggers even when he is asleep’. A senior Cabinet Minister had described him as the idlest and most disloyal member of the Major government. It seemed all too probable that he would play the same role for Mrs May.
Then, suddenly, Tory politics was convulsed by the shock of the new: the most dramatic example of a political transformation since the new Richard Nixon. Reports suggested that there was a new David Davis: collegiate, happy to listen to junior ministers and officials, no longer insisting that he was always right.
More recent rumours are less complimentary (the new Nixon was also a problematic matter). As regards Mr Davis, three difficulties have emerged. The first is Brexit itself. It is easy to be relaxed and optimistic when you have finally arrived in the Cabinet: less easy, when you realise just how daunting a task you have undertaken. Once, two Tories were discussing him. “Davis is half as good as he thinks he is” said the first. “Really” said the second: “That makes him a genius.” Ultimately, even self-styled geniuses must recognise reality.
The second difficulty is delightfully ironic. Given his own record, Mr Davis is the last minister entitled to complain about a colleague’s disloyalty. Even so, Boris Johnson takes the…cake. It must be hard enough trying to run the Brexit talks without having the so-called Foreign Secretary making an arse of himself on every possible occasion. It could of course be argued that David Davis deserves Boris Johnson. Britain does not.
Just deserts lead on to the third difficulty, ambition, an attribute which Messrs Davis and Johnson share in it its most insensate form. Both men are desperate to be Prime Minister, and both realise that this may be their last hope. Neither would admit to having any role in the extensive briefing against the PM or the Chancellor, and who could disbelieve such honourable men, especially Boris? Throughout his career, he has always kept the truth in view, even if it was sometimes 180 degrees away. But both men’s ‘friends’ are aware that an increasing number of Tory MPs are looking for new names from a younger generation. So it is in the older pair’s interests to force a leadership election.
As for the effect on the Party or the country, does either man care? However much wreckage they leave in their wake, both of them are set on No.10. If the leaking, briefing and general destabilisation continue, it will be impossible for Mrs May to run a Government. Her walk would become a Calvary. But it would be the country which faced crucifixion, under Mr Corbyn.
There is a possible solution. Some of the Party’s seniors must call both men to order, and tell them to keep their friends in order. There would be an implied threat. If the disloyalty continued, then these widely respected figures would guarantee they they would denounce those responsible, loudly, forcefully, continuously: not the ideal background music for a leadership bid. Michael Ancram, Richard Benyon, William Hague, Michael Howard, David Lidington, Patrick McLoughlin, Tom Strathclyde, George Young: to put it mildly, characters like that would command attention.
Though she is hardly a grey-beard, one could add Ruth Davidson. There have been rumours than Davis and Boris supporters have been threatening to kick one another in the goolies, so it may be that a lesbian kick-boxer is needed to do some enforcing.
Enforcing: in this phase of Tory politics, that sounds like a distant fantasy. So we have to move to a new phase, urgently.