Don't even think about it: Why backbenchers must back off Cameron

Last month it was alleged by backbencher Bob Stewart that he had been approached by colleagues to form a leadership challenge to David Cameron. With ‘Borismania’ the centre piece of this year’s Party Conference, talk of an pending challenge has been filling the political gossip pages for weeks now, not helped by Boris’ regular public disagreements over government policy. What such a challenge would represent is highly detrimental to the Party and it begs the question over whether some in the party have learned the lessons of the past.

Not many of the core supporters or those of the grassroots would say that this frontbench is representative of their views or interests everytime, nevertheless overthrowing this leadership, without democratic mandate from the public would come at a massive cost to the Party going forward.

What those disgruntled on the back benches must remember, before pressing the issue of a change of leadership, is the context in which David Cameron assumed the leadership.  

The Party was left toxically divided by the ruthless casting aside of Thatcher throughout the difficult years of Major’s Premiership. This disunity continued after 1997 by the rise of popularity of so called ‘New Labour’, this marginalised the Tories, especially the unfashionable Right faction of the Party, leaving us simply unelectable.

Poor choices out of a poor selection of leadership candidates simply made this part of our history even more harrowing. What David Cameron, whatever his flaws may be, picked up in 2005 was a shambles. A broken Party, broken by the best part of 20 years of disunity, infighting, scandal and perceived ‘outdated’ and ‘out of touch’ principles. What Cameron did in his years in Opposition was modernise the party, reclaim and reach out our appeal to the electorate. Cameron, with the help of the incompetence of Brown in Number 10, put the Conservative Party back on the map and this is where we must stay.

Cameron’s change in approach and claim over the Centre Ground, paved the way for our return to Government, albeit not in triumphant fashion, with the failure to secure an overall majority. This return to power paved the way for Michael Gove’s excellent education reform and Iain Duncan-Smith’s welfare changes. Cameron’s gestures of modernisation, such as ‘hug a hoodie’ , ‘liberal conservatism’, support for gay marriage and ‘Web Cameron’ made a significant difference to the Party’s image, making us again credible and appealing to the wider public.

So where has it all gone wrong for Cameron? Ultimately this stems back to a poorly presented Budget and various ministerial scandals. But these issues have had such an exacerbated effect due to frustration over the slower than expected economic recovery, making such scandals further irritable to an already agitated public and Conservative backbench. But a change in leadership now would make the matter so much worse. Again, we would be a party rife with vicious division. It would be reminiscent of the Post-Thatcher era of infighting and detachment from reality. To the public it would appear that we would have learned nothing from this forgettable episode. But we cannot forget as the only winners here would be Labour and no doubt we would again be punished by the electorate.

So how can Cameron ensure this scenario no longer threatens to become reality? This all said it is the state of the economy that really matters. Not just for the public, but to those inside his own party.

Cameron and his inner circle of “metropolitan elites” must, of course oversee an economic recovery, bought by the public. They must do this by maintaining their sense of mission in wiping out the budget deficit. But they must also successfully turn their attention to growth. All efforts must be committed to presenting a credible set of policies to bring about growth and private sector jobs. Moving Michael Fallon to the Business department is long overdue and is a masterstroke to  change public perception that this Government has growth at the top of its agenda. This would surely sooth disgruntled backbenchers.

The frontbench must also, if they can reflect backbench opinion more in Government. If they can, given that it is a Coalition, they could bring more core conservative principles and policies to the agenda. But what the Right of the party must remember is that it is the moderate Centre which has a democratic mandate, not the Right. Anything beyond this is simply party politics.

Cameron cannot be judged by his backbenchers solely by what he does in Coalition, all effort and energies must be committed to securing a landslide majority in 2015. Then, Cameron must get the balance right between appeasing the Right of the Party and staying in touch with the moderate public. Cameron’s ability to assert himself is limited inevitably, by the presence of the Liberals in the Government. How Cameron would fare as the Leader of a majority Conservative Government is a question for the Party post-2015 and not a day before.

Local Council Elections: Why only conservative policies will win back Conservative voters

Local election results are a harrowing punishment for the Coalition’s last couple of turbulent months in Government. An ineffective Labour Party under weak leadership have claimed council 713 seats, whilst the Tories have made a dramatic loss of 378 seats and surrendered the control of 12 Councils. These results are completely unacceptable for the Conservatives and such a substantial loss could have been avoided.

Those on the Left will exploit this defeat and explain it, incorrectly and misleadingly, as being allusive to the countries anger at austerity measures. This is simply not true. Every indication and poll reveals that the public do accept the need for cuts.

Rewind to this time last year in the Local council elections, despite high unemployment, hard-felt cuts and protests, The Conservatives actually made significant gains of 86 seats and 4 councils, an outstanding achievement for a party of government wielding painful cuts. This is reflective of how competent the Conservatives appeared at the time. Fast forward to this year and it’s a completely different story.

Of course the underlying reason behind this embarrassing defeat is the perceived sheer incompetence and corruption from the leadership in the national party. This all started with the poorly handled Budget in March. Alone this would probably not have proved so costly come elections, but the event was not one in isolation. This has been followed up but bleak economic forecasts and political scandal which has highlighted poor leadership. In short, the elections couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Coalition.

The Conservatives have lost touch and appeal to their traditional voters. The Tories attack on the elderly through the ‘Granny tax’, a product of a poorly presented Budget, is a betrayal of our loyal supporters.  No real Conservative government fails to look after our elderly. The truth is that many, and far too many to be politically forgiving, are disillusioned by a government that tries desperately to appease everyone and succeeds in looking after nobody whilst taking the concerns of our core voters for granted,  because this isn’t a government of principle, it has become a Government of apologists.

The support of House of Lord’s reform is a classic area over which Cameron has led the Tories into the pockets of liberals. Too conscious to appear ‘modern’, Cameron is supporting reform that will see our Upper Chamber taken control over by a bunch of career politicians, under the thumb of their leaders in the Lower Chamber. What’s more is that he and Nick Clegg want to do this without putting it to the public in a referendum. If Cameron wants to claim back our supporters then he must climb down over this policy, which conservative voters feel threatens our parliamentary democracy. This is not a Conservative policy.

Cameron and Osborne must too ease the tax burden of our supporters. The Coalition has failed to do anything to this extent. Those who earn in excess of £25,000 are substantially burdened by high tax demands. Those that earn an income of £50,000 pay a massive £15,000 of hard earned money in tax.  Under no interpretation is this a Conservative tax system. Especially during times of austerity, these policies are an unforgiving attack on our aspirational and hard-working Middle England. To ensure we don’t lose these votes to Labour again, we must not exploit them through unreasonable taxation.  

But the issue that directly affects everyone is the economy. It’s only through Ed Miliband’s weakness and Labour’s serious lack of any credibility over the economy that has seen Cameron and Osborne get off so lightly. When compared to Labour, The Coalition appears business friendly, but in reality they are not pro-business and inadequately Conservative. Osborne’s failure to see through an even lower corporation tax, as well as the top rate of income tax is sheer weakness. This is a party that got elected on a mandate that it will make the tough decisions necessary to recover the economy, yet caved in over the budget out of fear of being branded a ‘Party of millionaires’, which those who they feared would say this, did anyway.

The only threatening opposition to this Government is coming from their own Conservative back benchers and voters. Labour are up to nothing, yet are being rewarded for the Coalition’s own failure. This must be addressed before going into General election in 2015. The only small chance of Labour winning will come from Cameron throwing it away through turning away the genuine conservative vote.

Cameron has to give up the idea that he can appease the left with anything short of socialism. Third-Way social democratic policies only succeed in putting off Conservative voters and the aspirational. Desperate stunts to appear ‘modern’ are work of a party in opposition. Cameron is not in opposition anymore, he is leader of a Conservative Party in government. These Local Council results one would hope can only remind him of this. The only bit of good news is the imminent re-election of Boris as London Mayor. Whilst Boris has retained his supporters, Cameron is leading the national party away from his. This could prove very significant if Cameron’s leadership comes under threat. And it is only by listening to his voters that he will avoid a leadership challenge.