IT’S quite a crush when David Cameron’s Shadow Cabinet meets – a real knee-rubbing experience. To blame the squash on the large-if-jovial Tory chair Eric Pickles is unfair, although he does occupy more space than a regular human. Equally, the return of Kenneth Clarke, a politician who requires industrial strength buttons to keep his gut shirted, hasn’t helped. But the reason it’s such a squeeze is that Cameron has appointed what must rank as the biggest Shadow Cabinet in recent political history.
A total of 32 MPs and peers are officially designated members of an officially recognised body which is getting on for almost as half as big again as the real thing.
No sooner will the tea lady finish pouring , it’ll be time to start again – and the frontline Tory team just keeps on expanding. How did Cameron appease Europhobes frothing at the mouth over the resurrection of Europhile Clarke as Shadow Business Secretary? He promoted Eurosceptic Essex boy Mark Francois to the Shadow Cabinet.
This table must be the least exclusive in Westminster when all invited to attend gather round, with meetings destined to last longer than an hour if the Tory leader lets each put in their two minutes’ worth. Whether anyone sitting there listens to a nonentity such as the Shadow Scottish Secretary, that giant on the Westminster stage, David Mundell, isn’t difficult to guess. Yet a member he is by dint of being the sole Scottish Tory MP.
In the spirit of the Old Etonian’s quest to present himself as an everyday chap, the four peers Cameron includes shed their titles in the party’s list to be Thomas instead of Lord Strathclyde, Pauline rather than Lady Neville-Jones.
Yet the influence of the Shadow Cabinet is the inverse of its size. Tony Blair marginalised Labour’s Shadow Cabinet – a practice he continued when the Labour Cabinet met in Downing Street.
Gordon Brown has breathed new life into the system – one of those present recalling a real ding-dong over Heathrow Airport’s third runway of a kind that would grace Tony Benn’s diaries. Cameron is once again copying Labour in opposition and running the Conservative Party through a tiny a clique.
Peter Mandelson’s chum George Osborne remains in the inner circle, despite learning the hard way why no one in the Labour Party goes on holiday with the prince of darkness. Also there is education spokesman Michael Gove, a former Times journalist who has a sharp wit. And there is, of course, William Hague, anointed to deputise for Cameron without the formal title of Tory deputy leader. Greg Clarke, the low-profile energy spokesman, can legitimately claim to have Cameron’s ear, but the rest are makeweights.
I suspect most voters, and a fair few card-carrying Tories, would be unable to name many and Cameron appearing a one-man band is a potential weakness for the Conservative leader.
Back in 1997, Labour had nine reasonably substantial, relatively well known figures: Blair, Brown, John Prescott, Mo Mowlam, Margaret Beckett, Robin Cook, Clare Short, David Blunkett and Jack Straw (not to mention Peter Mandelson, Alastair Campbell, Ed Balls and Charlie Whelan).
The only Tories the public might recognise are Cameron, Hague, Ken Clarke and (for negative reasons) Osborne. That’s hardly an Opposition team to set pulses racing, no matter how many bodies are packed into the Shadow Cabinet room.
Knock Cameron off his bike and the Tories will wobble.
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AS A rule of thumb, I stop reading newspaper stories if I come across a quote from the right-wing Taxpayers’ Alliance, because it signals lazy journalism – a hack unable to find a MP to say something daft ringing the rent-a-quote mob.
So I greatly enjoyed an online spat this week between Derek “Dolly” Draper and a guy called Matthew Elliott who parades as chief executive of the organisation. The group, whose prominent members include a couple of truly frightening people who quit the Tory Party because – get this – it wasn’t sufficiently free market, detests public services and seems to want no one to be a taxpayer, so the alliance bit is superfluous.
Draper stuck it to them on his promising labourlist.org by highlighting its mealy-mouthed approach to corporations dodging tax, exposed in a fine series of pieces in The Guardian. Draper accusing the right-wingers of giving a green light to tax avoiders. The angry squeals signalled that he drew blood. Richard Murphy of the estimable taxresearch.org.uk argued a while back that he’d trade fewer press reports for credibility any day. “There is no one of any credibility in Government or Opposition in our Parliament”, said Murphy, “who takes the Taxpayers’ Alliance seriously. Thankfully.”
Alas, a few nutters do take it seriously. But Draper showed these right-wing outfits don’t like to be challenged. They’ve had an easy ride in the mainstream media for too long and it’s time to go on the attack. In the unforgettable words of Lance Corporal Jones: “They don’t like it up ‘em”. Fix bayonets and let battle commence.
