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| If you really want to see class war, look at the warring Tories | If you really want to see class war, look at the warring Tories |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| The year: 2010. The place: a marginal constituency in an election campaign. The scene: David Cameron, still a relatively fresh face at the top of the Conservative party, is in town to sprinkle some leaderly stardust on the local candidate. The prospective MP for Wherever-on-Sea is grateful for the boost, and has done everything to make it an agreeable day out for the boss. But when the time comes to leave, when all the flesh has been pressed and the photos called, Cameron leaves without a word of thanks or even a backward glance, his mind already on the more important thing he has to do next. | The year: 2010. The place: a marginal constituency in an election campaign. The scene: David Cameron, still a relatively fresh face at the top of the Conservative party, is in town to sprinkle some leaderly stardust on the local candidate. The prospective MP for Wherever-on-Sea is grateful for the boost, and has done everything to make it an agreeable day out for the boss. But when the time comes to leave, when all the flesh has been pressed and the photos called, Cameron leaves without a word of thanks or even a backward glance, his mind already on the more important thing he has to do next. |
| If I can still recall this episode, imagine how clearly it is etched in the mind of the MP on the receiving end of Cameron’s hauteur. Imagine also the volume of minor offences, the unreported ego‑grazings and bruised ambitions inflicted by the prime minister on his swaggering procession through the Conservative party. | If I can still recall this episode, imagine how clearly it is etched in the mind of the MP on the receiving end of Cameron’s hauteur. Imagine also the volume of minor offences, the unreported ego‑grazings and bruised ambitions inflicted by the prime minister on his swaggering procession through the Conservative party. |
| Related: 'A compromise too far': Iain Duncan Smith's resignation letter in full | Related: 'A compromise too far': Iain Duncan Smith's resignation letter in full |
| Cameron can be charming. He has natural authority. But he lacks true charisma – that rare ability some politicians have to lend someone a moment of their attention and make it feel like a personalised gift. Too often, when the prime minister looks at his MPs, they see the dial that registers their unimportance to him flickering behind his eyes. When his downfall comes, a significant part will have been played by the accumulation of those small resentments. They have built up over time like cholesterol hardening and blocking the arteries of support for the leader until one day … | |
| A graceful departure for Cameron in a style of his choosing was never likely. No prime minister in recent history has enjoyed that luxury. Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation letter may not have been primarily intended to hasten regime change – and the majority of Cameron’s MPs are still loyal to him – but it is nonetheless catalytic to that end. Its author is seasoned enough in politics to know that it would be. | A graceful departure for Cameron in a style of his choosing was never likely. No prime minister in recent history has enjoyed that luxury. Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation letter may not have been primarily intended to hasten regime change – and the majority of Cameron’s MPs are still loyal to him – but it is nonetheless catalytic to that end. Its author is seasoned enough in politics to know that it would be. |
| The departure of a senior cabinet minister in protest against government policy is a big political moment but not an extraordinary one. What makes this case exceptional is the efficiency with which it undermined both the fiscal strategy of the chancellor and the supportive moralising rhetoric of the prime minister. Duncan Smith has forced a policy shift on benefit cuts that shreds Osborne’s deficit-to-surplus arithmetic and paints the chancellor as a callous budget mathematician. | The departure of a senior cabinet minister in protest against government policy is a big political moment but not an extraordinary one. What makes this case exceptional is the efficiency with which it undermined both the fiscal strategy of the chancellor and the supportive moralising rhetoric of the prime minister. Duncan Smith has forced a policy shift on benefit cuts that shreds Osborne’s deficit-to-surplus arithmetic and paints the chancellor as a callous budget mathematician. |
| Cameron sees the planned pattern of his second term unravelling by threads pulled from inside his own party. And that is without the former work and pensions secretary even mentioning Europe. The degree to which an appetite for Brexit featured in the timing of Duncan Smith’s resignation is disputed between his friends – who insist he was motivated solely by his conscience – and supporters of No 10, who think it was paramount in a cynical calculation. | Cameron sees the planned pattern of his second term unravelling by threads pulled from inside his own party. And that is without the former work and pensions secretary even mentioning Europe. The degree to which an appetite for Brexit featured in the timing of Duncan Smith’s resignation is disputed between his friends – who insist he was motivated solely by his conscience – and supporters of No 10, who think it was paramount in a cynical calculation. |
| Maybe even he doesn’t know for sure. Europe is now the thing that Tory arguments are about, even when they are arguing about something else. The enmity that simmered for so long and was then heated to a boil in the crucible of impending referendum has turned to a fine vapour in the atmosphere of the party. MPs breathe it. Droplets of euro-toxin condense on every surface. | |
| Duncan Smith rejects suggestions of an ulterior Brexit motive with convincing passion, yet No 10 still notes the overlap between MPs hastening to praise the mutineer and those who want to leave the EU. Contained within that set in Downing Street’s Venn diagram of troop loyalty is the group that has never much liked Cameron as leader, and hates the idea of Osborne as successor. | Duncan Smith rejects suggestions of an ulterior Brexit motive with convincing passion, yet No 10 still notes the overlap between MPs hastening to praise the mutineer and those who want to leave the EU. Contained within that set in Downing Street’s Venn diagram of troop loyalty is the group that has never much liked Cameron as leader, and hates the idea of Osborne as successor. |
| The resignation was not a shot fired from some Brexiteer battleship moored on the Thames, signalling open rebellion, nor was it a spontaneous, isolated act. It was a symptom of longstanding frustration that created an opportunity for sabotage. It appealed to a section of the party that has amassed a store of resentment against the “Camborne” machine – MPs who dislike the prime minister and the chancellor’s style of politics, their arrogance, their coterie-building, cliques and parliamentary game‑playing, their lack of purpose beyond power, which they wield with the reckless abandon of a rich gambler. | |
| There is always an element of class war in Tory civil strife, but not in the abstract way that the left posits a systemic economic rivalry between social strata. Class shines through Conservative politics in the mistrust that self-made, grammar-school boys (and it is still mostly boys) feel towards the indolent public-schooled sons of privilege (and it is mostly sons). It is not conflict painted in the primary colours of Marx, but rather in the subtle shades of social tension captured in the best British sitcoms: priggish Captain Mainwaring bristling at dissolute Sergeant Wilson in Dad’s Army; Colonel Melchett not remembering the names of men he sends to certain death on the western front in Blackadder goes Forth. | There is always an element of class war in Tory civil strife, but not in the abstract way that the left posits a systemic economic rivalry between social strata. Class shines through Conservative politics in the mistrust that self-made, grammar-school boys (and it is still mostly boys) feel towards the indolent public-schooled sons of privilege (and it is mostly sons). It is not conflict painted in the primary colours of Marx, but rather in the subtle shades of social tension captured in the best British sitcoms: priggish Captain Mainwaring bristling at dissolute Sergeant Wilson in Dad’s Army; Colonel Melchett not remembering the names of men he sends to certain death on the western front in Blackadder goes Forth. |
| There is always an element of class war in Tory civil strife | There is always an element of class war in Tory civil strife |
| In that context, an intriguing role in the current series of the Tory comedy‑drama is played by Boris Johnson. If MPs resent being led by a conceited old Etonian with elastic principles, driven by no creed more honourable than a sense of his own entitlement to be prime minister, it is not obvious that the solution is another old Etonian with the same flaws less tidily arranged. | In that context, an intriguing role in the current series of the Tory comedy‑drama is played by Boris Johnson. If MPs resent being led by a conceited old Etonian with elastic principles, driven by no creed more honourable than a sense of his own entitlement to be prime minister, it is not obvious that the solution is another old Etonian with the same flaws less tidily arranged. |
| For that reason Johnson’s ambitions are viewed by some MPs with contempt. But he is also a special case: a character actor who, say his fans, can transcend class. He is the one potential Tory leader who is obviously more popular in the country than the incumbent, which makes him valuable to the rebel tendency. He can wean moderate Conservatives off the idea that Cameron is their talismanic election-winner. Whether Johnson ends up prevailing in a leadership contest is immaterial as long his ebullient, buccaneering Brexitism makes enough MPs more comfortable imagining life after Dave. | For that reason Johnson’s ambitions are viewed by some MPs with contempt. But he is also a special case: a character actor who, say his fans, can transcend class. He is the one potential Tory leader who is obviously more popular in the country than the incumbent, which makes him valuable to the rebel tendency. He can wean moderate Conservatives off the idea that Cameron is their talismanic election-winner. Whether Johnson ends up prevailing in a leadership contest is immaterial as long his ebullient, buccaneering Brexitism makes enough MPs more comfortable imagining life after Dave. |
| That is what makes Duncan Smith’s resignation so damaging. It was not just the content but the tone: aggrieved and exasperated. It wasn’t an objection to benefit cuts or craving for Brexit that shook the foundations of the government. It was the sound of a man who had just had enough of the “Camborne” era, and the way that his quiet voice carried across the Tory benches suggested he was not alone. | That is what makes Duncan Smith’s resignation so damaging. It was not just the content but the tone: aggrieved and exasperated. It wasn’t an objection to benefit cuts or craving for Brexit that shook the foundations of the government. It was the sound of a man who had just had enough of the “Camborne” era, and the way that his quiet voice carried across the Tory benches suggested he was not alone. |