Top Tories lay plans for their leadership bids as Boris waits in the wings
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Version 0 of 1. As the economy was emerging from recession in October 2012, David Cameron taunted Ed Miliband in the Commons. "Every bit of good news sends that team into decline," he said as he glared at the opposition leader "but I can tell him the good news is going to keep coming." At 12.30pm on Wednesday George Osborne will take up the theme as he delivers his fifth budget as chancellor. "Growth up, jobs up, inflation down," he will declare in so many words. After Osborne's "omnishambles" budget of 2012 – with its pasty taxes and charity taxes heightening a sense that he was incompetent and out of his depth – no Tory expected things to be this good two years on. The economy is now set fair. Osborne wanders round Westminster telling friends he has won the economic argument with Ed Balls. "All this should be perfect for us," says a senior Tory MP. "We have a year to go to the election and have a great story to tell. All we need is to button up and get behind the prime minister, to show unity and discipline." But the same MP is furious that in the last few days the Conservatives have shown neither. He and others are tearing their hair out at an outbreak of leadership plotting and backstabbing at the top. They can't believe that after years of taking flak for austerity on doorsteps, senior figures are at one another's throats, apparently jostling for position in case the Tories fail to win a majority in 2015 and Cameron has to go. The party seems gripped by fear. A series of briefings and resulting stories splashed over Tory papers, MPs say, show Osborne, Cameron and Michael Gove are clearly out to stop Boris Johnson seizing the crown when the prime minister goes. "It is all about stopping Boris," one senior figure says. Charles Walker, vice-chairman of the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers, is so angry about the plots that he told the Observer those involved, directly and indirectly, were harming their careers and should stop at once. "We have a prime minister. There is not a vacancy. There is a general election in a year and there are a lot of people out there who want to know what our party is going to do for them," he said. "I don't think that this reflects well on any of the participants and perhaps if they continue it will lead to them being disqualified as serious contenders in future. If this is being promoted by senior secretaries of state it puts a serious question mark over their judgment." The main players in the plotting, MPs say, are supporters of Osborne who believe their man has proved himself and think they have to plan now to stop Johnson supplanting him, in case there is a vacancy after the election. Gove is claiming not to be interested in the leadership himself, which is what ambitious politicians often say. His main aim, it is said, is also to help Osborne and stop Johnson, but he is keeping himself very much in the mix. On Saturday the education secretary, who recently announced that he will send his oldest child to a state school, attacked the "preposterous" and "ridiculous" preponderance of Old Etonians at the top of government in what was seen as another attempt to discredit Johnson. But it was hardly helpful to Cameron, his contemporary at Eton, either. Another tip for the top, home secretary Theresa May, ploughs quietly on at the Home Office, watching the boys scrap it out as she becomes the bookmakers' favourite. There is also speculation about one of the younger education ministers, Liz Truss. Westminster is alive with the Tory gossip. Last week the Spectator stirred the pot when it reported that Gove had denounced Johnson as unsuitable as a future leader at a dinner with Rupert Murdoch. No 10, it is also said, has authorised Gove to "sink his teeth" into the mayor of London at every opportunity. Devious plans have been laid to get Johnson to say whether he wants to return to parliament before the election. The idea that he could come back as party chairman has been floated. On the surface it looks reasonable and sensible. Cameron, Osborne and Gove want to draw him back to parliament so his "Heineken" qualities (he can reach the parts of the electorate others can't) can help them at the election. But MPs – and supporters of Johnson – see an ulterior motive. "It is obvious what they are up to," says one senior MP. "They want to get Boris in to help them, and if he does come back and we win so much the better. But if we fail they know his hands will be dipped in blood too. He will be tainted by defeat. It is about ensuring that Boris is not someone who can just ride to our rescue after the election untainted." The flurry of briefings and stories has left Johnson "perplexed", according to his inner circle. But MPs who claim to know his real feelings say he is incandescent. An MP who sympathises with Johnson said: "Those who are doing the briefing are behaving like a bunch of children. It is all got up by people who think they are helping Osborne. I think what they are trying to do is discredit Boris by suggesting he is keeping quiet about his intentions because he is up to manoeuvres. Boris is outraged. He doesn't want anything to do with it. They are trying to drag him into a briefing war." Osborne's team denies any attempt to do down Johnson and, according to one source, the chancellor had a group of those he thought might have been freelancing on his behalf into his office recently and told them to "shut the fuck up". But the conversation has begun – in fact, it is beginning to dominate – and damage to morale and unity has already been done. Another senior party figure said: "It is like a pantomime. It undermines Cameron's authority. It makes it look like his premiership is already over. It is absurd." But other Tories are less prepared simply to rally uncritically to the cause and don't mind looking into their crystal balls. Some members of the 2010 intake, much of which feels ignored by Cameron, say minds are turning to who will be the next leader because Labour is still ahead in the polls and the Tories are depressed. "It's not that people are beginning to think 'Let's get rid of Cameron'. It's that people are looking at the likely outcome of next year's election, and for the Conservatives to get a majority is a very, very tall order," said one source. "It looks like there's going to be another mushy minestrone of a coalition. Factions are forming because people want clarity and Boris is all about clarity." Cameron remains disliked by many Tory MPs for failing to win outright in 2010 and ending up in coalition with the Lib Dems. Many say he can't survive if he fails to win an overall majority for a second time. "We cannot have a leader after the next election who has failed to win us a majority twice," says another senior figure in the 1922 committee. In the Opinium/Observer poll Labour is five points ahead of the Tories, enough for a sizable Miliband majority. In Downing Street they were hoping that kind of lead would have narrowed or been wiped out by now. Labour is crowing at Tory divisions and plots, saying the Conservatives are a party that believes it will lose the election. To most Tory MPs, leadership plotting may be unwelcome, but so long as Johnson's intentions are undeclared it will remain. Paul Goodman, editor of the influential website ConservativeHome, says that the longer Johnson delays a decision about his intentions – whether he wants to return to parliament before or after the next election – "the more destabilising it will prove for the Conservative election campaign. They thus need to be resolved by the autumn's party conference at the latest. If they aren't, there's a risk it will turn into a Boris circus." For those already in parliament, such as Osborne and May, and possibly Gove, the route to launching a challenge when Cameron goes is uncomplicated. For Johnson, however, the road is far more hazardous to negotiate. He has to get back into parliament first and, if that is before the next election, it must not look like an act of brazen disloyalty to Cameron that would risk torpedoing the Tory campaign. Some MPs say it is impossible for Johnson to return before the election as the campaign would turn into a giant "Boris fest". "Can you imagine the paparazzi? It would be a complete farce and all about Boris," says one. In practice, however, Johnson may try to do just that. There is nothing to stop him serving out his term as mayor until 2016 while also being an MP for the final year. There is a precedent. After the 2000 mayoral election, Ken Livingstone remained the MP for Brent East until 2001. Johnson has definitively ruled out standing in any byelection before 2015 but not, his aides make clear, if a safe seat were to fall vacant in 2015 in the weeks before an election. In these late cases a special speedy selection process could kick in and Johnson could take a seat less obtrusively than in a full-blown byelection. The alternative for Johnson is not to go for it before the election and find a seat afterwards. But if the Tories then lose and Cameron quits, Johnson would not be in place for a leadership contest. "Cameron would just go like that hoping to hand it on a plate to his mate George," says one Johnson enthusiast. "He would not hang around waiting for Boris of all people. That is the problem for Boris with delay." There is a view in some quarters of the party, however, that any leadership contest without Johnson – soon after the election – would be invalid as the prince over the water would not be present, so some way would have to be found to delay it. "The danger is that some people who want him would not accept the outcome and we could end up in nightmare territory having another contest later in the parliament, triggered by MPs who wanted him there all along," said a senior Tory. Johnson's friends insist he has not yet made up his mind what to do and point to his recent comment about picking up the ball from the back of the scrum when it comes loose to emphasise that he will pounce at the right moment. Meanwhile, Tory MPs wait and hope – and regret that they agreed to introduce five-year fixed-term parliaments which has left the party with a year in which there is not much to do except fear the worst and plot. "Why did Labour back a five-year fixed term?" asks one Tory. "Because they knew that for the last year we'd have run out of things to do and they would have us on the spit. That's what is happening." |