The Guardian view on Tory leadership plotting

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/22/guardian-view-on-tory-leadership-plotting

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By comparison with his predecessors, David Cameron’s prime ministership has been untroubled. The factional plotting which dominated the premierships of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown has been mostly absent. The backbench defiance of the leader which finally brought Margaret Thatcher down and drained John Major’s authority have barely featured. Only once, in early 2013, was there a brief sense that Mr Cameron’s position was under threat; but the Adam Afriyie challenge was predictably and rightly seen off. In defiance of some expectations, coalition with the Liberal Democrats has actually made Mr Cameron’s position more, not less, secure.

Yet dislike of coalition also means the Conservatives are discontented with Mr Cameron. His good public ratings, especially compared with Ed Miliband, count for little in sections of the party. Many backbenchers feel ignored and make party management difficult by frequent rebellion. Such Tories believe, wrongly, that a different leader could have won an overall majority in 2010.

This anti-Cameron minority expects to get stronger at the election. The combined effect of the disaffection and the attempts to see it off means the Tory party is almost as alive with leadership speculation today as Labour was in the last parliament. This ought not to be any source of comfort. All those Tories who currently spend so much time plotting for the post-Cameron leadership election have taken their eye off the ball. They seem to be more interested in the party than in government. The rules of the Tory process, under which MPs choose the two candidates between whom party members then decide, contribute a lot to this mood. With a general election so imminent, however, it is not clever. Theresa May has not actually said she intends to run for the leadership if there is a contest. However, along with George Osborne, Owen Paterson and Boris Johnson, she is clearly one of those who may do so. Some surveys make her the front-runner. But Mrs May needs to be careful not to squander the political capital she has built up as home secretary by pressing too hard too soon. She has managed to mislay her ministerial judgment on too many issues of late, most recently in her proposal for expelling foreign students once they complete their courses, a daft idea whose effect would be to further deter the overseas students on whom UK universities often depend and from whose expertise this country’s economy can benefit. But Mrs May’s rivals should stop overreacting too. Their pettiness about candidate selection processes is at least as bad for the party as the home secretary’s occasional clumsiness.

Politics is a team sport played by intensely competitive individuals. Expecting an ambitious politician to stop thinking about the next main chance is like trying to persuade a piranha to hang loose when there is blood in the water. One of the permanent realities of British politics is that ministers and their shadows – look at Andy Burnham – are always positioning themselves for the next opportunity, and responding to today’s crises with an eye on how they will play in the next act of the drama. Yet the team matters too. No one wins an election without one.