Who’ll win the Tories’ succession feud? Don’t bet against Theresa May
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Version 0 of 1. In these in-between days when no amount of leftover sherry can quell occasional blips of worry about how 2015 will turn out, spare a thought for those edgy souls in the Tory premier league. They head towards an election they should be poised to win, but remain unsure of bagging. Superficial confidence is dogged by concern that Mr Cameron has not yet clinched a deal with the electorate that will see him back in Number 10 next May. The uncertainty has led to simmering hostilities between pretenders to the Tory crown. An unfestive feud has been under way between the Conservatives’ Dancing Queen, Theresa May, and George Osborne, whose declared musical preference is the Norwegian synthpop ensemble A-Ha. It takes all sorts. When Mrs May, who cultivates a stern aura as home secretary, told Desert Island Discs that she is part of “the Abba generation” and chose its torch song as her favourite, she was not merely conjuring up a diverting vision of herself grooving to Scandi-pop in kitten heels. She was differentiating herself from the modernising “jam generation” of David Cameron and the chancellor, who emerged from his university chrysalis in the early 1990s – as well as the ambitious neophytes of Generation 2010, led by Sajid Javid. The Abba reference conjures up many things for MPs and activists casting an interested eye on Mrs May’s ambitions, not least the tastes of a generation. Mrs May is 58: old enough to appeal to many Tories who feel that the trend towards younger party leaders has landed them with a ruling class too close to metropolitan elites and not close enough to the hearts of minds of Conservatives tempted by Ukip. She also benefits from being a classless presence (by Tory standards) at a time when the posh boy atmosphere has not helped some reputations. A product of mixed private and state schooling with a technocratic background as a consultant, she has done the slog of heading a local government education committee in south London on her way to political glory. The contrast with the gilded sorts who floated into plum seats through connections and a stint in the Conservative Research Department is self-evident. The home secretary is now considered seriously enough as a contender for people to seek to stop her. But she has, one cabinet member notes, “the fundamental requisites for a senior politician – a thick hide and boldness”. That is attested by her performance as the longest-serving home secretary for 50 years and has been achieved with ruthlessness, not least in the heaving overboard of senior officials over border control mess-ups and passport backlogs. For good measure, Mrs May has added a zealous focus on immigration, all-out opposition to the Human Rights Act and a full-frontal attack earlier this year on the Police Federation. An outbreak of Mayan worship is now under way, with support ranging from women in the centre of the party (Maria Miller, Caroline Spelman) to hardline rightwingers who cheer her uncompromising toughness. The belief that Mrs May is on a popularity quest irks both George Osborne and David Cameron. “They locked her up at the Home Office, but she escaped while they weren’t looking,” quips a Mayan ally. More reasonably, Mr Osborne is heading a campaign strategy based on the economy as the dividing line with Ed Miliband’s deficit-dodging Labour party. Mrs May has thus been urged to play down her securocratic triumphs and return to backing the core message of growth and the economy. Pro forma, that is likely to happen from January. Mrs May is too seasoned to disrupt the pre-campaign period. But that is why she has staked out her distinctive territory well in advance. At worst, her vision is parochial – the latest notion of addressing migration figures by clamping down on how long foreign-born graduates can remain in the country is a prime example. The Economist ran a piece a couple of years ago lambasting Mrs May’s ruse of reducing student visas to hit immigration targets, denouncing the ploy as part of “the Tories’ barmiest policy”. Now the home secretary has refined the idea still further – to keep out foreign graduates who enjoy being in Britain, have paid tuition fees to come here when they could go somewhere else and can contribute richly to our knowledge-based economy. This is a super-barmy policy. But Mrs May does not care. She is searching for an approach to lure the more rational among the Farage-inclined to return to the Conservative fold if not before the election, then under a new leader after it. The woman who once described Iain Duncan Smith as leading a “nasty” party is prepared to take the risk of hammering home something not dissimilar: a punitive message on human rights and incomers. She is not the only senior figure mulling the nature of life after Dave. But when and how that comes about will influence who succeeds to the crown. If Mr Cameron has to move his designer sofas out of Number 10 in 2015, it will be seen as an outright defeat for those associated with the Tory modernising project and, as one prominent cabinet supporter of the chancellor puts it, “a thumbs-down for suave, self-confident west Londoners”. That would include Mr Osborne. His chances of succession are, however, considerably higher if Mr Cameron wins power again, holds a referendum on Europe and brings home a “yes” vote before standing down. Admittedly, such an event would be preceded by a political bushtucker trial in the party, flushing out the sundry tensions, aversions and pathologies the European topic throws up. But if Mr Cameron does contrive to pull off a second term and a referendum win, those closely associated with him will have the wind in their sails and have vindicated the modernisers’ cause. In such a scenario, Mrs May would look more like a throwback and either Mr Osborne or his protege, the clever – if slightly chilly – Sajid Javid, better bets. Behind these deliberations lie dormant questions of Tory ideology, which the party sought to avoid in choosing Mr Cameron, a leader of utilitarian temper and mutable instincts. A successor will not have the luxury of this chameleonic approach, which many in the Conservative ranks find frustrating or unconvincing. Hence the attempts now by contenders to delineate themselves more sharply. Increasingly, Mr Osborne’s emphasis is on trying to work out a future for Britain in an era of advancing globalisation. True, the chancellor is as fretful as any other Tory about the impact of immigration on public opinion. But like that of his lieutenant, the chief whip Michael Gove, his approach is essentially that of a classic economic liberal rather than the creator of a fortress Britain. “You would not catch George defining success by how many talented people he kept out,” notes one backbench supporter. These divisions on the top team have been bridged or, rather, fudged under Mr Cameron. But they are waiting to break out once the succession battles commences. They are not only about big beliefs, but also vital arithmetic on the Tory benches that will one day help decide which of only two selected leadership candidates will go forward to the membership voting round. That explains why two of Mrs May’s aides were kept off the candidate list in December on a technicality, despite her vocal backing. Outraged Mayan loyalists blame Mr Osborne, who has quietly built up a large circle of MPs and candidates who owe him favours – and who intends to keep the balance that way. Where do these unseasonal machinations this leave the great insider-outsider, Boris Johnson? Hopeful, but not yet secure of his big chance. The MPs being fought over in the proxy war between Mrs May and Mr Osborne are the constituency so far least convinced by Mr Johnson’s exuberant charms. Like the other charismatic leadership hopefuls of yore, Michael Portillo and Michael Heseltine, Boris has great gifts and enthusiastic grassroots support. Like them, he has not yet found a reliable means of translating these virtues into the favour and votes of MPs. A starring role in the campaign might well help – but the great showman can ill afford to turn the 2015 election campaign into a Festival of Boris. The mayor, the chancellor and the home secretary will thus spend the countdown to the 2015 vote regarding each other with all the trust and affection of warring mafia bosses. At stake is the kind of Tory party that will emerge from the Dave years – and who gets to call the shots in it. This New Year’s Eve Mrs May must surely have The Winner Takes it All in her 1980s collection of well-loved Abba singles. The evidence already points to her knowing it off by heart. |