A Few Early Thoughts on the New Government
As we strive to absorb the true meaning of Mrs May���s reshuffle, please bear in mind that the Foreign Office is nothing like as big a department as it once was, having been dwarfed many years ago by Downing Street���s increasing power over foreign policy. The building is grand, the Foreign Secretary���s personal office enormous, but how many key Cabinet committees will he sit on? Also consider that the new ���Minister for Brexit��� is the one who will have to depart if the negotiations go wrong. (Picture the scene, two years hence, ��� I am so sorry, David, but it was after all you who were committed to this goal, and you had my full backing - but as it is���..���)
Optimism and gullibility are poor tools in politics. The real power in the May regime lies among her clever and astute special advisers, especially Fiona Hill (formerly Cunningham, famously involved in a row with Michael Gove which ended in tears and for which Mr Gove ���who forced the resignation of Ms Cunningham in 2014 is presumably now paying the price). There is also Nick Timothy, who probably crafted her campaign launch and doorstep speeches, and Stephen Parkinson. All of these will now have to learn to live with the Downing Street civil servants, who may be a good deal tougher to deal with than the Home Office officials they have up till now been working with.
Even so, these people are brilliant professional politicians, and , having turned Mrs May into a Prime Minister, they can presumably ensure that much of the media continue to treat her as if she really is an effective one. This will last until hostile objective facts eventually beat their way past the famous gates of Downing Street, especially the dire state of the economy.
But the general spirit of Mrs May���s government is demonstrated by her appointment to prominent and important active ministries of bland figures such as Amber Rudd, Jeremy Hunt, Liz Truss and Justine Greening, people who (like Chancellor Philip Hammond) have no recognisable politics and could easily be mistaken for Liberal Democrats or New Labourites. So, of course, could Mrs May. How funny it is that she is now being described approvingly in conservative media as a ���grammar school girl��� a fact she did her best to keep obscure, by leaving it out of her entries in Who���s Who and Dod���s Parliamentary Companion. Imagine what would have been said of Andrea Leadsom had she done this ( keeping unimportant facts out of her CV, no doubt). Had I not pursued several newspapers to set the record straight on this (I have done the same for the TUC leader Frances O���Grady) , I suspect the half-truth, that she attended a comprehensive, would be the standard story.
Very soon, she must turn her attention to the frightful state of the economy, handed over to her by Messrs Cameron and Osborne and bafflingly reported as a success by so many in my trade. And she must consider the crazy waste of money which is HS2, and the even crazier waste of money which is Trident submarine replacement, a weapon designed for a war that ended 25 years ago, against a country that no longer exists. Not to mention the strange, grandiose plans to make London���s airports even bigger and noisier If she is as bold as all the sycophants say, she will reject all these. There are much better ways of spending the money.
Oh, and before I go, some of you will recall an edition of Question Time in which I explained David Cameron's enthusiasm for same-sex marriage (if such it was) by the fact that he hated his own party. This was greeted with incredulity by David Dimbleby. But was he right to be incredulous?
The prominent journalist Ian Birrell, who has also worked as a speechwriter for Mr Cameron,wrote the other day in the Guardian :
'Shortly after David Cameron���s election as Conservative leader, we were throwing around ideas to underscore his determination to change the party. None seemed to excite much enthusiasm. ���Have you not got anything that will annoy the right a bit more?��� he asked. Such was the mood in his early days, driven by his fierce desire to plant the Tory flag firmly on the centre ground and stop ���banging on��� about Europe.'
Well, I think my point is made. The whole article is here
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