Conservative party

To say that Gavin Williamson’s appointment as Defence Secretary has received a mixed reaction is to suggest, wrongly, that there is a balance of opinion on both sides. Most Conservative MPs I have spoken to today are just shocked that someone with no departmental experience is now in charge of the biggest department of all, with some of the biggest budgetary challenges. ‘I’m not sceptical, because that would suggest I hadn’t reached a conclusion,’ said one colleague. ‘I’m appalled. He’s smarmy. He uses bad language about other people. He is not to be trusted.’ Others have no problem with Williamson himself, seeing him as one of the better whips they’ve

The Conservative Party appears rather burnt-out at the moment. At its conference – even before Theresa May’s disastrous speech – it seemed to be the Knackered Party rather than the Nasty Party that the Prime Minister herself had warned about so many years ago. But it is still in government, and desperately needs to find new ideas and reasons to exist while also negotiating Brexit and dealing with unexpected scandals, such as the allegations swirling around Westminster at the moment of impropriety from Cabinet ministers. When parties are knackered, they often find a period of opposition to be a comfort, a chance to have the sort of debate about policy

Why do politicians constantly bring plagues on their own houses? This week, the Tories have embraced the Jared O’Mara allegations with gusto, prompting Theresa May to speak about it at Prime Minister’s Questions, calling for emergency debates and writing letters about the matter. Some Labourites have been responding by pointing out that it’s highly unlikely the Tories will be entirely clear of sexists themselves. Of course, the Labour point is being deployed as whataboutery to distract from the party’s own nightmare with its Sheffield Hallam MP. But it is also true – and given there is now an appetite in the media for exposing other MPs for similar behaviour, it

If ministers are going to offer any concessions in the row over Universal Credit, they’ve decided to keep them back for a little while longer. This afternoon MPs have been holding an emergency debate on the reform, with Employment Minister Damian Hinds defending the reform and the roll-out, rather than suggesting that the government is going to accept the suggestions of Tory and Labour MPs on delayed payments. The emergency debate was called after Conservative MPs were whipped to abstain on Labour’s Opposition Day debate on the benefit reform last week. I reported after that vote that many Tories were peeved about this; either because they were in marginal seats

On the Andrew Marr show yesterday, the Communities Secretary Sajid Javid suggested that the government should ‘sensibly borrow more money’ and take advantage of the ‘record low-levels’ of interest rates in order to tackle the UK’s housing crisis. He added that the lack of affordable housing was the ‘biggest barrier to social progress in our country today’ and that such measures would go some way to re-balancing social inequality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMLiFO3CCI0&t=1s Javid’s remarks also highlighted another crisis: that of the identity of the Tory party. It is true that the UK currently faces a severe housing shortage with the number of homes being built falling far short of the 200,000 target

The talk of the Commons tearoom today is last night’s Opposition Day vote on Universal Credit. This is unusual: Opposition Day votes are non-binding and have recently been used largely for Labour to bang on about pet projects rather than hold the government’s feet to the fire. But the Opposition has sharpened up its act, and used growing Conservative concerns about the roll-out of the new benefit to good effect in yesterday’s debate. The whips had already decided that one of the ways they could make these Opposition Day debates even less politically powerful when they are operating in a minority government is to instruct all Tory MPs to abstain,

‘Worst week ever’ is one of those phrases that journalists are, perhaps, too quick to use. Alastair Campbell once quipped that if you added up all Tony Blair’s worst weeks, you got a full year. The real worry for the Tories, however, is not that last week was Theresa May’s worst ever, but that it represented the new normal. Even inside Downing Street, there are those who worry that leadership plotting and the like will continue until Mrs May leaves the building. They worry that while they are strong enough to repel the plotters — as they did so effectively this time — she isn’t powerful enough to take back

Grant Shapps isn’t the most popular man in the Tory party at the moment, but at least he has a friend to keep him company this evening. By sheer coincidence, Andrew Mitchell has long been booked to speak at the Welwyn Hatfield MP’s Conservative Association annual dinner tonight. But Mitchell is very keen not to appear to be a fellow plotter, having given a speech at the Cambridge Union last night in which he praised the Prime Minister’s ‘courage of high order’ for completing ‘what was an important and interesting speech in impossible circumstances, and I think all of us in politics should recognise that’. Speaking to Coffee House, Mitchell

Tory conference is yawning on with neither furious fights nor much evidence that anyone knows how to fix the party’s problems. The most energetic bit of it so far has been Theresa May’s round of media interviews this morning, in which the Prime Minister appeared to have been turned on to 1.5x speed as she nervously gabbled her answers and tried to sound happy. Other spots of colour come from non-MPs, such as Ruth Davidson. The hall isn’t packed, the atmosphere flat, and members and MPs look bewildered and miserable. The Tories are starting to resemble Labour at the end of its last spell in government. The party was exhausted.

Of all the difficulties Theresa May faces, the importance of denying the truth may be the most acute. There are certain things a prime minister cannot say; certain fabrications that must be insisted upon because political expedience cannot withstand too much daylight. Mrs May, then, must pretend her position is secure and that, contrary to the expectations of her party and the country, that she will lead the Conservative party at the next general election, whenever that may be. If this makes her seem modestly ridiculous then so be it; the alternatives are even worse. Even so, some fictions would be better abandoned. Last week the prime minister was asked