Conservative party

Water cannons at the ready: the Tory leadership contest is officially underway. How does Mr S know this? Well, in a clear sign that George Osborne means business, he has changed his Twitter profile picture. Osborne is now in Conservative blue, offering a confident grin as he embarks on his campaign to move into Number 10. The new photo also displays a slimline Osborne in contrast to the old photo, which depicted a more laid back Chancellor. While Mr S will of course keep readers updated as Boris Johnson and Theresa May develop their online presences, Steerpike can't help wonder why Osborne didn't opt for this week's cover image of Octo-Osborne...

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/theosbornesupremacy/media.mp3" title="Isabel Hardman and George Parker discus how George Osborne rules Westminster" startat=38] Listen [/audioplayer]Against the heavy artillery fire of the Labour leadership battle, the struggle of the Conservative leadership contest goes almost undetected outside Westminster. It is no less intense, even though the Conservatives will not elect a new leader for at least three years. After a week of the parliamentary recess, there is no question about who is winning. This week, for the first time, George Osborne overtook Boris Johnson as William Hill’s favourite. Not so long ago, Osborne was a mere limpet on David Cameron’s wetsuit, clinging on thanks to the patronage of his boss.

There are few quicker ways to annoy an MP than to suggest that they are on holiday when the House of Commons isn’t sitting. Such a suggestion will be met with a tetchy and immediate list of the constituency work they are doing in recess. This week, however, marks the start of the first summer break since the election, so the honourable members should perhaps feel entitled to a rest. Indeed, most MPs who aren’t engaged in a leadership contest will be taking one. As they sink into their deckchairs, they will have plenty to think about. The election might only have been two and a half months ago, but the dynamics of this parliament have changed, utterly. Elections will return soon enough. There will be a Scottish Parliament vote and a London mayoral contest next spring.

Tory MPs are currently hearing from Lynton Crosby at a special meeting of the 1922 Committee on his election victory. Many of them are wryly amused that they are having to applaud a campaign that they found restrictive, uninspiring and negative - and which they think relied on Alex Salmond as a bogeyman, not the Tories’ own appeal in order to win the election. But they will be applauding the Wizard of Oz nonetheless today because whether or not he did, as he claims, know all along that the party would win the election outright, he did run a campaign that led to an election win, and there’s not much point in arguing with that.

Grant Shapps has been given a second ministerial post at the Foreign Office this afternoon in which I understand is part of a rather apologetic rehabilitation process for the minister, who was brutally demoted in the reshuffle. Shapps lost his Cabinet post after allegations that he edited his own Wikipedia page and that of his rivals, and after he 'over-firmly denied' that he had continued to do a second job while working as an MP. The first problem has now been cleared up after an internal Wikipedia investigation found against the editor who had accused Shapps of the 'sock puppet' edits to his profile.

The SNP's 56 MPs will vote against relaxing the hunting ban on Wednesday, the party has announced. The party's stance was decided at a meeting of the party this evening, with the SNP saying it is 'right' that the party 'assert the Scottish interest on fox hunting by voting against the Tories' proposals to relax the ban'. There are only 90 minutes to debate the measure on Wednesday, but inevitably some of that precious time will be taken up with MPs asking what the 'Scottish interest' on this matter is. What this means now, as I explained earlier, is that the measure is likely to fail. It is one thing to get 285 MPs in favour, but the SNP's numbers added to the 260 or so MPs who will vote against the measure make it very difficult for the pro-hunting camp.

Those in favour of more housebuilding in this country like to tell the story of Winston Churchill’s deal with Harold Macmillan in which the Prime Minister told his housing minister to meet the Tory target of building 300,000 new homes. ‘It is a gamble - it will make or mar your political career,’ Churchill told Macmillan. Well, Macmillan hit the target a year early, and we all know what happened to his political career. Given George Osborne was clearly thinking about the implications for his own career of this week’s Budget, it is perhaps hardly surprising that housing plays a strong part. The Chancellor has today announced plans to get more homes built in this country, and these ‘sweeping’ changes form the second half of the Budget.

With the press pack out in full force today to cover George Osborne's budget, one photographer's day has got off to a bad start. As Cabinet ministers Nicky Morgan and Amber Rudd left a pre-Budget Cabinet meeting this morning, they were greeted by a photographer who shouted 'morning girls'. While the snapper managed to win the 42-year-old Education Secretary's attention he may wish he hadn't. Morgan replied incredulously: 'Girls?! Girls?!,' before wagging her finger at him. [caption id="attachment_9183352" align="alignright" width="510"] (Credit: ITV News)[/caption] Next time Mr S suggests it's best to address the ladies by their names.

When Bill Clinton was asked if he had ever smoked marijuana he uttered the infamous cop-out that he had smoked it but had not inhaled. David Cameron’s position on hunting has been similar. He cannot deny that he once rode to hounds with his friends in the beautiful English countryside where he spends weekends. But he has never said much about the experience other than it was terribly challenging to stay on the horse. Rather than saying ‘I enjoyed it’, he has always been careful to give the impression that hunting was going on around him, so he did it, and he survived to tell the tale. But he didn’t inhale, so to speak.

Few European leaders have been luckier than David Cameron. First he was sent Ed Miliband. Now events in Greece may be about to present him with a solution to the thorniest problem of his second term: how to negotiate a new form of EU membership for Britain that the Tory party can rally behind come the referendum. The Prime Minister’s critics delight in claiming that his European problem is of his own making. Two years ago, he promised a referendum on EU membership before the end of 2017. But he couldn’t have survived without making such a pledge. It was his way of stopping his party arguing about Europe; without it, he could not have gone into the election claiming that he led a united party.

Despite the government planning £12bn worth of welfare cuts, it's still a case of no expense spared when it comes to Tory parties. Last night the Conservative Party Summer Party was held at the Hurlingham. The lavish bash saw the Tories celebrate their return to government with their rich donors, who in turn volunteered hundreds of thousands of pounds for a number of lots, including a copy of the EdStone: Although the event was supposed to be private, Mr S's colleague Fraser Nelson was on hand to report back on the lavish bash. He writes about the do in his diary in the forthcoming issue of The Spectator: 'Mind you, nothing much embarrasses the Conservatives nowadays.