Uk politics

The most damaging element of Lord Lawson's intervention on Europe in today's Times is not so much his decision that the facts have changed and that he would vote to leave the European Union in a post-2015 referendum, but his lack of faith in David Cameron's ability to secure any notable reforms. He writes: 'We have been here before. He is following faithfully in the footsteps of Harold Wilson almost 40 years ago. The changes that Wilson was able to negotiate were so trivial that I doubt if anyone today can remember what they were. But he was able to secure a 2-1 majority for the 'in' vote in the 1975 referendum. 'I have no doubt that any changes that Mr Cameron - or, for that matter, Ed Miliband - is able to secure will be equally inconsequential.

The government's decision to delay signing off the Royal Charter for press regulation was initially heralded as a dramatic change of heart, before being re-sold by those involved in the process as just a box-ticking exercise to avoid legal action. Either way, there is a growing noise not just about the rival charters now on offer, but also about the way the government's deal was brought before parliament. Shami Chakrabarti's disquiet over the proposals was widely picked up at the weekend. But there is also a growing unease in the Conservative party about the way Parliament voted on the legislative aspects of the new plan at such short notice. 'We were bounced into it,' one MP told me recently. 'If we'd had time to think about it, there would have been uproar.

The dust is settling from the County Council elections and, crucially, the Tory party seems to have stayed steady. Yes, David Davis has had a pop at the number of Old Etonians surrounding the PM and 20 MPs have called for a mandate referendum. But there is no sense of mass panic or revolt. Partly this is because David Cameron had already started doing the things he was going to be told to do after this result. As one Downing Street source remarks, ‘the shift is already well under way.’ He points to the tougher measures on immigration and welfare coming up in the Queen’s Speech and Number 10’s new efforts to involve Tory MPs in policy-making. Another thing steadying the Tory party’s nerves is that Labour did not do that well on Thursday.

To the relief of Conservative Campaign Headquarters, relatively few Tory MPs have taken the opportunity of the County Council election results to sound off. The most prominent exception to this rule is David Davis. Now, a DD intervention doesn’t have quite the same purchase as it used to—he’s made rather too many of them in recent years. But his comments are revealing of the huge amounts of class tension inside the Tory parliamentary party. He complains that the rebellions of Jesse Norman and Nadine Dorries have been treated differently because one went to Eton and one to state school. I suspect, though, that the actual explanation is that Dorries crafted hers to cause as much personal and political damage to the Prime Minister as possible.