By James Forsyth
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On Friday, in a nod to Robert Browning’s poem The Lost Leader, a weary Downing Street source summed up the mood like this: ‘Never glad confident morning again.’
Those in No 10 are worried that the missteps of what they call ‘these six terrible weeks’ have left the Prime Minister facing the biggest test of his political career.
The first challenge for Cameron is to regain public faith. As so many of his predecessors have learned to their cost, a reputation for competence is hard to acquire and easy to lose.
Privately, Tory Ministers blame many of Thursday’s losses on the perception of incompetence.
Prime Minister David Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg. Both their parties suffered in the recent polls
This charge has resonated with a public happy to believe the worst about politicians. Cameron desperately needs a period of calm and a well-run Olympics.
But even if he manages this, he’ll still have the ultimate trial of his political skills ahead of him: managing a Coalition being pulled in opposite directions.
A senior Tory MP who has long been sceptical of the benefits of Coalition tells me that initially he was in a minority in the party. But he says this view is increasingly commonplace among backbenchers. Even some Ministers are beginning to dream of ‘rupture’.
Labour leader Ed Miliband was delighted with the success his party has had in the recent polls
In a sign of the new dynamics, Tory MPs have forced a watering-down of plans for Lords reform. Nick Clegg was insistent that he wanted a second chamber elected by proportional representation and for Cameron’s MPs to force it through if the Lords objected. But the strength of opinion on the Tory benches has led to a rethink.
I understand No 10 recently suggested a compromise whereby the House of Lords would be indirectly elected on the basis of General Election results, but Clegg has rejected this idea.
Cameron has, I’m told, concluded that the Coalition will have to offer a referendum on Lords reform to avoid it taking up too much parliamentary time.
This will bitterly disappoint the Deputy Prime Minister, who, after his defeat in last year’s referendum on electoral reform, was keen to avoid another one.
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is supporting changes to the Downing Street operation
But there are risks for Cameron too. Any public vote on a constitutional matter will lead to fresh Tory demands for one on Europe.
Even a loyalist admits: ‘It would be absurd to have a referendum on the Lords and not Europe. The position is untenable.’
The Prime Minister is also facing Tory demands for changes to his Downing Street operation, believed to be supported by George Osborne.
These calls for a shake-up irritate Cameron, who interprets them as personal attacks on his staff. One close ally rejects ‘the premise that there’s a great structural problem with No 10’.
Others are less sure. One senior figure tells me: ‘People are either under-motivated and drifting, or hyper-motivated but unfocused.’ Â
This makes the Queen’s Speech on Wednesday all the more critical. It offers Cameron a natural opportunity to relaunch his Government.
Acutely aware of this, Downing Street has been poring over the tex t Her Majesty will read out. Rather than just presenting a list of Bills the Government intends to introduce, it will also set out what the Coalition has already done.
Those close to the Prime Minister are portraying the new Bills, with the glaring exception of Clegg’s Lords reform project, as an attempt to help ‘struggling families who are trying to do the best for themselves’.
The government has been poring over the document the Queen will read out in her speech this week
There’ll be a pensions Bill, a crime Bill that will include measures to clamp down on anti-social behaviour, and moves to make childcare cheaper and adoption simpler.
But, perhaps the biggest piece of legislation will be the banking reform Bill, designed to prevent the state from ever again having to bail out a failing bank.
This is an important agenda. But the real test for Cameron is steering the Coalition through the mid-term doldrums. He needs to bolster his own troops while keeping the Lib Dems on-side.
It is quite a balancing act. But Cameron has one vital thing in his favour: after their second election-night hammering in a row, no sensible Liberal Democrat will want to go to the country any earlier than necessary.
This gives Cameron some room for manoeuvre and, if he uses it right, he’ll be able to put a lot of his troubles behind him.
Caroline digs herself into a potato hole
Stock up on potatoes. That’s what Caroline Spelman has been telling her Cabinet colleagues. Â
Spelman, who has responsibility for agriculture, warned that the freak weather was going to hit the potato crop.
As a result, she said, the price of them could soar this summer.
Ministers were slightly incredulous. There were whispered jokes about a run on potatoes to rival last month’s one on petrol.
Crop crisis: softly spoken Caroline Spelman
Eventually, the Prime Minister had to calm things down.
This wasn’t the only difficult moment for Spelman, one of the more softly spoken members of the Government, in Cabinet this week.
She started off her contribution by trying to explain why the constant rain meant she might have to call a joint drought-and-flood summit. This was an idea her fellow Ministers couldn’t get their heads round.
But the last laugh could yet be on them. If the price of spuds shoots up this summer, it will only exacerbate public anger about the ever-rising cost of living.
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As if David Cameron did not have enough on his plate, the Leveson Inquiry will this week remind everyone of one of his biggest mistakes: getting so close to News International.
On Thursday, Andy Coulson will appear before the inquiry, with Rebekah Brooks up the next day. Â
Cameron’s friends believe Brooks’s evidence could be even more embarrassing for him than that of his former communications chief Coulson, who resigned as News of the World editor when one of its journalists was convicted of phone-hacking, but was then hired by the Tories.
Rebekah Brooks is due to give evidence at the Leveson inquiry on Friday next week and could end up being an embarrassment to Mr Cameron
They fear the former News International chief executive’s account of her meetings with Cameron will add to the sense that he is a member of a gilded, out-of-touch elite.
There’s a grim acceptance in No 10 that the inquiry will keep the Tories on the back foot until the Prime Minister’s session in mid-June.
After Coulson and Brooks, the next major Leveson moment for the Government will be on May 30, when Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt is likely to appear.
His performance will decide whether he survives the scandal over his former special adviser offering News Corp updates on its bid for BSkyB.
But before then we should have Tony Blair’s appearance on May 28.
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With over 30 years' hard won experience in business, I suggest that the Government needs to set out what it seeks to achieve by the end of its term. These key objectives need to be stretching, to be measurable and need popular support. The Government then needs to set out how it will achieve these objectives and has to ensure that its members are fully behind delivery of their responsibilities. Then the Government has to work its socks off and to focus on the priority objectives. Simples?
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While Cameron tries to patch up the leaky boat he is sailing, he is ignoring the fact that we are chained to the EU-Titanic which is dragging the country down with it and its single-currency-folly. Ths isn't a Conservative-led Government, it is a Social Democratic one, based on Blair's NuLabour. There is no difference between LibLabCON for the very good reason that 75% of our policy and laws is now made by the EU and the puppet-government in the UK is just a rubber stamp. It really doesn't matter if if it's Cameron or Deadwood implementing the Orders from Brussels. Vote UKIP. We've got to break the cosy consensus of LibLabCON and then break free from the EU.
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Going to 'repatriate powers from the EU' is Mr Cameron? Going to return to the pledge on the Lisbon Treaty ratification, is the PM? Will the chap in No.10 be reinforcing Immigration rules as in the manifesto? Any likelihood of Dave ignoring Nick and introducing a Bill of Rights that restores UK Judiciary and Parliament to supremacy over the EUropean Courts inc. Human Rights? Is the PM prepared to actually mean "No!" next time IMF/EU beg for money to save yet another EUro-crisis hit member? Perhaps Chancellor Osborne will retract his "we're all in it together" Tax Cuts saying and admit 'we're all in it, but the unemployed, pensioners and young mums are in it a great deal more!' What's that? NO CHANCE of any of those in this Parliament - - hmm, then Cameron Clegg are DOOMED - - IMO, on their present policy course the Duo have about as much chance of re-election as out-of-touch, hoplessly divisive Ken Livingstone had for the Mayoralty!
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When was the 'glad confident morning' . I can not have been paying attention.
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I suppose it is better than Caroline being concerned about the fate of her old stamping ground , the Sugar Beet industry, the current sole source of the possibly addictitive substance, sugar, that makes up a quarter or more of most of the breakfast cereals aimed at and that we feed to our kids?
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If Rebekah Brooks meetings with Cameron mean that he is in a gilded out of touch elite then readers should be reminded that Brooks was also arranging and attending pyjama parites for Gordon and Sarah Brown and that Blair was invited to become godfather to a baby Murdoch.
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No, both of these PR Spinmeisters are just footnotes in the rather sorry history of this once great country. But not to worry, we are told that Tony Blair is on the way back to rescue us from the mire that he created. Oh happy day when we have such giants as cameron, Clegg and Blair to 'lead' us.
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James, Are you under the impression DC won at the last election?
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Whatever happens or does not happen at the Olympics how can Cameron expect the British people to either by proud or honoured when all sides of the houses of parliament have spent the best part of the last two decades attacking the very basics of being British and anyone who wishes to be traditionally British while they push unelected European Bureaucracy down our throats and tax the average voter out of existence to support yet another wasteful bureaucratic machine on mainland Europe. Cameron should forget this money wasting reform of the House of Lords and the time wasting gay marriage bill both of which will only effect a tiny minority and get on with his job sorting out the government wastage and over staffing and lavish luxury indulgence spending, often on tax payer funded credit cards. Cameron should keep to his parties standards and ideals or go and join the finished liberal democrat party.
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