GENERAL ELECTION EDELMAN 12 June 2017
NEW GOVERNMENT OVERVIEW WILL WALDEN Managing Director, Public Affairs Former Director of Communications to Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson It’s Monday morning and Mrs May is still the occupant of No 10, which in the circumstances is something of an achievement. Since Friday all her best-laid plans have been junked – out goes ‘strong and stable’; in comes a new May mantra: “Man the lifeboats, paddle like mad.” The re-appointment of all her top-tier ministers – Johnson, Rudd, Fallon, Davis and in particular Philip Hammond at No 11 (he’d been destined for the chop) was no surprise given her limited room for manoeuvre. Hammond cemented his newfound seniority by promptly demanding prioritisation of jobs and the economy in any future Brexit deal – and then tweeting about it. Senior Tories moved quickly to effectively chop the legs away from May’s table. She’s now wounded, bruised and pretty much powerless. Cabinet Ministers and key MPs like Graham Brady, the Chairman of the massively influential 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, told her ‘govern as and with a team or you are history’. May faces a grilling in front of the ’22 this evening after Political Cabinet. By Saturday her two chiefs of staff – Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill – had been jettisoned from the plane at 20,000 feet, but not before a story had leaked about how the weakened PM was so weak she was now being told by senior Tory figures ‘sack them or face a leadership challenge.’ Three hours later they were gone – Timothy with a parting shot in an article for Conservative Home that accepted some responsibility for the election catastrophe (without actually saying what) before blaming Lynton Crosby, Mark Textor and Jim Messina, the campaign pollsters and strategists, for not selling Mrs May, the manifesto, or the message properly. So out went Timothy – the author of Red Toryism, the interventionist redistributive Mayite vision of Britain – and with him his soul sister Hill, famed for her bark, bite and “batshit crazy” ideas (according to Katie Perrior, the PM’s knifewielding former Director of Communications). Little loved and widely blamed, Nick and Fi, the two most powerful Chiefs of
Staff to serve any PM, had lasted just 11 months; and Mrs May’s vision for Britain has probably gone with them. Her approach of hostility to big business will almost certainly be a casualty. Expect demands for No 10 to re-engage with business … and expect changes if we get a new Tory PM. In came Gavin Barwell as her Chief of Staff. Barwell (previously the Minister for London and for housing) had lost his already marginal seat of Croydon Central on Thursday night, but his appointment was hailed by many centrist Tories as a sensible move. Nigel Farage and the Right didn’t like it. Barwell is a street-fighter having written the book (literally) on winning marginal seats, and is highly regarded as a principled, pragmatic and no-nonsense Tory. This author knows him and has campaigned with him. He will bring rigour, experience and a grown-up approach to Government; but in truth, he and his boss may not be around long enough for any of this to matter. That’s because very few commentators believe she will lead the party into the next general election. George Osborne put it bluntly when he said “She’s a dead woman walking”; but just because Osborne has form with her doesn’t mean he’s wrong. The Sunday papers were disappointed to find that, although the febrile atmosphere had set off a chain of WhatsApp messaging demanding she goes, no-one had actually raised a head above the leadership parapet, so they went and wildly exaggerated for effect anyway. The names in the frame include Amber Rudd, David Davis and Boris Johnson. There might be a surprise candidate lurking too. We are some way from all that, I suspect. The papers targeted the Foreign Secretary, suggesting allies were taking soundings and that, although he was urging everyone to shut up, he really wanted to be PM. In truth, what Johnson, Davis and other senior Tories want is a period of calm, no challenge to May (yet – they’d rather see her gracefully depart when the time is right and at their choosing), no new election (which could see Corbyn elected as PM), and probably an unopposed new leader and PM (although the Tory members will, I think, get their way and there will be a leadership contest). Johnson was quickly installed as the bookies’ favourite, but dampened political journalists’ enthusiasm when he 1) tweeted late on Saturday that he was 100 per cent behind May, before 2) an 8-point WhatsApp message to colleagues