If Gordon wins next time, the Derek Conway case will be one of the reasons
Years from now, when the downfall of Peter Hain has been reduced to a Trivial Pursuit question standing between players and a yellow wedge, the name of Derek Conway will still be remembered. The Electoral Commission’s declaration rulebook may not interest the public — but it is abundantly clear what Mr Conway was up to. Putting one’s family on the state payroll is a trick as old any British tradition. Like the Speaker’s tights, it is an ancient practice still quietly continued in Westminster.
Some of it is even justifiable. When I first started working in Westminster I met a parliamentary wife who told me the best way of stopping one’s husband from having an affair with his secretary is to become his secretary. Tireless constituency work is expected from spouses, Tory wives in particular. But Mr Conway’s decision to pay his son £40,000 for ‘research’ while he was at Newcastle University, and the MP’s inability to provide any plausible evidence of such research, goes beyond mere nepotism.
The polite phrase used by the Standards and Privileges Committee was ‘diversion of public funds’. At a stroke, this gave Gordon Brown the words he needed for a narrative he has been trying to construct — to portray the controversies about Labour donations, which led to Mr Hain’s resignation, as a problem afflicting all parties. Meanwhile, the public simply conclude that all politicians are villains — and not just those with a red rosette.
Yet David Cameron’s judgment in the matter was not instantaneous, as it was when he sacked Patrick Mercer for making ill-judged remarks about racial abuse in the military. The news about Mr Conway broke while Mr Cameron was at a one-day conference discussing the party’s intellectual direction (a rather uplifting event, where the wheatto-chaff ratio was much improved on a similar event last year). The tree logo was still there, but this time coloured not green but sky blue.
Suddenly into this sky rolled the thundercloud of Mr Conway. A while ago, the scandal would have caused an ugly shadow cabinet split — and an unwanted test of Mr Cameron’s parliamentary authority. Though a speck on the national stage, Mr Conway is a large figure in Westminster and so well-liked in the Commons (on all benches) that he was considered frontrunner to become the next Speaker. Added to that, he is close to David Davis. During that Monday evening, rumours flew around that Mr Davis had thrown a fraternal arm around his friend and demanded that he be protected.
Indeed, all manner of theories were flying around during these limbo hours. That Mr Cameron lacked the authority to remove as popular a figure as Mr Conway — and that, with the Old Bexley and Sidcup MP cut off and on the loose, Mr Davis might cause mischief again. I have heard reports about Mr Davis becoming disheartened recently, wondering what the point of a Tory Home Secretary is if he cannot control prisons (now in the control of the Justice Department) nor (under Tory proposals for locally elected police chiefs) the nation’s constabularies.
My information is that Mr Davis is indeed grumpy — but that the root cause is his boredom in waiting for the Terrorism Bill, which may now not have its second reading until April. But one searches in vain for any shadow cabinet split over Mr Conway. Mr Davis absented himself from any discussion about his friend’s future, and is not grumbling about the result. Even Mr Conway’s friends cannot deny that the sheer audacity of his offence made his dismissal inevitable. The only question is why this was not decided instantaneously.
Here lies a key difference between Mr Cameron and Mr Brown. When deciding the future of Mr Hain and Mr Conway, both jumped the wrong way at first — saying their future would be a matter for the respective investigating authorities. But while Mr Brown stuck to this misjudgment, telling himself (and others) that Mr Hain’s future was out of his hands, Mr Cameron realised he had to act. It was over before anyone could say ‘U-Turn’. One of his principal strengths as Tory leader is this early recognition and correction of mistakes. But the damage is nonetheless done. The word ‘Conway’ will now silence any Conservative seeking to chide Labour for financial impropriety. Mr Brown may well be struggling against the weight of five financial scandals (two now the subject of criminal investigations). But he can now say, as Jack Straw did on Wednesday morning, that all parties have trouble with finance. To the immense frustration of the shadow cabinet, they are in no position to argue.
All this serves as a grim allegory for a greater misery — Mr Cameron’s failure to open a decisive lead over Mr Brown. It is hard to list the miseries heaped on Mr Brown: the economic misery, a prisons inspector denouncing his prisons policy, the police marching outside Westminster, the unfolding calamity of Northern Rock with ruinous implications for the public finances. Yet the last ICM poll gave the Tories a lead of just two points. When Tony Blair was at this stage in parliament, in January 1995, his lead varied from 18 to 40 points.
There should be a sense of excitement gripping the Conservatives, a feeling that their wilderness years will soon be over. Brown’s aversion to rival power bases in Cabinet means none of Mr Cameron’s top four are visibly outclassed by their Labour counterparts. They are winning the battle of ideas. What was under Blair a rapid-rebuttal machine has, under Brown, become a rapid plagiarism machine where Labour can now put out their own version of Tory policy in a few hours (as it did over stop and search).
Yet the sense of opportunity is matched only by Tory frustration at the pace of advance. In November, I outlined the debate between those who urge Mr Cameron to be more radical and those who counsel caution. In spite of official denials, this argument — dubbed the ‘hare and the tortoise’ debate by the Conservativehome.com website — continues to divide the party although the debate is more intense on the back benches than within the shadow cabinet.
Let us be clear: there is no mutiny. But there is concern that — as one MP puts it — Mr Cameron regards his opinion poll lead as a precious egg, which he may drop if he tries to run too fast. There is concern about the need for better policies and people. But the most sickening sensation of all on the Tory benches is a feeling that, with a few more disasters like the Conway case, Mr Brown may get away with it after all.
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