This unprecedented display of mass disloyalty in the Conservative party
PETER OBORNE
By far the most noteworthy feature of the Duncan Smith shadow administration is the large number of people who have refused to serve in it. At least 12 MPs either let it be known in advance that they did not want a job or declined when one was offered. They are: Michael Portillo, Kenneth Clarke, Archie Norman, Francis Maude, Ann Widdecombe, William Hague, John Redwood, Nicholas Soames, Andrew Tyrie, Andrew Mitchell, David Ruffley and Michael Fallon. Others in a similar position are rumoured to include Gillian Shephard, Greg Knight and Andrew Lansley.
If the Duncan Smith front bench looks rackety in places, this is the reason why. Some of the individuals involved had good reason for their behaviour, but others were driven by vanity, petulance or greed. As the new Tory leader embarks upon his constitutional duty of constructing an effective and unified opposition, he has been hampered by an unprecedented display of mass disloyalty. It would be possible to create a rival shadow Cabinet, far more experienced and just as accomplished, out of the material that Duncan Smith has been unable, or in one or two cases unwilling, to use.
For the Tory party, this is a sign of decadence. In the first half of the 1980s successive Labour leaders experienced every kind of disloyalty. But leading politicians did not duck out. On the contrary, they fought like ferrets in a sack to get into the shadow Cabinet. As for previous generations of Tories, loyalty used to be their byword. Rab Butler, for instance, was repeatedly passed over for the leadership. He did not respond by retreating, like Achilles or Michael Portillo, to his tent. He battled on. Sir Alec Douglas-Home was dumped in 1964. But he did not retire to his estates. He enjoyed a silver age as foreign secretary under his successor Edward Heath.
The present generation of Conservative politicians is different. Shallow products of the consumer era, they seem to be driven by selfishness, egotism and instant gratification. If at first they fail, they give up. Michael Portillo's announcement that he would not serve under any other leader within hours of his narrow defeat last July was one of the most disturbing acts by any senior politician in recent decades. It was a declaration that if he could not be leader, he would not serve under anyone else. Fortillo is now said to be telling friends that he is desperate to make it in television; a confidence he did not vouchsafe to the voters of Kensington at the last election.
His lieutenant Francis Maude is sulking. Archie Norman has lost interest. John Redwood did not consider the offer of the DTI grand enough. Kenneth Clarke is going back to selling cigarettes. One of the attractive features that distinguished the Duncan Smith campaign from the Clarke campaign was the way Duncan Smith himself always made clear that he would be prepared to serve under his opponent.
When standards are lax among the prefects, it affects the whole school. There is an extraordinary story going round that Andrew Lansley, the architect of William Hague's election defeat, was offered the post of shadow leader of the house but turned it down because he wanted something better. If true (Lansley is on honeymoon and out of contact), it raises the question of who on earth Lansley thinks he is. Then there is Andrew Mitchell, who lost his seat in 1997 but returned to Parliament as MP for Sutton Goldfield last June. He refused to be shadow financial secretary to the Treasury. Nicholas Soames would not serve under William Hague. Last week he turned down the job of deputy on the shadow defence team. And so on.
In general, Duncan Smith has made good use of the materials under his command. They key individuals in his team are Michael Howard, David Davis, Michael Ancram. David Maclean and Bernard Jenkin. Howard is a heavyweight, principled politician. Gordon Brown has brushed aside four successive shadow chancellors. He will not find Howard so easy to handle. The shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram will never set the Tory benches alight, but he exudes solidity. David Davis is almost as talented as he is ambitious. As
party chairman he must be ambitious only for lain Duncan Smith. David Maclean will make a steely chief whip.
The fifth member of Duncan Smith's inner cabinet is Bernard Jenkin. Alan Watkins, who was political columnist of The Spectator 35 years ago, has recently published a masterly treatise entitled A Short Walk Down Fleet Street. In it, among many other important insights, he identifies the ancient post of the Editor's Drinking Companion. 'The incumbent's duty,' records Watkins, 'was to accompany the editor to El Vino or the pub whenever the editor felt like having a drink. Accordingly his work at the paper could not be too important or take up too much of his time and, most of all, he could present no threat to the editor's position.' Neither Jenkin nor Duncan Smith are journalists and nor are they drinkers, at any rate by Watkins's exacting standards. Nevertheless Watkins's account sums up the essential nature of their relationship.
Many of this week's criticisms of Duncan Smith's team are factitious. I do not share, for example, the revulsion many affect to feel at William Cash's appointment as shadow attorney general. Cash is a public-spirited man who has worked away for many years at an unfashionable cause. He is a good lawyer and, in his way, an ornament to the House of Commons. There is every reason to expect he will do an accomplished job. It is deeply regrettable, however, that Duncan Smith did not offer a post — not so much, I understand, as a scrap — to either David Curry or Ian Taylor, Kenneth Clarke's two main lieutenants. In victory Duncan Smith had what amounted to an obligation to stretch across the Tory party and embrace honourable opponents like these. There will be a price to be paid for failure to do so. It was spectacularly foolish to give Alan Duncan the sensitive post of European Affairs spokesman in place of the level-headed Richard Spring. Luckily, after the intervention of Tory MEPs, good sense prevailed and Spring was reinstated.
Overall, Duncan Smith has got off to a solid start. He made an admirable debut as leader in the Commons last Friday, and is visibly beginning to grow in stature. In the wake of the horror in America, the public may come to search out a new seriousness and gravitas in their politicians. If so, bald, serious, unflashy lain Duncan Smith may be a beneficiary.
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