Posts Tagged ‘Tory Party’

David Cameron has announced a mid-term reshuffle that seems likely to take the Conservative Party into the next General Election.

How important will the reshuffle be to the fortunes of the Conservative Party and what is the point of them?

Reshuffles are seen by many Prime Ministers as a necessary evil and by the public as a total irrelevance.

Although this is a big issue for Westminster and the party involved, it will have little impact on a public whose knowledge of the members of the Shadow Cabinet and their positions is next to nothing and whose interest is even less.

If pressed, most people will be able to name two maybe three members of the Shadow Cabinet but beyond that they would struggle. The enlightened age, the age of online Parliament, of 24 hour news channels, of immediate news and information gathering appears to do little to improve political recognition.

Polls have shown (and let’s be kind and listen to them this one time) that reshuffles are unlikely to change the public’s views of a political party whether they are in power or not. Not really surprising when the public have little or no interest in the changes.

If the public have problems, reshuffles can cause untold damage to the parties themselves.

History is rife with resentment from those who have been dropped or those who have been overlooked and the media is always quick to rub the Prime Ministerial nose in it when yet another disaffected ex-Minister votes against the Government on a key issue.

In 1962, towards the end of his ministry Harold MacMillan felt challenged enough by the Porfumo affair to cull seven Cabinet Ministers in an attempt to freshen up his Government, in what was dubbed the night of the long knives.

Whether this would have made any difference to the result of the general election if MacMillan had stayed in charge it’s impossible to say but Prime Ministers in this situation run the risk of being accused of making the mistake of appointing the wrong people to the Cabinet in the first place.

Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberal leader said of MacMillan:

“Greater love hath no man than this, that he should lay down his friends for his life”

So, Cameron brings Ken Clarke back into front line politics.

At least the public will remember him but what effect will he have on Tory fortunes?

Clarke is 68 years old and in his own words, is “still ambitious” and that is the real test for the Conservatives - where does Clarke’s ambition place him and the party?

Clarke is certainly a heavyweight politician and a very effective performer but how much is this simply a response to the return of another political heavyweight in Peter Mandelson?

Some may see this as a panic measure - even the present economy is not bringing Gordon Brown down and how will his appointment affect Cameron’s position on Europe?

We know that Clarke will not budge on a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and that he remains implacably opposed to it but with no position needed to be taken on this by any party until after the next general election, Cameron can afford to take that chance in the short term.

He states that there are no issues likely to arise between him and Cameron this side of the election.

Well, that’s all right then.

Or is it?

The thing is, many other issues on Europe are now likely to arise, not because the Government has any desire to debate them before the election but because they wish to drive division within the Tory ranks ahead of the election to reopen old wounds and demonstrate that a divided Tory party is unfit to govern.

Will the reshuffle work? Who knows, only time will tell if it is a masterstroke or doomed by its own ambition.