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What is David Cameron For?

Peter Watt asks who'd be Prime Minister, as he catalogues the challenges facing the current incumbent.

By Peter Watt

15 Aug 2011, 12:52

David Cameron has, until recently, had the reputation of being a lucky politician.  I wonder if this is the case anymore.  In the first year of the Government, despite a succession of self-inflicted wounds, David Cameron was Master of all he surveyed.  There may have appeared to be an appearance of a lack of Governmental confidence as ill thought through or badly presented policy struggled with its first contact with the enemy.  The so called privatisation of forests (it was of course far from being that) has now become a seminal study in how not to do political communications.  The on-going debacle of the NHS reforms would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.  The mixed messages over sentencing policy, education policy reversals the list goes on and on.  But a weak opposition meant that no real lasting harm appeared to be being done to the reputation of the Government and critically to the Prime Minister.

But something has happened in the last couple of months that may have a more lasting impact – events.  I have written before about the weakness that David Cameron has in singularly failing to define his premiership beyond the implementation of public sector cuts.  In fact the blizzard of policy and reform, frequently followed by self-doubt and reversal, has only increased the sense of ‘what is this Government for?’  This lack of definition really matters when your premiership is being rocked by events that are out of your control.   And right now the Government is being done serious harm by ‘events’.

Firstly Hackgate.  This is not of course just a Government problem, but The Prime Minister’s close relationship with Andy Coulson means that it is a story that will keep coming back to bite him.  But more importantly the Prime Minister has been made to look weak and less like a Leader than he had previously.  Before this, his sense of Leadership was one of his and his Government’s key strengths.  But during the febrile few weeks when hacking took centre stage Ed Miliband ran rings around him.  David Cameron was forced to follow and not lead as Miliband called for resignations and judicial inquiries.

Secondly the riots.  If a Conservative Government is for anything it is for law and order.  The scenes last Saturday of looting and indiscriminate burning of property that appeared to be going un-policed will have done untold damage to the Prime Minister.  This was made worse as he seemed initially reluctant to return from holiday.  Was he really more interested in holidaying in Tuscany than public safety?  Of course not, but the impression was created and his initially muted response on the steps of Downing Street on his return did not help his cause.   And then, the situation having been stabilised, it seems that the Government has got itself into a bizarre row with the Police about whose fault it all was.  It is really not a sensible idea to get into a row with the Police when you are trying to restore your reputation for being the party of law and order!  If the public have to choose between believing the police and the Prime Minister or Home Secretary then David Cameron and Theresa May are unlikely to win.

And finally, and possibly most significantly, the economy.  In particular the European debt crisis.  Cameron and Osborne both still hope that a significant economic recovery will happen before 2015.  They are also probably pretty confident that they can win an argument with the Labour Party over the speed and necessity of the cuts.  Under normal circumstances George Osborne probably wouldn’t mind if he had to tweak his ‘plan A’ a little in order to further stimulate growth.  He would assume that he could fend off any attacks from a Labour Party that is still on the whole blamed for the poor state of the British economy that he inherited.  But there is now the European dimension.  And specifically the weakness of the Euro because of the relative strengths of the German and French economies with the debt induced weakness of the Greek, Irish, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian economies.  

On the one hand George could be feeling smug that we’re not in the Euro.  But on the other, in the real world, we are far from being immune to the travails of the single currency.  After all we need a thriving European market if we are to be able to grow, and we need to start growing quicker pretty soon if the Government is to achieve its deficit reduction plans.  But by common consent, a stable Euro needs more than just bail-outs.  It is probably going to need Eurobonds and greater fiscal harmony, as George Osborne himself now concedes.  And that all seems very much like a big step closer to statehood for the EU.  There is no way that we would be immune to this push even if we opted out of some aspects of it.  And that would mean a change in our existing European treaty arrangements and therefore the consent of the British people through a referendum.  So achieving Euro stability, vital to our economic success and therefore vital to the re-election of the Government, may well need the public to vote yes in a referendum that leads to greater EU integration.  You couldn’t make it up!

So, as we drift through August and then enter the ridiculously exaggerated focus of the Conference Season, the Prime Minister should worry.  He has been made to look less of a Leader by Hackgate.  He appears to be sacrificing his law and order credentials over the riots and their aftermath.  And his economic credentials may be reliant on the outcome of an integrationist Euro referendum.  Hey ho, who’d be a Prime Minister?