By Tim Shipman
When news of the Adam Afriyie leadership bid broke on
Sunday, the quick reaction of many MPs and journalists was to laugh it off out
of hand.
Mr Afriyie is hardly a household name or a conspicuous force
in Westminster.
Here, the loyalists pointed out, is a man of mixed race, who
funded David Cameron's leadership bid, who nonetheless was stripped of his
minor frontbench job by the man he had championed for leader, who has not been
made even junior minister for paperclips since.
Just how useless is he, MPs of all stripes (and I mostly
spoke to the disgruntled) asked, before answering their own question with
phrases like 'thick as a brick' and 'can't string a sentence together in the
Commons'.
Mr Afriyie has done none of the things that distinguishes
MPs and develops a following among their peers. He has led no passionate
personal crusades on issues of the day,
staged no rebellions on points of principle and written no notable policy
papers for think tanks.
I was even contacted yesterday by a former Tory adviser who
said he once sent a policy paper to Mr Afriyie, who did not realise it was copied
to several different people. Mr Afriyie then sent it
on to others, including the Prime Minister, as if it were his own work. Imagine teh adviser's amusement and surprise when contacted by Number 10 and asked to comment on Mr Afriyie's
pearls of wisdom.
Mr Afriyie's supporters include those who have never
prospered under Cameron and had as their chief spokeswoman yesterday Nadine
Dorries, who right now does not even enjoy the privileges of the Tory whip in
the House of Commons.
On the face of it, this is a classic cry of rage from the dispossessed
and the never promoted that even most rebels feel unable to support.
I was struck, working on Sunday, by the number of people ill
disposed to the leadership who thought the antics of the so-called 'Windsor Set'
ridiculous. Those who want Cameron out now (up to 17 are said to have sent
letters demanding a vote of no confidence) don't see Mr Afriyie as the means to
that end. Others were withering about the way this plot was exposed in the
week Cameron had had one of his more successful moments of party management -
the speech on Europe.
One MP who would shed no tears if Cameron fell under a bus
said he could not support anyone who let details of the plot be released at
such a time on the grounds of competence alone (and the simultaneous appearance
of the Afriyie gang in three Sunday papers does suggest it was deliberately
planted).
Another simply despaired that the Tories were back to
destructive infighting. ‘Oh good, we’re back to being the stupid party,’ one MP
told me.
Finally given the centrality of media management to modern
politics, journalists seldom take seriously a politician who has never bothered
to get to know them. Mr Afriyie, I am told, once refused a lunch
invitation from the London Evening Standard on the grounds that it is not his
local paper - even though it is read by a good number of his commuting
constituents. Not the actions of a savvy MP with the future leadership of his party on his mind.
All of which means this plot is ridiculous, or as two
different MPs put it 'deranged' and 'loopy', right?
Not quite.
For David Cameron and the senior members of the cabinet who
the PM might want to succeed him, there are several unpalatable lessons that
have emerged from the weekend's events.
1) You're not very popular because your party
management is poor
Mr Cameron’s is now widely and
deeply unpopular with large sections of the Conservative Party. He has always
regarded party management as a barely-necessary pain. If the backbenches are an 'ungovernable space', that is because Mr Cameron has not sought to govern them. While Tony Blair
always defined himself in opposition to his party on purpose, there is a sense
that Mr Cameron has too often been rude or evasive to his MPs by personality rather than design. Anger
over gay marriage is known, but there is also growing concern about the state
of the economy and George Osborne’s inability to convince voters that the
Tories are doing enough to boost growth. Allies of Mr Afriyie point out that he
is a self-made man, worth £100 million who understands business and how you
create wealth and jobs.
2) The plots are real and growing
Mr Afriyie’s foray into
leadership activity is hardly isolated. Up to 17 MPs have supposedly put in
letters to the 1922 Committee seeking a no confidence vote in Mr Cameron. Jesse
Norman, who led the House of Lords rebellion and got branded ‘dishonourable’ by
the PM for what many Tory MPs saw as a point of principle, is said to be ‘on
manouevres’. Other grandees are a source of constant angst to No 10. Some
Tories insist the Afriyie plot is just the tip of the iceberg, that more
serious and better organised people are falling into line behind other potential leaders. A
leadership challenge is still unlikely before 2015 but it is no longer
unthinkable.
3) Tory MPs don't want to be led by a group of
aloof toffs any more than most voters
This is where the Afriyie phenomenon
does look interesting. The MP for Windsor may not be Barack Obama, but he did
grow up on a council estate in Peckham and has made good enough to own a £7.5m
home in Westminster and a renovated monastery in his constituency. MPs who
support him, and many who do not, say they crave a leader who can connect with
ordinary folk.
I was contacted by a senior MP who I like and trust this morning
who said the Lobby has missed the point of the Afriyie plot. ‘The party desperately wants to be the party
of the grafting working man and is very uncomfortable with Dave/George,’ he texted.
Whether a multi-millionaire like Mr Afriyie is really the corrective the Tories
need is somewhat moot. Many MPs think Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne’s reluctance to
talk aspiration and back the strivers because of their charmed upbringings
until the PM’s conference speech last October has held the party back.
4) MPs don't think the leadership understands
their financial struggles
Linked to point 3 is the notion
that the well-to-do leadership is seen as out of touch with the struggles of
MPs. Few members of the public would have much sympathy with a political class
that diddled its expenses and gets paid north of £65,000 a year. But many
Tories took pay cuts to be MPs and have seen Mr Cameron freeze ministerial pay
and kick out those who did not have the luxury of millions in inherited wealth.
Which is where Mr Afriyie comes in. An expenses ‘saint’ who has never claimed
for a second home, he is also an apologist for MPs over expenses. Mr Afriyie
it was who did a report into MPs grievances, Mr Afriyie it is who wants to
scrap the expenses watchdog IPSA. This is not, shall we say, conspicuously unpopular
with his fellow Tories.
5) Young Tory MPs want to pick their own
leader
A while back the conventional
assumption was that the next Tory leadership election would be between George
Osborne and Boris Johnson. The Chancellor has the best operation in the Commons
(rather more effective than Cameron’s) at stroking MPs, bringing them into his
orbit and ushering them into government at the next reshuffle. But Mr Osborne
doesn’t look like a leader to many and Boris, beloved as he is, brings his own
baggage. Theresa May has a growing following and many want Michael Gove to
recant his emphatic denials that he won’t run. But several MPs have told me
that what the Afriyie movement truly represents is a generational change, away
from the old guard and the 2001 intake towards the 2010 intake. Mr Afriyie was elected in 2005
and has a headstart but figures like Jesse Norman and Liz Truss, elected in 2010, are coming up
fast on the rails.
As one savvy MP put it: ‘This is about generational change. The 2005 and 2010 intake will pick their own leader. Too many cabinet ministers assume they will be next. They are so wrong. This plot really means Osborne is dead. I
expect long attack pieces by Cameron’s client journalists. Is Afriyie going to
follow through? I doubt it. Should he be ridiculed? No.’
6) MPs don’t want the new leader to be tainted
by coalition
Adam Afriyie was a stern opponent
of David Cameron making his big bold offer to the Lib Dems. He believed that
the Tories should have attempted to govern alone in 2010 and gone to the
country again in October that year, where many MPs believe they would have
secured a majority. Mr Cameron, they suggest, prefers working with the Lib Dems
than alone. If the electoral arithmetic in 2015 matches that of 2010, a sizeable
chunk of the Parliamentary Party does not want to go into coalition again.
Mr
Afriyie’s supporters say the next leader should not be ‘a coalitionist’ who is ‘tainted’
by dealing with the Lib Dems. This is likely to be a factor in any leadership
election if Mr Cameron stands down after a loss in 2015. It might also provoke
a contest if Mr Cameron seeks to join forces with Nick Clegg again. All of
which doesn’t mean Mr Afriyie will be the next Tory leader. But it might well
be someone who shares his views.