With Labour squabbling over the succession and David Cameron enjoying an extended honeymoon, one could almost forget which party it is that has kept itself out of power for a decade through bitter internal feuding.
But a reminder landed in my inbox the other day, in the shape of an email bulletin from an outfit called Direct Democracy. This Tory ‘localist’ ginger group lists 17 Conservative MPs among its backers, among them shadow housing minister Michael Gove and shadow police reform minister Nick Herbert. Another backer, Danny Kruger, is described on the DD website as ‘special adviser to David Cameron’.
So it was surprising to read, in DD’s email bulletin, an account of Cameron’s speech on health policy to the King’s Fund last month. Under the headline ‘Cameron’s ludicrous NHS policy’, the article stated: ‘Several weeks ago, we said that Gordon Brown’s support for such a disastrous measure as NHS “independence” was a serious disqualification for the role of prime minister. This week it is tempting to say the same thing about David Cameron. His plan to “set the NHS free” … is virtually identical to Mr Brown’s and equally flawed.’ Ouch.
Naturally there is the standard disclaimer that the views ‘are those of the Direct Democracy thinktank, not of our supporters’. Even so, someone seems to have had a word in someone’s ear, because DD’s website now displays a toned-down version under the blander headline ‘A misguided NHS policy?’. No doubt DD’s most prominent backers would, if asked, dissociate themselves from the assault on Cameron. But if they asked nicely, they could have their names taken off DD’s supporter list – and none seem to have done so.
Poor Tom Watson. First he became an overnight hate figure for Blairite loyalists when he quit his ministerial post to call for the prime minister to step down. Then he took some of the rap for Sion Simon’s YouTube send-up of Cameron (which I thought was quite good). But Watson deserves a medal for his pioneering weblog, which has dragged Westminster into the 21st century. And after he said he had ‘left government to spend more time with his blog’, I am glad to see his has kept his pledge – with an impressive six entries on just one Sunday in October.
Cast your mind into the future. A Conservative government has slashed spending on the NHS. A journalist learns of a secret research project, funded by the Department of Health, which proves that 50,000 deaths can be laid directly at the door of 10 Downing Street.
She tries to obtain the research findings using the Freedom of Information Act. But the DoH turns her down. The journalist, a health specialist, has used up her quota of questions to the department. Under a 2007 amendment to the act, neither she nor any colleague on her newspaper can request the report.
The introduction of quotas in place of the current, unlimited right to information sounds outrageous, but it is what Lord Falconer and his Department for Constitutional Affairs are proposing. The DCA says it wants to save time and money by clamping down on ‘serial requestors’ (of which I am one) and ‘commercial users’ (of which the DCA also deems me to be one). But, alarmingly, an independent report commissioned by the DCA estimates that the cost saving across Whitehall of introducing quotas for serial requestors will be £900,000. If the saving is peanuts, then what is the real motive?