I really enjoyed my time as government chief whip, but who’d want the role at the moment!
This week, parliament expert Professor Philip Cowley from Nottingham University reported that the number of government rebellions in this parliament already stands at 199. By contrast, the whole of the first Tony Blair parliament saw only 96; and the whole of the 2001 parliament saw 259.
After the euro vote rebellion last year, the word was that Cameron was going to work harder with his backbenchers. The strategy isn’t working. The week before last, more than 100 Tory MPs wrote to the PM opposing the further development of wind power. They leaked the letter to the Telegraph. Last week, they decided to cut out the middle man and just write directly to the Telegraph, calling for the repatriation of crime and policing powers from Europe. As chief whip, I would have offered my resignation if 100 backbenchers had chosen to bypass the whips’ office and express their concerns via a national newspaper.
And dissent is not confined to the backbenches. This week we learn from ConservativeHome that there are three cabinet ministers who want the government to drop the NHS bill. ConservativeHome’s Tim Montgomerie was attacked by ‘friends’ of Andrew Lansley, but he’s well enough connected not to have to make this sort of thing up! As the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour says, these cabinet ministers fear that Cameron is simply not listening and have resorted to revolt by website.
What are the reasons for all this dissent and indiscipline?
In my experience, backbenchers often found it difficult to vote for things which had not been in the manifesto – so I can imagine it could be tough to persuade people to vote for something simply because it was in a coalition agreement that they weren’t involved in negotiating and didn’t campaign for. Furthermore, the coalition ensures that there are disappointed Conservative backbenchers who can see their chance of a ministerial job disappearing into the hands of yet another Lib Dem.
Keeping the coalition together seems to require fulsome praise and joint appearances for previous political opponents. Despite the relatively recent attempts to define their differences, government ministers often appear closer to each other regardless of party than they are to their backbenchers.
The ‘Gerrymander and Campbeds Act’ which will reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 is also having an impact on backbench behaviour. Many MPs will find themselves fighting each other for the reduced number of parliamentary seats. Their immediate need then is to get noticed and to appeal to the selectorate – their constituency associations – rather than to support the tough decisions and long slog of government.
Cameron took pleasure in quoting Tony Blair when defending his NHS bill. But he’s learnt the wrong lesson from Tony. If you’re going to appeal to the public over the head of your party, you need to choose the right reform and be able to explain it! It is not clear to people what problem the NHS reform is aimed at solving – the public are in the same place as the cabinet ministers expressing concern!
This is a serious failure of political ‘touch’. The whips’ office will certainly have to up their game, but if the prime minister is making fundamental misjudgements, even the whips’ dark arts won’t be able to save his NHS reform or his party’s unity.
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Jacqui Smith is former home secretary and writes the Monday Politics column for Progress
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Todays NHS meeting at Number 10, which excluded providers who are opposed to the bill (e.g Royal college of GPs, RCN etc..) smacks of Cameron and Lansley deliberately ignoring any opposition and just carrying on regardless, just like the dreaded Poll Tax. I attended a meeting last year in London where 2000 GPs expressed their disapproval by hissing at The Secretary of State when he began to address them; an astonishing noise. Lansley uses the argument for empowering our GPs as the group of practitioners who are in a position to know what patients really want. They are selective on which GPs they want to listen to. Alarming when some GP practices appear to have difficulty managing an efficient appointment system and yet are going to be asked to manage the finances and health of England whilst having to cope with huge financial cuts. Before Labour formed a Government in 1997, the Tories began to reorganise the NHS by introducing GP fundholders, yet within months of forming a new Government with no outright power, they are continuing the same process as if the intervening 15 years had not existed. Many of the younger GPs would still be at School. More alarming still is that some areas have already begun to implement changes before the Bill goes through, such as referring all hospital patients to the cheapest hospital provider, even when this provider has been down graded and even when this hospital could be 30 miles from patients homes. Is NHS Choice also being abolished? This the future we have to look forward to. No the NHS is certainly not “safe in Cameron’s hands”. After all, most of the cabinet probably have private health insurance. The worst aspect is that the Lib Dems seem to have thrown caution to the wind and are content to support this breakup of the NHS kidding themselves that changes will still deliver high quality services, free at the point of delivery.