Can Amber Rudd be both moderniser and the candidate of the Tory right, asks Ben Dilks

George Osborne has of late come into focus as one of the lead contenders for the top job. But rather than simply using his summer ‘emergency budget’ to make a cynical pitch to his party’s backbenchers and grassroots activists – the crucial selectorate who will decide the next Tory leader – he instead seemed primarily concerned with repositioning his party towards the centre-ground. Is it not conceivable that Osborne – perhaps content, like David Cameron, at having served at the helm of British politics for a decade, and having learned the lessons of Gordon Brown – might place any further personal ambitions aside? In an effort to secure his legacy as a saviour of the concept of Tory electability in the 21^st century, could the chancellor in fact be laying the groundwork for a modernising heir?

A plausible disciple of this nature would be Amber Rudd, formerly Osborne’s loyal parliamentary private secretary and the recently promoted secretary of state for energy and climate change. Rudd entered parliament only in 2010, winning her seat narrowly from Labour after being selected as one of Cameron’s so-called ‘A-list’ of priority candidates. This time around her constituency of Hastings and Rye was only 30^th on Labour’s target list – one of the seats the party had to win if it was to come anywhere close to winning a majority – but Rudd held on comfortably, more than doubling her majority.

Rudd’s local campaign is said to have benefited in part from the huge number of MPs helping her. The significance of having a broad appeal among parliamentary colleagues should not be underestimated in a party where members of parliament whittle down possible leadership contenders to a final shortlist of two. In the Conservative party, a characteristically cut-throat approach to politics means there is no room for the kind of charity nominations that allowed Jeremy Corbyn to break through in the post-2015 general election Labour leadership race.

While Rudd’s ‘A-list’ status and loyalty to Cameron and Osborne mean she sits comfortably within the modernising wing of her party, Conservative commentator Andrew Gimson has noted ‘the high regard in which she is held by many other Conservatives, including some of the Thatcherite outlook’. The Tories’ Thatcherite core were left with no doubt about Rudd’s loyalty to their idol thanks to her indefatigable defence of the former prime minister’s legacy in the wake of her death.

While describing herself as ‘a huge fan’ of Thatcher, Rudd sees no contradiction in confidently asserting herself as one of her party’s forward thinkers. Questioned recently as to whether scepticism remained about climate change among her colleagues, Rudd retorted: ‘The first world leader to speak about climate change at the UN was Margaret Thatcher and she of course was a scientist and the science is completely compelling. If I’m challenged on it by any of my own party – although I haven’t been – I would say, “I’m a Thatcherite – aren’t you?”’.

She exhibits a similar determination to drag her party to confront the 21^st century when it comes to other matters that extend well beyond her brief. Despite the Tories still being far less at ease than Labour with concepts such as all-women shortlists, Rudd confidently advocates the need for greater equality within her own party and beyond. She recently told the Sunday Times: “I think women should always be in 50 per cent of places of influence. One of the many things I like about this job and being a woman is that it does make young women think: ‘that is something I could do’. Once they start seeing that other women can get there it makes it more appealing to them.” Always cautious not to alienate traditionalists, Rudd is again careful to root her thinking in her party’s past, citing Thatcher again as her inspiration: ‘Seeing her as a young woman I found her remarkable. That’s why you need to see other women.’

Cameron and Osborne’s ambitions to modernise their party and detoxify the Conservative brand never sat comfortably with their own out-of-touch, Bullingdon Club image problem. Rudd, by contrast, is a former businesswoman who steered clear of the well-trodden Oxbridge-then-special-adviser path into politics. This background would only serve as an advantage, not only in a possible race against Johnson, but more generally in a revived effort to broaden the party’s natural support base.

Labour now faces the tactical disadvantage of having to reveal its leadership hand long before the Conservatives need seriously consider their own. One of the biggest risks for Labour is making a mistaken assumption about the kind of  Tory leader it will face. In underestimating the renewed self-confidence of the Conservatives, Labour may instinctively opt for a comfort-zone leader of yesteryear, reliant on being able to cast its opponent as the Tory villain of old. Should it in fact find itself facing a next-generation Conservative, with both the broad-based appeal to unite their colleagues and the tenacity to rekindle the Tory modernisation project, an act of such complacency from Labour could prove to be a fatal mistake.

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Ben Dilks is deputy commissioning editor at Policy Network

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See the full pamphlet with all the potential leaders profiled here

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Photo: DECC