Table-thumping and a riff of Sting, but no chillaxing
SOMEONE once said: ‘We were elected as New Labour and we will serve as New Labour.’ Not for the first time, David Cameron has taken his cue from that predecessor.
Addressing the first Cabinet of his second Government he did not quite say ‘we were elected as Cameroons and will serve as Cameroons’ but that was pretty much the message.
He told them to remember that they were there to serve ‘blue-collar Conservatism – hard-working taxpayers’. He brandished a copy of the 2015 Tory manifesto and said that was to be their lodestar.
‘Before we start I want everyone round this table to be clear what we are here to do and who we are here to do it for.’ Growls and burblings of approval – so deep-voiced they must have come from Anna Soubry, the
ciggy-voiced Broxtowe snorter who has become Minister of State for Small Business and will be attending Cabinet.
Cameras are not normally allowed into Cabinet meetings, but yesterday a television crew was permitted to record these opening remarks by the Prime Minister.
As he entered the room there was lots of table thumping. I have previously known this only at goodish rugby dinners when a fair dose of Chateau Two Star has gone down the hatch and someone is making a speech with filthy jokes.
This table thumping – from Iain Duncan Smith more than anyone, so far as one could tell – was a sign of approval. If it sounded a little muffled that was because the table had a covering of green baize.
The meeting was being held in the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street. The Cabinet table is shaped like a coffin so that those sitting at the ends (the grotty positions) can see the PM, who sits in the middle on one side with his back to the marble chimney piece.
On one side he had Sir Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet Secretary and head of house of Slytherin.
Sir Jezza! What torrid times these must be for the fellow. It would have been so much more convenient for him and his fellow Whitehall poohbahs if there had been a hung parliament. Fancy the fun they could have had, the pet projects they could have slipped through, with a coalition government.
To increase his agony, his nemesis Francis Maude, who in the last Government imposed terrific cuts on Whitehall, has been retained in Government (as a Foreign Office minister). Sir Jeremy assembled a wintry smile on his pinched chops.
ON THE other side of Mr Cameron sat Comrade Chuckles himself, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, living embodiment of dutiful dullness. Actually, it is rather admirable, Hammond’s seriousness.
That stolid gravitas (assisted by thigh-slapper Theresa May) is one of the underacknowledged characteristics of the Cameron governments. For all the cliches about chillaxing, they are a staid, grown-up lot.
IDS and Mrs May were opposite Mr Cameron. newcomer Amber Rudd, Energy Secretary, was next to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt. On the far side of Mr Hammond were Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and International Development’s Justine Greening.
Mr Cameron held up that manifesto and said: ‘When you vote for something, you get it, and that’s what we’ve got to do.’
There was also a little riff which had an echo of Sting’s Every Breath You Take. It was vital, said Cam’, that in ‘every decision we take, every policy position we pursue, every programme we start’ they thought about the public and the ‘down-toearth, bread-and-butter issues that we were elected to deliver on’.
Shoutier elements on the Right may be itching for Cameron to stuff it to the lawyers and axe Speaker Bercow and wrench back every power from Brussels and ram a dose of liquid paraffin down the BBC’s gullet. They may need to moderate their demands.
He seems intent on holding on to the Centre ground which has been vacated by Labour and is no longer populated by the Lib Dems. Why change a winning formula?