May barricaded herself into No 10 – and used a new Cabinet to do it

JUST before Christmas I bumped into a Cabinet Minister who quizzed me on my predictions for the New Year. I tersely explained that after the events of the previous 12 months I was out of the political fortune-telling business, but he pressed me.

‘I think,’ I replied, ‘that 2018 is going to be the year you realise Theresa May is going to be harder to dislodge than you hoped.’

Last week’ s re shuffle was described in some quarters as a reshuffling of the deckchairs on the Titanic. It wasn’t.

It was the moment the Prime Minister picked up the chairs, the tables, the wardrobes, the beds and just about everything else she could lay her hands on, and barricaded the door of Downing Street.

‘What’s the central message of her re shuffle ?’ Westminster observers queried .‘ I’ m going nowhere’ was the answer.

Before the carefully planned reorganisation of the top rank of government slowly disintegrated – opening with t he 35- second tenure of Chris Grayling as Conservative Party Chairman, and culminating with May’s capitulation to Cabinet hard-man Jeremy Hunt – the prediction was that this would be the moment the Prime Minister began to pass the baton to a new generation.

She would torch the dead wood, and introduce a new dynamic cadre of Ministers to rejuvenate her Government. And in the process prepare the ground for her succession.

THAT wasn’t what transpired. Damian Hinds – a politician so anonymous it would have been no surprise if he’d emerged from Downing Street swathed in bandages and sporting sunglasses – was promoted to Education Secretary.

Esther McVey was frantically rushed into the Department of Work and Pensions when Justine Greening jumped ship to join the ranks of the anti-Brexit mutineers. And that was it. The ministries of Whitehall remained stubbornly dejuvenated. The baton had not even made it past the start line.

No 10 insiders insist May’s aim was to ensure stability as Brexit negotiations enter their crucial second stage, and point to changes at Conservative HQ and the junior ministerial ranks.

Some Tory Kremlinologists have claimed she is manoeuvring to give her chosen heir – boyish Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson – a clear run at the premiership. But the truth is this reshuffle was designed to support the prime ministerial ambitions of one person – the Prime Minister.

Since the Election, the Conservative Party has been clinging to the hope that when the time came, Mrs May would do the decent thing and lay down the seals of office without a fight. Future trials and tribulations could persuade her to do that. But the events of this week have left her Ministers and backbenchers facing an unpalatable truth.

If they want to ensure Theresa May steps down before the next Election they are going to have to start putting in place contingency plans to oust her.

Over the past few months, Jeremy Corbyn’s advance has stalled. The Prime Minister has shown resilience and skill in stabilising her Government and delivering on the first stage of Brexit talks.

But there are two things guaranteed to adorn the keys of Downing Street with a red ribbon and hand them to the Absolute Boy.

One is to again try to force Mrs May down the throats of a reluctant electorate. And the other is for the Tory Party to implode in an orgy of infighting over her succession. Ideally t hat succession would involve Conservatives settling around a unity candidate. But it seems unlikely that activists would stomach a second coronation, or that either of the two wings of the party would agree to step down in favour of the other.

So it is imperative that the process of identifying their respective champions begins now.

For the Tory modernising faction this could be Amber Rudd, He-Man Hunt, or Ruth Davidson – if the logistics of her escape from Scotland could be organised. For the traditionalists, Boris Johnson, David Davis or the Lazarus-like Michael Gove. But what is absolutely imperative is that neither faction allows itself to engage in the sort of fratricide that saw the Labour moderates defenestrate themselves and their party.

Then the Conservative Party needs to establish a clear timetable for Mrs May’s departure.

If the Prime Minister wants to identify one herself, all to the good. But if she doesn’t, then the matter must be taken out of her hands.

There can be no return to the tortuous cycle of ham- fisted horse trading and abortive rebellion that characterised the disastrous end of the Blair/Brown era.

A change of leadership represents the final bullet in the final gun of the Tory arsenal. So the trigger must be pulled with cold precision, no tina blind panic, with the hot breath of the voters on ministerial necks.

And finally the Conservative Party needs t o do something Theresa May has struggled and failed to do since the very first day she entered Downing Street. It needs to decide who and what it is governing for.

There are two basic strategies the Tories can pursue.

They can adopt what could loosely be termed ‘The 52 Per Cent’ model, reaching out to the Brexit majority, sticking two fingers up to the gilded metropolitan elite, and knocking the nation back into shape with some plain old 1950s- style common sense.

Or they can embrace white-heat, ‘ Cameron 2.0’ reform, driving Britain into the 21st Century, and building a Conservative Party and country rich in difference and diversity.

BUT they have to make a choice. Mrs May’s diet of warmed-up Milibandism sprinkled with a topping of thinly grated Thatcherism isn’t going to cut it. As I pointed out last week, for all her innate decency and resilience she has no clear vision about what she wants to do about NHS funding, or the pension deficit, or welfare reform, or defence renewal or any of the myriad other major issues facing Britain.

So Brexit must be safely delivered. And then Theresa May’s political mission must end.

The fate of the Conservative Party, and the country, rests upon on it.