Take a gamble, PM – but know when to stop

NOW is the time for bold leadership. We need it for the Government to survive and for the country to prosper. And boldness means taking risks.

That is why the Tory attempt to copy Labour’s appeal to students, by freezing tuition fees and raising the threshold at which graduates must pay back their loans, makes some sense. It responds to genuine discontent over the excessive debt and absurdly high interest rates recently loaded on to students.

But it is something of a gamble. Such generosity, taken too far, could start to look too much like extravagance, at a time of austerity. It is justified only if it saves us from the far worse extravagance of a Labour government.

For this policy, plus more much-needed help for new homebuyers and a relaxation of public-sector pay limits, will make Tory MPs’ lives easier in marginal seats, now and later – which is no small thing.

But such advantages cannot be won at the cost of ceasing to be conservative. After years of rightly denouncing Jeremy Corbyn as irresponsible, the Tories cannot now move too far towards him.

As the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, points out in The Mail on Sunday today, prosperity and security for all grow out of the capitalism the Corbynites hope to strangle with tax and debt. And national wealth prospers only when there is a firm and fiscally responsible hand at the Treasury.

But serious action definitely does need to be taken, to win back support among the young and to hold this Government together. The Corbyn danger is now far greater than it was before, and the Tories are the only force in the country which can stop the Marxist John McDonnell moving into the Treasury, with all that this would imply.

Alas, from the way some Conservatives are behaving, you would not know that the danger was so great.

What, for example, does Boris Johnson think he is doing? Mr Johnson, a likeable, affable person, rose to Cabinet rank mainly by being a successful clown on national TV, rather than through years of hard work on policy and implementation. And it shows.

His current pose as the apostle of Brexit is a performance, by a man who once publicly said he supported Britain staying in the EU single market. Who knows what he might say or do next, least of all Mr Johnson himself?

Is it possible the Johnson joke has worn a little thin? It should have done. There would be nothing at all funny about a Corbyn-McDonnell government, an outcome which Tory division and dissent makes hideously possible.

The Prime Minister is in an undoubtedly difficult position this week and some of it is her own fault. But who will be helped – apart from Mr Corbyn – by making things worse for her?

For the sake of the country, serious Tories attending this week’s conference, and serious Tory MPs and Ministers, must sustain Mrs May through these tough times. It is their plain duty. Above all, they must keep their heads and let troublemakers know that those who cause damaging chaos now will never win the crown of power.