Guido’s old enough to remember when everyone (see: Twitter) thought Joe Biden’s election would usher in a new era of global leadership. Gone were the days of bluster and chaos. The adults were in the room again – America was back. Even a few notable Tory MPs heralded the return of ‘business as usual’ in Washington: Tobias Ellwood told everyone to “buckle up” because “US leadership is returning to the global stage“; Tom Tugendhat insisted the so-called special relationship is “founded in a shared vision of the world“; Neil O’Brien welcomed Biden’s election as a “renormalisation” of politics. Apparently even Downing Street was relieved – life was about to get so much easier…
Seven months later, and the story is quite different. Ellwood is now lamenting the “demise” of the special relationship, and scratching his head over the premature collapse of America’s great “new chapter”. Tom Tugendhat, of course, appeared in the chamber last week to deride Biden’s withdrawal as “shameful”. Former Tory MP Rory Stewart is also furious, despite calling Biden’s inaugural address “deeply reassuring and profoundly needed“. No one’s managed to outplay Labour’s Chris Bryant yet, who’s gone from nominating Biden for the Nobel Peace Prize to calling Afghanistan “the worst UK foreign policy disaster since Suez“. As though Biden had nothing to do with it…
Obviously the usual suspects also have some explaining to do. Sir Keir’s claim that Biden has “always shared Labour’s values” doesn’t quite wash with the ‘deep concern‘ he expressed last week. Likewise, Ed Davey and the LibDems might want to ask whether America’s “turning of a page” meant millions of Afghans would soon be “fearing for their lives“…
Boris’s recent pick for his new No. 10 policy board, Neil O’Brien, will have seriously ruffled some backbench Tory feathers this morning with comments he made on TimesRadio, imploring Covid lockdown-sceptic colleagues like Steve Baker to “try and present what is true rather than what you hope is true,” given this is a “matter of life and death”. Neil has been tweeting charts and statistics to counter Covid-disinformation and wishful thinking…
The provocative comments came in response to accusations from Stig Abel that some of his fellow MPs are pushing false information and talking “nonsense” – arguments with which O’Brien said “I basically agree”. There’ll be a good three dozen Tory MPs riled by this blunt intervention from an MP Boris trusts enough to send out on the only morning media round the day of Rishi’s spending review…
The government currently has no idea how it wants to raise taxes to pay for the £20 billion-a-year funding increase for the NHS. Step forward Tory MP Neil O’Brien, the former Osborne SpAd who recently co-founded the Onward think tank, with a proposal: freezing the personal allowance for two years. His plan to effectively hike taxes for all voters will raise £4 billion a year, which still leaves a huge black hole.
A couple of months ago I got some info out of HMT on how much freezing Income Tax thresholds after we meet our manifesto commitment might raise for the NHS
Having increased frm £6,475 in 2010 to £12,500 in 2020/21- a 2 yr pause would raise about £4bn p/ahttps://t.co/xDzhHvGzcQ
— Neil O’Brien MP (@NeilDotObrien) June 18, 2018
Labour’s policy is to whack the super-rich with new taxes. This Tory plan proposes to stop low earners, middle class voters and everyone else from keeping more of the money they earn. Which one do they think the public are going to vote for? The Tories are shifting the Overton window way to the left, fighting on Corbyn’s territory, and leaving people with no reason to vote Conservative. This madness is only going to make it more likely Corbyn gets into Number 10…
Invitations are going out this week for the launch party of Onward, the new Tory think tank promising to come up with ‘retail’ policies to win back under-45 voters. Onward was the brainchild of Tory MP and former Osborne SpAd and Policy Exchange director Neil O’Brien, with Nick Faith, the former PX comms chief who now runs WPI Strategy with Sean Worth. So is it just Policy Exchange Mark II?
Onward’s main aim seems to be to bring the Cameroon and May brands of Tory party politics together. Last summer O’Brien and Faith organised a dinner at the home of Tory donor David Meller (don’t mention the President’s Club), who hosted Nick Timothy and JoJo Penn from May’s inner circle, top Cameroon Nick Boles (a former PX director) and a number of younger ambitious MPs. Onward’s director will be former May adviser Will Tanner, its chair is Osborne confidant Danny Finkelstein (former PX chairman), and its board members include former Cameron advisers Kate Rock and Kate Fall, ex-Osborne aide Eleanor Wolfson, and Craig Elder, who co-ran Cameron’s digital campaigns in 2015 and the referendum. Their main financial backer is Martyn Rose, who ran Cameron’s National Citizens Service.
The plan is to create a party-oriented think tank for MPs rather than wonks, which combines Timothy’s statist agenda with the more liberal politics of the Cameroons, and has both Remainers and Brexiters on board. They have signed up MPs from the left and centre-right of the party, from Ruth Davidson and Tom Tugendhat to Michael Gove and Kemi Badenoch. It will have some external authors but most of the reports will be written by MPs.
The danger for Onward is it goes down the road of expensive, interventionist, big-state policies which mean higher taxes, more spending and more borrowing – social democracy with a blue-wash. A May-Osborne fusion could mean more cumbersome policies like the energy price cap, HS2 and ever-creeping vice taxes. Guido also fears the instinctively more liberal, small-state, low tax MPs may fail to resist the temptation to drift leftwards as they seek wider support ahead of the next leadership contest. Number 10’s hopeless lack of a domestic agenda means the Tories are crying out for post-Brexit polices, or, perish the thought, policies that could actually be implemented while Brexit is taking place. They won’t beat Corbyn with lite versions of his policies…
