No10 coup plotters don’t have a solution for Conservative Party that ‘won’t result in uncertainty and bloodshed’
IF YOU'RE going to leap, it helps to know where you are going to land.
That’s a statement of the obvious - but it has escaped those plotting against Theresa May.
They don’t have a solution that won’t result in even more uncertainty and bloodshed.
They remind me of a woman I spoke to when I was a TV producer about a crisis that was dominating the news. She looked into the camera and said, “Something must be done!”
When I asked her, “What?” she replied, “I don’t know. Something!”
The point is she had diagnosed a problem - but didn’t have a cure.
It is impossible to find anyone who knows the Tory party who thinks Theresa May will fight the next election - just as everyone can see the problems the party faces plain as day: a Cabinet split on Brexit, the most complex issue facing a Government since World War Two; the lack of a meaningful majority in the Commons, brought about by a bungled General Election campaign: a conference which should have rebooted things, but merely highlighted division and culminated in a leader’s speech where everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
And all of that is before what Treasury officials say a “bloodbath” coming in the public finances, leaving the Chancellor little room for manoeuvre in next month’s crucial Budget.
So what’s to be done? It’s tempting to answer with the punchline to the old joke where someone who asks for directions is met with the response, “Well, I wouldn’t have started here!”
MPs need to realise the mature thing to do - at least for the time being - is nothing.
When I was in Number 10 I used to remind people of an early episode of “The Wire.”
The police Chief was struggling with a dilemma - and it appeared to him every way he looked at it, he lost.
His frustrated wife says to him, “You cannot lose, if you do not play.”
That’s good advice for Tory MPs tempted to ditch Theresa May now.
Any leadership election now would result in bloodshed and highlight division - while almost certainly not ending with something better.
Remember - this is the party that came within inches of Andrea Leadsom getting to the final two in last year’s leadership contest.
Instead, the case for a reshuffle in the coming months is becoming unanswerable.
The party needs to open itself to all the possible candidates to lead it into the next election.
Some backbench MPs are charismatic – but it would be fatal to move them straight into the position of Prime Minister without even having been in the shadow cabinet.
Inevitably, Theresa May will disappoint many in the process – but others need to keep them in check for the common good and warn them not to rock the boat.
As for the short term, the lesson is given in a Hillaire Belloc poem about a boy who ran away and was eaten by a lion.
Those considering radical action should, “always keep a-hold of nurse, for fearing of finding something worse.”
