Recalcitrant backbenchers and buoyant mayor could upset the chancellor's plans
With the daffodils in bloom and the sun streaming through the windows of the Palace of Westminster, the mood among Tories should be buoyant as George Osborne prepares to deliver his penultimate budget before the general election.
The chancellor, who has taken to telling friends in private with a broad grin and fists clenched in victory that "we have won", will deliver his second financial statement against a backdrop of genuinely strong signs of a recovery.
But in the tearooms at Westminster the mood among Tories is one of dismay and division, prompting supporters of Osborne to warn recalcitrant backbenchers that they need to shake themselves out of their complacency.
"If the public believe the economy is fixed then, come next year, they might hand the keys back to the people who crashed the car in the first place, who will of course crash the car again," Nadhim Zahawi, of the No 10 policy board, told a pre-budget briefing organised by the Policy Exchange thinktank.
The anger and recriminations among Tories are focused on two levels: the political and the personal. The political challenge to Osborne springs from Tory MPs, often the older generation and in seats facing little threat from Labour, who are dismayed the chancellor is focusing tax cuts on the low-paid rather than on the party's traditional support base of middle-income earners.
"The chancellor is under a lot of pressure from a lot of Conservative MPs who really do speak for the middle class in the middle – to use the Miliband phrase it is the squeezed middle," one veteran Tory said of the pressure to focus on people earning just over £40,000 who being dragged into the 40p tax rate. "They are desperately looking for some help in this area."
The chancellor believes he has little difficulty in facing down these critics with a simple message – the Tories must, in these tough times, go into next year's election as the low tax party of the low paid. Osborne will illustrate his approach in his budget on Wednesday by raising the personal tax allowance well above £10,000, an idea that first appeared in the Liberal Democrat manifesto for the 2010 general election.
The chancellor has won an ally as he tries to refashion the Tories. Boris Johnson recently told Tory MPs from the 301 group of modernisers from the 2010 intake that the Conservatives need to follow his success in winning in a Labour-dominated city by championing the aspirational working poor.
But while Johnson and Osborne may see eye-to-eye on the overall direction of the party, they are embarking on what can best be described as a classic political feud, explained by personal positioning. Osborne's allies are moving heaven and earth to ensure that the London mayor is not at Westminster in May 2015, allowing him to challenge David Cameron after an election defeat or to displace the chancellor as the prime minister's natural successor.
One well placed figure said that any attempt by the London mayor to return to Westminster next year would be a betrayal. "If Boris does think of coming back in 2015 it would be seen as nothing other than treachery," the source said. "The moment he says he is going for a seat it would have a destabilising effect. He must therefore not stand."
Johnson was said to be incandescent when the Osborne camp – in the form of Michael Gove – launched what he regarded as a calculated strike against him by telling Rupert Murdoch over dinner recently that he would be a disaster as Tory leader. "It was a complete demolition job," one source said of Gove's diatribe against Johnson. The dinner, revealed in this week's Spectator, reached Johnson's ears within 24 hours.
On his brief trips to London, Murdoch tends to hold two dinners on consecutive nights, for his newspaper editors, with different political figures. Johnson knew there was trouble when one editor teased him about the Gove onslaught.
"Gideon really is turning into Gordon Brown," one observer said of the chancellor ,who famously changed his name as a teenager. "It is utterly destructive in the way Gordon Brown killed off Alan Johnson and Charles Clarke."
The London mayor, whose main focus at the moment is on completing his biography of Winston Churchill, believes the Osborne camp is trying to lay traps for him. He became suspicious a few weeks ago when the Times reported that Osborne had passed a message to him that Cameron would be delighted if he stood for parliament – reaffirming the prime minister's message in his speech to the Tory conference last year. Johnson insists that no such message was delivered. "Traps are being laid," one observer said..
Johnson, who will see out his term in office at City Hall until 2016, is still pondering whether to stand for parliament next year. He will be able to point to the precedents of Ken Livingstone, Alex Salmond, Rhodri Morgan and Ian Paisley who all held executive office in devolved assemblies or parliaments while remaining as MPs at Westminster.
Johnson acknowledges that he would be travelling in a different direction – back into parliament – he would deal with criticism by saying he would not seek high Whitehall office during his final year as mayor.
"Boris could sit on the backbenches until the end of his term," one observer said. "That would buy everyone some time."
Despite the tensions, the Osborne camp is planning to send a conciliatory message. If they manage to dissuade him from standing in 2015 – thereby removing an immediate post-election threat to Cameron – they are prepared to tell him that, should a vacancy for the leadership arise after the election, a "mechanism" would have to be found to allow him to stand. This would mean triggering a byelection.
One source said: "If it is the case that David sails off into the sunset the parliamentary party would demand that you could not exclude Boris from the race. You would have to find some sort of mechanism. There would be a groundswell for him to return."
Osborne will be irritated that his feud with Johnson may distract attention from his budget, which allies are describing as "steady as she goes, rather than radical". He wants to hail the economic growth over the last year without sounding triumphalist.
Zahawi highlighted this challenge when he told Policy Exchange this week: "Next week we can expect to hear about how the economy is recovering but that doesn't mean we can return to the bad old days of spend, spend, spend. That doesn't mean there won't be the odd tweak here and there. Tackling the cost of living and making sure people feel they have more in their pocket at the end of the month is vital in sustaining consumer led elements of this recovery." Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 hour ago.
With the daffodils in bloom and the sun streaming through the windows of the Palace of Westminster, the mood among Tories should be buoyant as George Osborne prepares to deliver his penultimate budget before the general election.
The chancellor, who has taken to telling friends in private with a broad grin and fists clenched in victory that "we have won", will deliver his second financial statement against a backdrop of genuinely strong signs of a recovery.
But in the tearooms at Westminster the mood among Tories is one of dismay and division, prompting supporters of Osborne to warn recalcitrant backbenchers that they need to shake themselves out of their complacency.
"If the public believe the economy is fixed then, come next year, they might hand the keys back to the people who crashed the car in the first place, who will of course crash the car again," Nadhim Zahawi, of the No 10 policy board, told a pre-budget briefing organised by the Policy Exchange thinktank.
The anger and recriminations among Tories are focused on two levels: the political and the personal. The political challenge to Osborne springs from Tory MPs, often the older generation and in seats facing little threat from Labour, who are dismayed the chancellor is focusing tax cuts on the low-paid rather than on the party's traditional support base of middle-income earners.
"The chancellor is under a lot of pressure from a lot of Conservative MPs who really do speak for the middle class in the middle – to use the Miliband phrase it is the squeezed middle," one veteran Tory said of the pressure to focus on people earning just over £40,000 who being dragged into the 40p tax rate. "They are desperately looking for some help in this area."
The chancellor believes he has little difficulty in facing down these critics with a simple message – the Tories must, in these tough times, go into next year's election as the low tax party of the low paid. Osborne will illustrate his approach in his budget on Wednesday by raising the personal tax allowance well above £10,000, an idea that first appeared in the Liberal Democrat manifesto for the 2010 general election.
The chancellor has won an ally as he tries to refashion the Tories. Boris Johnson recently told Tory MPs from the 301 group of modernisers from the 2010 intake that the Conservatives need to follow his success in winning in a Labour-dominated city by championing the aspirational working poor.
But while Johnson and Osborne may see eye-to-eye on the overall direction of the party, they are embarking on what can best be described as a classic political feud, explained by personal positioning. Osborne's allies are moving heaven and earth to ensure that the London mayor is not at Westminster in May 2015, allowing him to challenge David Cameron after an election defeat or to displace the chancellor as the prime minister's natural successor.
One well placed figure said that any attempt by the London mayor to return to Westminster next year would be a betrayal. "If Boris does think of coming back in 2015 it would be seen as nothing other than treachery," the source said. "The moment he says he is going for a seat it would have a destabilising effect. He must therefore not stand."
Johnson was said to be incandescent when the Osborne camp – in the form of Michael Gove – launched what he regarded as a calculated strike against him by telling Rupert Murdoch over dinner recently that he would be a disaster as Tory leader. "It was a complete demolition job," one source said of Gove's diatribe against Johnson. The dinner, revealed in this week's Spectator, reached Johnson's ears within 24 hours.
On his brief trips to London, Murdoch tends to hold two dinners on consecutive nights, for his newspaper editors, with different political figures. Johnson knew there was trouble when one editor teased him about the Gove onslaught.
"Gideon really is turning into Gordon Brown," one observer said of the chancellor ,who famously changed his name as a teenager. "It is utterly destructive in the way Gordon Brown killed off Alan Johnson and Charles Clarke."
The London mayor, whose main focus at the moment is on completing his biography of Winston Churchill, believes the Osborne camp is trying to lay traps for him. He became suspicious a few weeks ago when the Times reported that Osborne had passed a message to him that Cameron would be delighted if he stood for parliament – reaffirming the prime minister's message in his speech to the Tory conference last year. Johnson insists that no such message was delivered. "Traps are being laid," one observer said..
Johnson, who will see out his term in office at City Hall until 2016, is still pondering whether to stand for parliament next year. He will be able to point to the precedents of Ken Livingstone, Alex Salmond, Rhodri Morgan and Ian Paisley who all held executive office in devolved assemblies or parliaments while remaining as MPs at Westminster.
Johnson acknowledges that he would be travelling in a different direction – back into parliament – he would deal with criticism by saying he would not seek high Whitehall office during his final year as mayor.
"Boris could sit on the backbenches until the end of his term," one observer said. "That would buy everyone some time."
Despite the tensions, the Osborne camp is planning to send a conciliatory message. If they manage to dissuade him from standing in 2015 – thereby removing an immediate post-election threat to Cameron – they are prepared to tell him that, should a vacancy for the leadership arise after the election, a "mechanism" would have to be found to allow him to stand. This would mean triggering a byelection.
One source said: "If it is the case that David sails off into the sunset the parliamentary party would demand that you could not exclude Boris from the race. You would have to find some sort of mechanism. There would be a groundswell for him to return."
Osborne will be irritated that his feud with Johnson may distract attention from his budget, which allies are describing as "steady as she goes, rather than radical". He wants to hail the economic growth over the last year without sounding triumphalist.
Zahawi highlighted this challenge when he told Policy Exchange this week: "Next week we can expect to hear about how the economy is recovering but that doesn't mean we can return to the bad old days of spend, spend, spend. That doesn't mean there won't be the odd tweak here and there. Tackling the cost of living and making sure people feel they have more in their pocket at the end of the month is vital in sustaining consumer led elements of this recovery." Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 hour ago.