Ken Clarke will replace Alan Duncan, not George Osborne
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Dear Alan Duncan,
I fear that this may be the last letter I write to you on this blog. Such has been your woeful performance as Shadow Business Secretary, your position has becoming extremely vulnerable. With a reshuffle on the Conservative frontbench now thought to be imminent, the last thing any sensible Shadow Cabinet member would do is bugger off on a skiing holiday instead of helping David Cameron deal with the economic crisis as he tours the country. That said, you probably would have lost your job in a reshuffle even if you had shown your face.
Rather than relying on a gut feeling, I decided to search the BBC website to unearth your political activity over the last few months. What I found was reason after reason why you should no longer hold a senior cabinet position. In December 2008, you were recorded as having made a few statements, many of which were either inadequate or incorrect. On the ‘breathing space’ given to some credit card customers after the government stepped in, you told Gordon Brown to “ban extortionate store card interest rates”. Populist this may be but it hardly fits with David Cameron’s message of ‘personal responsibility’. After the UK’s opt-out from the EU Working Time directive was voted down last month, you rightly pointed out that reducing our labour market flexibility as we enter a recession “is an economic madness that only the Labour Party would be capable of” but forgot to make any comment about our loss of national independence when it comes to business and economic matters. The part-privatisation of Royal Mail drew you into saying that ”we broadly welcome ministers’ intention to introduce a new commercial partner… but the details remain unclear.” To translate, you have no idea how to restructure or refinance the Post Office to secure its long term future, despite its huge significance among the electorate.
Your performance in the preceeding months wasn’t any better. When Gordon Brown announced his plans to improve home insulation in September 2008, the best you could come up with was to complain that he “rushed out a scrambled package that lacks clarity on even the most basic points”. While this may be true, what are your plans for improving home efficiency? What measures have you put forward to stimulate the ‘green economy’? On the subject of rising fuel bills, you also made the point in September that “all Gordon Brown has been able to offer is to restore a budget which they cut last winter and a package of measures that should have been implemented years ago”, which is hardly the most forward-looking response. Complaining that someone should have done something sooner is hardly going to shake the very foundations of Parliament. As a final example, in response to Nick Clegg’s call for a ‘green energy’ revolution back in August, you heckled Clegg for not supporting coal and nuclear power. I wonder what Cameron and the voters made of that.
For the heir to Lord Mandelson’s throne to spout such rubbish for so many months when the economy is calling out for help and support to businesses is simply not good enough. The fact of the matter is that you got more press coverage for getting married than you ever did for doing your job. In my opinion, the way to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of politicians is to look at those who set the agenda and those who follow the agenda. Every single one of the above statements was a reaction, not a proactive course of action. Ken Clarke would make for a much better match against a political heavyweight such as Lord Mandelson and would also allow Cameron to keep his buddy Osborne as Shadow Chancellor. You, like Peter Ainsworth and Theresa Villiers, have failed to set the pace while at the same time the likes of Michael Gove and Chris Grayling have left the government trailing by some considerable distance. You could learn a thing or two from them, although I suspect that your time for learning is about to cut short.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
The Tories seem to have no interest in winning power. They seem to have no reason for winning power either – in that they are giving the impression of having no over-arching principles which they would like to see applied to public policy.
They could clean up at the next election if they made some fairly basic promises to roll back a lot of Labour’s nasty officious legislation, slim down the central state and generally sort out the mess that Labour has made.
Instead Cameron’s team prefer to be mincing about, enjoying their “status” such that it is and not having the responsibility of actually running the country.
It’s very depressing.
The loss of Alan Duncan will hardly send ripples around Westminster, but Cameron still needs people he can rely on and trust.
I totally agree! Alan Duncan is one of the least inspiring of the Conservative Front Benchers. He seems to have a built in sneer and his only claim to fame was one time tackling and bringing down a mugger in the street. That he went on a skiing holiday in Switzerland at such a time comes as no surprise.
As this year is likely to be the run up to a General Election in the spring of 2010 Cameron needs to get his act and his team together and should now reshuffle the pack, discarding duds such as Duncan and Villiers and bringing back David Davis and Ken Clarke.
Anger over the ski trip has been overplayed, I agree that if his job is gone Cameron had decided before Christmas.
About a month ago Tory press officers were celebrating after getting a headshot of Duncan on page two of The Sun. Even though the story was not directly about him.
That says a lot for his profile.
BE – you might be right.
Alternatively, Cameron et al could be quietly biding their time, avoiding anything that might make them look “extreme” when viewed through the very blinkered eyes of the average Brit – specifically in order to gain power and then let rip.
The problem is that, ex hypothesi, you and I will not be able to tell the difference between the two. Not yet, anyway.
Personally, I haven’t a clue which scenario applies most accurately. The risk that they are indeed as shallow as they seem to be trying to appear is, indeed, depressing.
I like Alan Duncan on a personal level but Ken inspires my *confidence* which will matter more as its going to be a confidence trick to get folks feeling better and spending again.
As for gobbing off and making bold policy pronouncements, especially ideologically driven ones, well I think that’s a very poor idea as nobody can have any idea how this crisis will play out meaning that the vast majority of statements/predictions made (and policies dependent thereon) will be proven horribly wrong by events. The trick is to say nothing but create the impression that you’re saying something. And for me, that needs to be practical, substantive somethings and not a ‘jam tomorrow’ kinda something!
Yes, there is something painfully shallow about all this on the surface but I think Cameron is desperate for policy ideas in the run-up to an election and the fact that this Business, Transport and Environment teams have been pretty much silent is good enough reason to wave them goodbye.
Business, Transport and Environment
Which is pretty damning when you consider the role of fuel duty escalators, petrol and ‘green taxes’ in the recent hikes in inflation, the current kerfuffle over the costs of pensioner/cripple bus-passes to LAs and the generally horrific business environment (economic and regulatory!)…
I agree that these have not exactly been ‘quiet’ issues, making the underperformance of the respective cabinet members even more frustrating from a Conservative Party perspective.
What makes me laugh, rather than weep, over this is that so much has gone wrong with such a shockingly wide range of things that these probably were, relatively, minor and overlooked. Yeah, I’m griping about bus passes but that’s me as a self-interested cripple. I should be moaning about the total absence of energy management in terms of gas storage, electricity capacity and power generation. Proportionately, they are small blemishes but in reality they are awfully huge gaps and the only that stops people being aghast is the EVEN LARGE holes in the UKs policy, planning and debate!
I tend to agree more with you than Iain Dale on Alan Duncan and less on Chris Grayling. Since pushing help for specifically small businesses has been a key part of the Conservative rejoinder to the governments economic strategy I really would have expected to see more from Duncan.
Dont you agree Grayling was rather cruelly exposed on benefit reform though?? You may argue that was because Cameron obviously decided defeating Labour was strategically more important but still…
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