A few years ago, Boris Johnson had lunch with George MacDonald Fraser, the author who turned Harry Flashman, the bully in Tom Brown’s School Days, into the hero (or anti-hero) of his own set of novels, The Flashman Papers. “It was a wonderful conversation,” the London mayor said last week, “because Flashman was a bit of a hero of mine and he explained to me what a rotter Flashman really was.” It was a brilliantly self-deprecating way of denouncing David Cameron’s putdown of him while refusing to say whether he thought the prime minister was a bully.
Labour MPs first started comparing Mr Cameron to Flashman in 2011, after he tried to belittle the popular opposition frontbencher Angela Eagle with the words “calm down, dear”. The label stuck and even Ed Miliband once managed to silence the Conservative leader at prime minister’s questions with the retort: “Flashman is back.” Now, though, it is senior Tories who worry that the prime minister is demeaning his office, and undermining the government’s position with sneering personal attacks.
“David Cameron is at his best when he’s statesmanlike, generous and well-mannered but he’s quite frequently not like that and that’s disappointing,” says one frontbencher. “I don’t know whether he thinks it’s effective, or he just can’t help himself, but I’m afraid he’s not going to change.”
Last week, the prime minister used his Commons statement on Europe to make a thinly veiled attack on Mr Johnson. “I have no other agenda than what is best for our country,” he told MPs, in what was widely seen as a reference to the mayor’s Tory leadership ambitions. Then two days later he responded to a question about his mother’s opposition to government cuts by criticising Jeremy Corbyn’s appearance. She would tell the Labour leader to “put on a proper suit, do up your tie and sing the national anthem”, he barked, in full finger-jabbing mode. This was not an off-the-cuff outburst sparked by anger at his family being dragged into the debate over austerity — it was a carefully prepared answer to a question the prime minister knew was likely to come up. He had discussed the joke about his mother with advisers beforehand and decided to use it because he thought it tapped into the public mood. “It was funny because it was true,” says one No 10 insider.
At one level, of course, this is right: there are many people, including Labour voters, who cannot bear Mr Corbyn’s lack of patriotism and his refusal to look the part. But in the roar of the Commons the comment made Mr Cameron look like a bully. What seems clever in the Downing Street study can appear swaggering and overbearing when broadcast on a television screen.
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Over the weekend, Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary and leading Brexiteer, urged the prime minister to “play the ball not the man” on the EU. His cabinet colleagues in the Remain camp fear an aggressive tone by their leader will backfire. Anna Soubry, the pro-European minister for small business, tweeted: “The #EUreferendum is the biggest decision of a generation let’s stop trivialising it with personality Westminster bubble nonsense.”
It was a public hint of wider private concern among female ministers. One frontbencher says: “I just don’t think it’s right in public life to be rude about people. If you are prime minister you should behave with a bit more decorum. It’s particularly off-putting to women. It’s all a bit laddish. This is a particularly damaging way to approach matters connected with the EU referendum.”
“It would be a huge mistake for him to jeopardise his moderate appeal
Senior Tory women have been discussing behind the scenes how to ensure their voices are heard, and a more positive tone is used, between now and June 23. The bully boy approach will not, cabinet ministers argue, go down well with undecided voters who need to be persuaded rather than coerced into voting to stay in the EU. “Women will be a crucial set of swing voters and they are just going to be turned off if you have a campaign which is a load of men in suits shouting at each other,” says a senior source.
Downing Street insists Mr Cameron is fighting a good, clean campaign. “It’s not Project Fear but project reality,” one strategist says. “There isn’t some amazing land of milk and honey waiting for us if we leave.” A minister who has discussed Europe extensively with the prime minister in the past few days says he is “much more serious” about the referendum than his occasional outbursts of Flashman-like behaviour imply. “He is determined to win,” he says. “Finally he has stood up to the Out bullies and their tears are those of spoilt children being finally told ‘No’.”
Yet, perhaps as the Remain camp see the polls narrowing against them, a harsher tone has crept into the debate. Last week Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, described Sir Bill Cash, the veteran Eurosceptic MP, as a “total s**t” for leaking a document on the legality of Britain’s EU deal. The ban on Brexit ministers receiving civil service briefings on the referendum risks looking vindictive, as do suggestions that there will be a purge of Outers after the referendum.
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The prime minister’s appeal to voters is as a gracious and moderate leader: what he may lack in ideology and conviction, he makes up for with level-headed calm. It would be a huge mistake for him to jeopardise this by making a habit out of personal attacks.
Negativity has its place in politics but a smart prime minister should leave it to the attack dogs in their party. Margaret Thatcher often sub-contracted the role to Norman Tebbit, her “semi-house-trained polecat”, as Michael Foot once dubbed him. Tony Blair had Alastair Campbell to spin on his behalf.
In a recent speech on life chances, Mr Cameron spoke about the importance of character in education. Schools will be instructed to teach “virtues like curiosity, honesty, perseverance and service” to children from poor families, he said, because “character . . . is core to success”.
He is right, of course, but it equally applies to him and his need to control those Flashman instincts. Character is about decency not bombast, whether you are a single mother living on a sink estate or the prime minister residing in Downing Street.