MICHAEL HOWARD used a snap reshuffle to give his top team a more right-wing edge as he sought to put the tribulations of Europe behind him yesterday.
The Tory leader acted earlier than expected to try to bring the agenda back to domestic issues by splitting the combined health and education brief that he had given to Tim Yeo only seven months ago.
In a speech today, Mr Howard will seek to further distance the party’s worst electoral performance by outlining his domestic policy vision. He will pledge that the Conservatives will give people greater control and choice over their public services as the backdrop to several weeks of policy announcements.
The Conservatives have embarked on stage three of a four-stage campaign for the general election, and last night called their MPs to a postelections meeting. A senior Conservative said: “Stage one was proving we were credible under Michael Howard. Stage two was showing how Labour was failing. Stage three is showing that we have alternatives. Stage four is proving that we will make a big difference in government.”
But the disentangling of Mr Yeo’s job was a tacit admission that Mr Howard’s combination of education and health had failed. Tim Collins, the Shadow Education Secretary, and Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, were brought into the Shadow Cabinet, as Mr Yeo moved sideways to Environment.
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Mr Lansley, 48, a former director of the Conservative research department, is a right-wing Eurosceptic promoted by William Hague and Mr Howard. Mr Collins, 39, is another right-wing Eurosceptic party apparatchik-turned-MP who backed Mr Howard for leader in 1997 and 2003.
The reshuffle came as a surprise to Mr Yeo, who was preparing promotional material for this month’s announcement of new policies in education and health. He was praised by Mr Howard for his “brilliant job” but will be seen as paying the price for confusion over the “pupil passport” proposal to give education vouchers to parents.
Mr Howard has asked him to do the same job of revitalising the Transport and Environment brief, from where Theresa May, another moderniser, was shunted into the new role of Shadow Secretary for the Family, a move interpreted as a demotion for failing to make a policy impact. Most of the detailed work in this area is well under way by David Willetts, the Shadow Work Secretary.
Mr Howard also took the job of policy co-ordinator away from Mr Willetts after the wobbly European election campaign exposed weaknesses in the party’s ability to respond rapidly to the threat of the UKIP. The role was handed to David Cameron, a trusted Howard lieutenant.
Ian McCartney, the Labour Party Chairman, said: “Michael Howard’s decision to sack Tim Yeo, the man responsible for the shambles of the Tory health and education voucher schemes, is a stark admission that his agenda of cuts, charges and privatisation for public services is failing. This reshuffle shows the panic and disarray in the Tory party after their disastrous election campaign.Michael Howardmust order his new shadow health and education secretaries to come clean about where the cuts will fall.”
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A senior Tory source said: “People are saying that the Tories have got to show that they are serious. We said we wanted to fight the local and European campaign on the basis that the Government was failing because that is the best way to fight those elections. What we are going to set out are the principles that will guide our policies for Britain where Labour has failed.”