Philip Hammond’s reputation has been, as my grandad would say, up and down like dog’s hind leg.
Safe pair of hands, facing the sack, second most powerful Philip in the land, fiscal hawk, Remoaner-in-chief, and now after the weekend’s papers, tin-eared cabinet raconteur.
The chancellor committed two known offences at cabinet last week: claiming that driving a train is so easy that “even a woman can do it” (The Sun); and suggesting that public sector workers were “over-paid” after pensions are taken into account (The Sunday Times).
Mr Hammond was already booked onto The Andrew Marr Show yesterday, which gave him chance to come back fighting. He didn’t disappoint, telling his colleagues to be a bit more “focused on the job at hand”.
Liam Fox, the international development secretary, also told the Sunday Politics: “I absolutely deplore leaks from the cabinet.” Apparently with a straight face.
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I suspect these pleas for calm will fall on deaf ears. There are at least three battles being played out around the cabinet table:
1) Brexit: Mr Hammond has repeatedly said he wants to prioritise jobs and the economy over cutting immigration to an arbitrary target, to the delight of Remainers and fury of Brexiteers. Neither side commands a decent majority in the cabinet, the Tory party or parliament. A cabinet source tells the Telegraph that Mr Hammond is trying to “f*** up” Brexit and treating pro-Leave ministers like “pirates who have taken him prisoner”.
2) Austerity: the chancellor wants to keep a grip on the public purse strings; several ministers want him to loosen them and lift the public-sector pay cap. Some want to go even further, arguing we have had enough pain in public services. One cabinet minister told me: “We need to hold the deficit where it is for a while, put austerity on ice, until we understand how the economy looks after Brexit.” The Institute for Fiscal Studies says this would free up £33 billion in planned spending cuts and tax rises. Unsurprisingly, the Treasury is unconvinced.
3) Leadership: It is impossible to assess any row, off-the-record briefing or leak without considering it through the prism of the battle to replace Theresa May.The cabinet is split, between those who know their best chance is to strike early — Boris Johnson, David Davis, and perhaps Mr Hammond himself — and those who do not want these three in charge, and think waiting a couple of years allows for a generational shift from what one minister described to me as the “hard Brexit, hard austerity chest-beating gorillas”.
The leaking of cabinet in such detail — and to such brutal effect — would normally bring retribution from No 10. The plotters and briefers clearly believe that Mrs May is too weak to act. They ought to be careful.
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The Financial Times reports that the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers has given the PM its backing, including sacking those responsible. “She can enforce cabinet discipline however she thinks is appropriate,” says one top Tory.
It is also extraordinary to have had such vicious briefing against the chancellor of the exchequer. However, his supporters at the top of government say last week’s meeting was “perfectly amiable”. One cabinet minister tells me: “Philip’s remarks were just seen as Philip being Philip, all quite light-hearted.”
Mr Hammond expressed himself “clumsily”, according to one person who was there, but feels the way his words were quoted out of context was unfair. “Time for people to stop playing stupid games — whether by Brexiteers or free-spending departmental ministers,” they added.
A source tells The Sun they know who to blame: “It’s Michael Gove behind all of this.” Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, told the Radio 4 Today programme he did not recognise all this talk of in-fighting, insisting: “We are not a group of clones.”
The quieter members of the cabinet look to the chancellor to prevent what they see as a catastrophic Brexit process being hijacked by Mr Davis, Mr Johnson and Dr Fox.
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As another senior minister said last night: “In Phil we trust.”