Cabinet government is supposed to be consensual. Yesterday’s meeting of Theresa May’s top team was an exercise in staged humiliation rather than consensus-building, as ministers took turns to chastise Boris Johnson for daring to stray from his brief and demand more money for the NHS. Even so, Conservatives who want to can still find reasons to be cheerful.
The prime minister is safe, for now. The economy is growing faster than many expected this time last year. That is slower than in other rich countries but their rising tide will help Britain in the year ahead. Sterling is back at $1.40. The Tories are roughly level with Labour despite widespread concerns about Brexit and the health service. In an election held tomorrow another hung parliament would be the likely outcome, and much less bad for the country than a Labour win. Kyle Edmund is through to the semi-finals in Melbourne, and the foreign secretary’s carefully trailed show of independence appears to have fizzled.
From such disparate evidence Mrs May might be tempted to conclude that she is not only safe but steadily confounding her critics. That would be a mistake. Even within her party her critics are growing more numerous. Mr Johnson’s return to trouble-making after months of loyal toil at the Foreign Office reflects deepening frustration with Downing Street on both wings of the party.
Where there should be drive and dynamism at a critical moment in Britain’s history, there is hesitation and indecision. Where there should be a vision of the country in two years’ time, and a decade hence, that is clear and compelling enough to unite the bulk of the party and a plurality of voters, there is only caution. “#dulldulldull,” Sir Nicholas Soames, normally a loyalist, tweeted this week. Dull politics can be good politics but it is scarcely leadership, and leadership is what Conservatives crave.
Their party is thus in a delicate position. A leadership challenge now would produce as many contenders as the Grand National with no certainty that the eventual winner could rebuild morale or beat Jeremy Corbyn in a general election. At the same time it is clear that Mrs May could not be counted on to beat him either. A more likely outcome is another humiliation from voters minded above all to give the Conservatives a kicking for general incompetence. The party therefore needs a new leader before the next election. The question it must urgently address is whether to launch the process of finding one now or later.
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It is often assumed that Mrs May herself would have no say in the matter. Margaret Thatcher’s time in Downing Street ended when she was levered out by the suits. It does not have to be that way. Mrs May retains the trappings of power, if not much authority, because she unites party factions that agree on little except that she is the least worst option available. She is also favoured by Brussels as a known quantity capable of compromise in Brexit talks. But clinging on is not enough when so much is at stake.
There was a hint of Mrs Thatcher’s steel in Mrs May during her leadership bid, but there has been little sign of it since. If she cannot redefine herself in the public imagination as a deserving leader, not just a default one, she should start to consider how to help her party settle on a replacement capable of changing minds in Brussels, of bold reform at home, and of winning elections. It is not clear whom he or she might be; only that the challenges are immense and on present form the incumbent is not up to them.
Mr Johnson was right to drag the NHS to the top of the political agenda. He has reminded No 10 that if it fails to persuade voters the service is safe in Tory hands a Corbyn government is all but guaranteed. And he has reminded the party that it could be sleepwalking to disaster.