On Monday night, all new Conservative MPs were summoned to a meeting with the chief whip in Portcullis House.
On Monday night, all new Conservative MPs were summoned to a meeting with the chief whip in Portcullis House. The chief, a former miner who couldn’t be more different from the gilded youth of David Cameron’s A list, impressed on them the line for the week: the Conservatives do not want to be making these cuts — they are a matter of regrettable necessity. This reminder was largely unnecessary. The new MPs know the script.
It is not the whole truth, though. Talk to almost any Conservative MP and they’ll tell you that the cuts will, ultimately, be good for the economy, that they will spur higher growth. But when you ask them if they expect the government to make this case, they look at you like you have just suggested mentioning the war to some German hotel guests.
The Conservatives are desperate to avoid the charge that these cuts are ideologically motivated. So anything that implies the cuts could be good in and of themselves is verboten. They don’t want anyone to think that they are taking advantage of this crisis to shrink the state. If people thought that, they believe, popular support for deficit reduction could not be maintained.
Defending the cuts as a matter of necessity is an easier wicket to bat on. If there is no alternative, you can blame the cuts and the tax rises that are coming on the last Labour government, something that George Osborne did repeatedly when presenting the spending review to the House. The no-alternative position also makes it easier to keep the more left-wing Liberal Democrats on board.
But there is a risk to the coalition’s approach.
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