Have the Tories rediscovered the Right instincts?
If power without responsibility has been the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages, then the lot of a government minister can seem like responsibility without power. In private moments,
ministers complain that they are overwhelmed by paperwork and have to drive change through a recalcitrant Civil Service. Members of the coalition Cabinet are rapidly finding out that the answer to
the question ‘who governs Britain?’ is not as simple as they’d hoped.
Nothing new there. Relative impotence is the perennial complaint of new ministers. They quickly come to appreciate that Yes, Minister was as much fact as fiction. Today, however, there are three
other obstacles thwarting the will of Tory ministers: the Equalities Act, the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Union.
Conservative ministers moan that all their decisions must get past this modern Cerberus. As a result, they are moving sharply to the right. Tories who last year said that it was not worth a picking
a fight over any of these issues are now spoiling for one. Government is making the Tories more intellectually assertive and Eurosceptic.
Before the election, the Tory view was that trying to take on the equalities agenda, Europe or the human rights culture was too time consuming and politically difficult. When the Lisbon Treaty was
ratified, many Tories were heard to say that it wasn’t such a bad thing. They would have their hands full dealing with the deficit; they did not have the energy for trench warfare in Europe.
But what they are now discovering is that the EU is interested in them even if they are not interested in it. One can’t park an issue that is still being driven forwards.
Ministers have been shocked to discover just how many issues now have a European dimension to them.
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