When spring arrives in England, the Prime Minister likes to roll up his sleeves and do a spot of gardening at his constituency home.
When spring arrives in England, the Prime Minister likes to roll up his sleeves and do a spot of gardening at his constituency home. This year, he’ll have to find another way to pass the time. The police can only protect him properly in Oxfordshire by taking up post in the garden, and his wife, Sam, overheard her children enthusing about their guns. So it’s Chequers for the Camerons this April, where the protection officers can be both more effective and less obtrusive. And instead of pruning the roses, Cameron can turn his attention to the thorny problems of government.
High time, too, in fact, because not everything in the rose-garden coalition is flourishing. The Liberal Democrats are, to the irritation of their Tory colleagues, becoming increasingly aggressive in the run-up to the elections on 5 May and the referendum on electoral reform. As the Lib Dems pour scorn on Andrew Lansley’s attempt to reorganise the National Health Service, the chumminess of that first press conference seems a long time ago.
The Health and Social Care Bill is the most urgent problem facing Cameron. In an unusual move, he has ordered the bill to be ‘paused’ so that he can listen to concerns about its impact. This is just stalling. Ultimately, Cameron must decide whether to abandon the bill, amend it or press ahead.
Cameron thinks it is crucial to persuade NHS workers of the benefits of change. He believes that if they support the bill, the public will follow. And the trick is to win them over without diluting the reforms too much.
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