Steve Baker plots his next move

When Steve Baker is on maneouvers, you know No. 10 is in trouble. The lockdown-skeptic and ‘Brexit hardman’ has had a hand in defenestrating two successive Tory premiers and could soon make it a hat-trick. For Baker, whose criticisms of the Johnson government have reached a crescendo in recent months, has recently taken over the running of Conservative Way Forward, the Thatcherite pressure group which acts as standard bearers for the Iron Lady’s legacy. 

And it seems the Wycombe MP has wasted no time in his efforts to turn the CWF into a campaigning powerhouse, according to a recently released update to the register of members’ interests. For Baker is using Ed Barker – the media and strategic campaign consultant who helped the Covid Research Group scupper vaccine passports – to plot the coming relaunch of CWF. Neil Record, the chairman of free-market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, is helping to provide the funding with a tidy £5,000 this month.