How does Dave know he's in trouble? Boris wants to help him

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'It's what happens to politicians’. That was the barbed verdict, delivered with a hint of pleasure,  of one member of David Cameron’s inner circle after Boris Johnson was roughed  up on TV by Eddie Mair.

There has long been irritation inside No 10 that the normal rules of politics don’t seem to apply to Boris.

So here was the London Mayor, who relishes the chance to tweak Cameron’s tail, coming a cropper – and, better still, coming hot on the heels of Johnson admitting for the first time that, one day, he’d like to have a crack at being Prime Minister. Oh,  the schadenfreude!

Despite a grilling by Eddie Mair on the Andrew Marr Show last week, one survey showed that having Boris Johnson as leader would improve the Tories' position in the polls

But by the end of the week, it was clearer than ever that the usual laws of political gravity   don’t apply to Boris – the BBC interview had done him no discernible harm.

Indeed, one survey showed that having him as party leader would improve the Tories’ position in the polls by six points, wiping out Labour’s lead.

The closer the country gets to the Election, the more this kind of poll will impress Tory MPs.

Inside No.10 they know there is a pressing need to raise their game if leadership speculation and other threats are to be kept at bay

Those close to Cameron are quick to point out that if the biggest threat to your leadership is someone who is not even in Parliament that’s not a bad place to be.

Cameron himself tries to laugh these things off. After Boris admonished scheming Cabinet Ministers to ‘put a sock in it and back the Prime Minister’, Cameron joked that things must really be getting bad if Boris was trying to be helpful.

But inside No 10 they know there is a pressing need to raise their game if leadership speculation and other threats are to be kept at bay. One aide said: ‘There’s a new sense of, “We’ve got to sort this stuff out.” ’

Intriguingly, Cameron has told colleagues that the arrival of the traditionalist Right-winger John Hayes in Downing Street – he will liaise with MPs – is not the only change to his team that he is thinking about.

There’ll be a test this week of Downing Street’s attempt to get a firmer grip. A whole slew of tax and benefit changes come in, including the cut in the 50p rate.

Labour believes that this reduction in the top rate is the Tories’ ‘single biggest problem’ and intend to pile into the issue.

Ed Balls will unveil a poster campaign accusing Cameron and George Osborne of cutting taxes for people like them, while asking everyone else to pay more.

The Tories will say the 50p rate was ‘a bad tax that cost us money and jobs and growth’. They will also challenge Labour on whether they’d put it back up.

One Osborne ally claims that if they say they will, ‘they’ll have kissed goodbye to any chance of business support at the Election’.

Osborne’s political spirits have been raised by a well-received Budget. In a speech on Tuesday, he’ll boast that with the introduction of the welfare cap and the increase in personal allowances ‘the system will now work for hard-working people’.

Those who have spent time with David Cameron recently say that he¿s convinced that growth is, at last, getting going properly

He’s also working on a ten-year capital building programme that he will announce in June. The Treasury hopes this list of projects, worth billions of pounds, will make further spending cuts announced at the same time more palatable.

Cameron will take a few days off this week. Those who have spent time with him recently say that he’s convinced that growth is, at last, getting going properly. Indeed, outwardly, he gives the impression that as the next Election is still two years away, there’s no need for the party to panic.

But he will go on a major tour of the country next month to promote the Government’s achievements. He’s also continuing to move staff over to Conservative campaign HQ with Alex Dawson, who helps prep him for Prime Minister’s Questions, taking charge of the party’s research department.

       More from James Forsyth...   JAMES FORSYTH: Softer benefit rules for immigrants? Not while IDS is around 02/06/13   JAMES FORSYTH: Why Cameron told MI5 ‘I know you are not to blame’ 26/05/13   Tories need a leader NOW, Dave... not in a few weeks' time 12/05/13   Even Tories admit Dave needed this 'kick in the ballots' 05/05/13   JAMES FORSYTH: At last, Dave and Ed are telling us they're losers... 27/04/13   Ed had a brutal fall - now he's got to jump off a financial cliff 21/04/13   JAMES FORSYTH: United in grief... the loss that might just save the Tories 14/04/13   JAMES FORSYTH: Labour go to war on welfare - but they'll never win 07/04/13   VIEW FULL ARCHIVE Getting Ministers to talk to each other has been a challenge for every Prime Minister. Left in their own departments, they can go native – becoming captives of their officials.

But David Cameron has come up with a novel way: bacon sandwiches.

He now lays on breakfast for Tory Secretaries of State at 8am before the weekly Cabinet meeting. The idea is that they can meet and sort things out informally and – crucially – before the Liberal Democrats arrive.

  The boxer who will knock the Tories into shape John Hayes: A 'determined and savvy' political operator

John Hayes isn’t like other modern politicians. He likes to wear a flower in his button-hole while speaking from the Dispatch Box, and is prone to quoting scripture in ministerial meetings.

These quirks have led some to dismiss him as a throw-back from a different age. But beneath the eccentricities, there’s a determined and savvy political operator who has now been appointed the Prime Minister’s senior Parliamentary adviser.

His job is to improve relations between David Cameron and backbenchers, and to put an end to talk of leadership plots. In a sign of the importance – and urgency – that No 10 attaches to this mission, Hayes will have a desk in Downing Street, and attend political Cabinet and the crucial 8.30am meeting in Cameron’s study where issues  of the day are thrashed out.

Cabinet Ministers suspect that more than half of the 46 letters needed to prompt a vote of confidence in Cameron have now gone in. As one senior ally of the Prime Minister concedes: ‘David does need a bit more discipline in the party.’

Andrew Mitchell’s resignation denied the Tory leadership of a chief whip with reach into the Right of the party. Hayes believes he can fill that gap.

He will set about his current task with vigour, and relishes the challenge of winning people over. As one friend says: ‘He catches flies with honey rather than vinegar.’

But if it does all come down to a punch-up between No 10 and its backbench critics, Hayes  will be a useful ally for Cameron to have. 

He boxes and once saw off a drunk who was menacing the night porter of that bastion of the Tory establishment, The Carlton Club.

 Sheep have played a part in Tory folklore ever since Labour’s Denis Healey famously compared being attacked by Geoffrey Howe to being ‘savaged by a dead sheep’ (an opinion he had to revise after Howe’s scathing resignation speech helped bring down Margaret Thatcher).

Now David Cameron has a sheep tale of his own. The PM was helping a neighbour in his Oxfordshire constituency with lambing when one ewe became stuck in a swamp.

He and his friends bravely waded in up to their waists to pull her out.

James Forsyth is political editor of The Spectator

 

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