David Cameron's election guru believes that Tory chairman Grant Shapps and Chancellor George Osborne are ‘liabilities’ who will cost the party votes in this week’s crucial town hall polls, it was claimed last night.
Tough-talking Lynton Crosby has had a series of clashes with fellow campaign chiefs Shapps and Osborne, according to insiders. They say that Australian-born Mr Crosby, recruited by Mr Cameron to revive flagging Tory ratings, regards Mr Shapps as ‘ineffective’.
And he reportedly believes Mr Osborne’s abysmal personal popularity means he is driving voters away in large numbers.
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'Liability': Chancellor George Osborne has been criticised by David Cameron's election guru, nicknamed the 'Wizard of Oz'
The divisions in the Tory high command emerged amid reports that rebel Conservative MPs may use big losses in Thursday’s town hall elections to launch a fresh assault on Mr Cameron’s leadership.
Mr Crosby last night strongly denied criticising Mr Shapps and Mr Osborne saying: ‘It is not true. They are doing a splendid job.’
In a separate development a Conservative MP warned the Prime Minister he faces losing out to the anti-EU UKIP in the polls.
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Basildon MP John Baron urged Mr Cameron to use the last few days of campaigning to pledge a tougher stance on Europe – or see UKIP leader Nigel Farage make big gains.
The Tory drive to halt the UKIP bandwagon has been hit by tensions between new arrival Mr Crosby and Mr Shapps and Mr Osborne. One official said: ‘Lynton cannot see the point of Shapps. He doesn’t think he has much to offer by way of campaign skills or as an effective frontman for the party.’
Tough talking: Australian Election Campaigner Lynton Crosby has been hired by David Cameron to lead his election campaign
Mr Crosby is also said to have had a number of heated exchanges with Mr Osborne about tactics.
‘George loves to show off his encyclopaedic knowledge of elections, arguing that this or that tactic was proved to be a disaster in an election campaign in America in days gone by,’ said a source. ‘Until now, no one has challenged him but Lynton knows as much about elections as George and will tell him he is wrong – and why. George doesn’t like it.’
Mr Crosby was dubbed ‘the Wizard of Oz’ after being credited with helping Australian Prime Minister John Howard win four elections.
However, he is a controversial figure. He invented ‘dog whistle politics’ – so-called because it is too high for the human ear and can be used to send hidden messages to voters – which focus on cracking down on immigration, welfare and crime.
In December, The Mail on Sunday revealed that as a then adviser to London Mayor Boris Johnson, he used the phrase ‘f****** Muslims’ in a diatribe about winning ethnic minority votes.
With fears the Tories may haemorrhage votes to UKIP, Right-winger Mr Baron urged Mr Cameron to ‘beef up’ his pledge to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU if the Tories win the General Election, due in 2015.
Mr Baron said the Prime Minister should make an immediate commitment to introduce legislation on a referendum before the General Election. It was the best way to counter UKIP claims that he was not fully committed to a referendum – and would spike UKIP’s guns.
Mr Baron called on the Prime Minister to heed the calls already made by more than 100 fellow Tory MPs. He said: ‘We have to prove we are serious in our commitment for an EU referendum. That’s why we must bring forward legislation in this Parliament regarding the referendum in the next. If we did that, it would beg the question: Why would anyone bother to vote for UKIP?
'Ineffective': Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps has not impressed Lynton Crosby
‘It would certainly help as I suspect UKIP are going to do well.’ Tory Party strategists are attempting to ‘manage expectations’ by predicting the Conservatives will lose 300 of the 2,400 local authority seats being contested.
The Prime Minister’s aides are pessimistic because the seats were last fought in 2009 when Gordon Brown’s Government was at rock-bottom. Now it is Mr Cameron suffering from a mid-term fall in support, with polls putting the Tories eight points behind Labour.
Critically, UKIP, which is consistently running at double figures in the polls, is fielding 1,734 candidates – up from 560 last time. Although UKIP is not expected to win a large number of seats, by appealing to Tory voters on issues such as pulling out of the EU and opposing Green Belt development, the party could deprive the Conservatives of victory in dozens of areas.
Out the seats being contested, 1,477 are held by the Conservatives, 255 by Labour, 480 by Lib Dems and 197 by other parties.
If Mr Cameron manages to hold on to 1,200 seats – pegging losses to fewer than 300 – he will present it as a vindication of his leadership strategy. But if he loses more than 350 seats, his backbenchers will become restive. More than 500 would be regarded as a disaster.
Ed Miliband will need to add at least 350 seats to present the poll to his backbenchers as a success. Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems are steeled for the loss of up to 100 seats.
UKIP’s difficulty will be converting votes into seats: in 2009, despite averaging a vote of 16 per cent in the areas where its candidates stood, they secured just eight seats.
As most of the seats are being fought in southern England, where the main battle is between the Tories and the Lib Dems, Mr Farage could siphon votes away from both parties without adding significantly to his haul. Commentators expect UKIP’s total gain to be in the ‘high teens’, while claiming 50 seats or more would be classed as a ‘wow’ result.
Election expert John Curtice, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, said: ‘Some Tory losses are inevitable. The seats up for grabs were last contested four years ago during the darkest days of Gordon Brown’s premiership.
‘What will be crucial for Mr Cameron is the scale of the losses. He would love the figure to be less than 300. That would mean he has hung on to some of the gains his party made in 2009.’
Yesterday Jesse Norman, the Tory MP appointed as one of Mr Cameron’s new policy advisers, warned against a shift to the Right to meet the UKIP challenge.