SIMON HEFFER: Philip Hammond, a serious contender? The grey man who could be David Cameron's nemesis
You may not have heard of Philip Hammond — there’s little reason why you should. After all, the Defence Secretary is not the most charismatic politician.
Grey both literally and metaphorically, he has an unfortunate knack of reminding people of John Major.
In public appearances he is always competent, but often sets new standards for dreariness.
However, behind Mr Hammond’s bank-manager-style exterior lies a man of considerable accomplishment.
Unlike most of his colleagues, he has had a proper job — he was a successful businessman in property and manufacturing before joining the Tory front bench, and has made a reputed £9 million fortune.
Some of his friends say that, keenly aware of his own abilities, he harbours a quiet determination to lead his party — which is reason enough to pay particular attention to his public pronouncements at a time when the Tories are facing something close to civil war over Europe.
His announcement last weekend that he would vote to leave the EU were a referendum held now was remarkable for several reasons.
First, any minister who had said such a thing even 12 months ago would have caused an outcry and would probably have lost his job. There is no outcry now because much of the country entirely agrees with such sentiments and Mr Cameron is badly weakened: he won’t come down hard on a minister who is actually in touch with the voters.
Second, Mr Hammond, 57, was responding to an identical and equally surprising statement by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary.
A number of Mr Gove’s Cabinet colleagues view him as a certain leadership contender when there is a vacancy, despite his fiercely denying such ambitions, and his own protestation of Euroscepticism confirmed their view.
More... Gay marriage laws are fuelling a 'real sense of anger' and we're wrong to focus on it, says Defence Secretary Philip Hammond Cameron bids to quell EU mutiny: PM to unveil Tory Bill promising a referendum - and Obama praises his plan to claw back powers Cabinet awkward squad resisting George Osborne's demands for deep spending cuts leave Treasury with £11.5billion headacheMr Hammond showed himself to be so anxious to match Mr Gove on this question that his fellow MPs now believe he, too, is eyeing the top job.
After all: if John Major could do it, why shouldn’t he?
‘Philip is a proper Tory,’ one of his friends told me. ‘And he is hugely focused.’ He has certainly manoeuvred himself carefully during his party’s recent upheavals, and not just on Europe, in an attempt to make himself as attractive as possible to mainstream Conservatives.
He didn’t vote for the Same Sex Marriage Bill in February, with the excuse of being abroad on MoD business. He had, however, talked publicly beforehand of his scepticism about gay marriage, deeming it ‘too controversial’ and saying it did too little to protect the right of different religious faiths to refuse to conduct same-sex ceremonies.
Hammond has spoken of his scepticism about gay marriage, deeming it 'too controversial' and saying it did too little to protect the right of different religious faiths to refuse to conduct same-sex ceremoniesThis was not seen at the time as him positioning himself for the leadership, but rather as a sincere expression of his conscience.
But yesterday Hammond poured salt on his party’s wound on the issue by saying there is ‘a real sense of anger among many people who are married that any government thinks it has the ability to change the definition of an institution like marriage’.
To say that can only be construed as an open challenge to Mr Cameron’s judgment and authority.
Given the mood of the Tory party, it will have done Mr Hammond no harm that Mr Gove not only voted for same-sex unions, but spoke eloquently on the subject, too.
Not that Mr Hammond doesn’t have his critics on the Right. He took over as Defence Secretary after Liam Fox’s resignation in 2011 and promptly implemented manpower cuts, albeit under orders from the Treasury, that many defence experts — and the Tory MPs whom they brief — regard as having left our Armed Forces seriously weakened.
He has been under fire for failing to commit the government to buying enough F-35 fighter jets to equip the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers that are due to come into service in 2020.
Given the mood of the Tory party, it will have done Mr Hammond no harm that Michael Gove not only voted for same-sex unions, but spoke eloquently on the subject, tooHowever, Mr Hammond has had one success at the MoD. Applying his businessman’s eye to the books, he spotted huge amounts of waste that had escaped the notice of previous secretaries of state. That would be a useful talent to apply more widely in government.
There is no leadership vacancy yet, and neither Mr Hammond — an Oxford-educated engineer’s son — nor Mr Gove will do anything to help create one. But there are grave doubts in the Tory Party about the way the EU referendum discussion is proceeding — via a Private Member’s Bill, because Mr Cameron lacks the guts to make it government policy — and the whole mess could yet end up in a sustained backbench revolt against the leadership.
If it does — and with George Osborne damaged by his troubled stewardship of the economy and Boris Johnson out of the Commons — Mr Hammond, a married father of three, is well placed as a Tory traditionalist candidate.
So if he suddenly orders another clutch of F-35s, take it as a sign he’s a serious contender — and remember he’s brighter and more formidable than John Major ever was.
King's tarnished legacy There have been plaudits for Sir Mervyn King, who retires as Bank of England governor next month.But I fear history will regard his strategy of printing money as a disaster of judgment comparable to Churchill returning us to the Gold Standard in 1925, which handicapped us in the Crash of 1929. Britain has printed £375 billion and used it to buy Government debt, driving down interest rates. The inflationary implications of this should terrify all of us. Using part of that £375 billion to fund tax cuts would have been a more effective stimulus, less expensive and far less damaging. Who'll back Average Ed? Worrying times: Lord Sainsbury, a minister in the Blair government, has refused to give the party any more millions from his supermarket fortune because Ed Miliband is 'average'It is shocking enough that 90 per cent of Labour’s income comes from trade unions, but that figure may increase now Lord Sainsbury, a minister in the Blair government, has refused to give the party any more millions from his supermarket fortune because Ed Miliband is ‘average’. Labour voters should be gravely worried that hardly anyone who creates wealth in this country wants to devote any of it to help Mr Miliband to get into Downing Street — and, more to the point, to allow the tax-and-spend maniac Ed Balls to move in next door as Chancellor.
Isn’t it refreshing that young people who have to pay a market rate for their degrees are complaining about inadequate teaching and lack of value for money that their courses represent? Such a financial discipline means bad courses have to get better or die out altogether. It also means the universities that offer poor courses must improve their service or they will risk going under. Mediocrity and Mickey Mouse courses have been tolerated in higher education for too long — all, naturally, subsidised by the state.The Government says it doesn’t agree with the National Audit Office’s finding there is a £3 billion black hole in the funding of the London to Birmingham high-speed rail link or with its view that the business case for the development is inadequate. But the project is madness. Designed to convince people in the North the Tories are doing something for them, it will achieve nothing of the sort.
Spending some of that money on better roads and local rail links, enterprise zones and new schools would have far faster results.
Does Brown show Enoch was right?Gordon Brown rose from the political grave this week to join the anti-independence campaign in Scotland, but reverted to type and attacked the Tories. With his devastating inability to understand public opinion, the former PM savaged those who would control immigration, saying Government policy on the question was becoming ‘Powellite’.This was just as Mr Brown’s former colleague Peter Mandelson confessed the last Labour government sent out ‘search parties’ to attract immigrants to Britain. The result is there are many Labour supporters without jobs who may wish Enoch Powell had shaped their party’s policy, too. More from Simon Heffer... Why Drummer Rigby's killers should be charged with treason 24/05/13 The ugly truth is a smug Tory elite has sneered at the party faithful for decades 21/05/13 SIMON HEFFER: Think they can't axe David Cameron? Don't bet on it 10/05/13 The gentle giant of British cinema: If he'd been a Yank, he'd have won Oscars galore. If he'd been a Leftie, he'd have been knighted. Why Bryan Forbes was a cruelly unsung genius 10/05/13 SIMON HEFFER: There's only one way for Dave to stub out Farage 03/05/13 Could he trigger a snap general election? 26/04/13 Vote Red Ed, get Red Len as the Labour dinosaurs roar back to life 25/04/13 SIMON HEFFER: The week he woke up to the folly of the modernisers 19/04/13 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE Theresa May is right to say murderers of policemen should die in prison. Indeed, I thought that was the deal when the political class, against the wishes of the people, abolished capital punishment in 1969. But we get into dangerous territory when we stipulate the life of a policeman is worth more than the life of a woman who dies after a vicious sexual assault or a teenager stabbed while queuing for a hamburger. Murder is murder. Many ‘life’ sentences are too short. If necessary, build more prisons and enforce the law.Merkel calls the EU tuneFrance’s pitiful president, Francois Hollande, was carpeted by Brussels on Wednesday — the first anniversary of his election — for running his country’s economy so disastrously. Unemployment is rising, capital is fleeing and the deficit appears uncontrollable.
Brussels’ strings are pulled by the EU’s German paymasters, who’ve had enough of Hollande’s antagonistic attitude to German leader Angela Merkel. Thus, a promise was forced from Hollande to behave better towards her.
The French have fought the Germans three times in the past 143 years and don’t want to do it again.
Yet I predict pressure from Merkel to increase austerity will bring serious unrest within weeks.
The French won’t swallow Germany’s insistence on the harsh medicine necessary to reform their economy. After all, they have seen only too clearly what has happened in Greece, Spain and, now, Italy.
The Franco-German axis in Europe is over because of France’s addiction to high spending. So, the balance of power in the EU rests firmly in the Fourth Reich.
Labour pretends it is united against a euro referendum, but it will be hard to control its dissidents. Labour MPs know they, too, are losing support to Ukip and are fed up at the way Ed Miliband and the elitists around him ignore the feelings of their working-class vote. John Mills, a shopping channel boss who gave the party £1.6 million in shares last year, says he is funding the Labour For A Referendum movement. The Tories must exploit Labour’s reluctance to trust the people.
