
Osborne won’t harm May at Conference
The cat is out of the bag, then: Theresa May’s arch enemy and the man she fired first upon becoming Prime Minister last July is going to the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Manchester in October. Having already quit his job as a Member of Parliament to become the Editor of the London Evening Standard, and famously calling May a ‘dead woman walking’ in the days after the election in June, the former Chancellor looks set to cause a media stir when he arrives at Manchester Central.
The narrative has already been established for this — the presence of Osborne will undermine the spirit of unity that this conference will aim to portray to a wider audience. Of course, the reason May is a ‘dead woman walking’ is because she led the Tories to throwing away their majority in June, and this Manchester Conference is where May needs to put her premiership back on track, or risk falling into the history books as nothing other than a ‘caretaker’ PM for the duration of the Brexit process.
Osborne’s near-joy at the trouble May finds herself in is sewing the seeds of disunity that the media pick up on, and will continue to pick up on. But since the election, Osborne himself has fallen somewhat silent and returned to talking about issues. Talking up the case for the High Speed 3 Rail line in the North of England, the case for his ‘Northern Powerhouse’ and other investments, the former Chancellor has moved on from petty squabbling to acting as a political pressure, and it will probably be in that spirit that he attends Conference.
The Chancellor’s next Budget is scheduled for the weeks after the Conservatives’ Conference, and so Osborne will view it as a perfect time not to damage Theresa May’s Government, but to put it on a better path on some of his projects. Speaking at the Northern Powerhouse fringe events at Conference won’t undermine Theresa May, but put her under pressure to deliver on the Conservatives’ Transport promises to the North of England and elsewhere. Theresa May might be looking for unity. She can do that by re-enforcing the good, pro-North message Osborne laid out not just when he was Chancellor, but that he has continued through his work at the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.
Osborne’s agenda is not aided by attacking May openly now that is clear she is stuck in her position for the foreseeable future. Whether he — or anyone — wants the Prime Minister to stand aside is irrelevant now, and he knows that. He gets nothing from calling for her resignation, calling her names, and everything from showing some loyalty, and pressuring on his causes. That will be his role at Conference. I wouldn’t expect any fighting or arguments with George Osborne, just some quiet pressure with a swirl of media cameras around him.
He isn’t there to push May off the shelf. He is there simply to pull her closer to his goals for his own projects. It’s time the media stopped looking for a fight where there isn’t anything more than political lobbying and pressure.
