Top three Tory banana skins

In early February David Cameron launched “fixing broken politics,” with big promises to strengthen parliament while also returning power to people and communities. The three flagship policies he outlined to do this all look attractive at a glance, but begin to look more politically perilous the closer you examine them. And all may come back to haunt him.

The first is to reduce the size of the House of Commons by 10 per cent before the end of the first Tory term, which means removing 65 MPs. This will require a review of all constituency boundaries, as well as streamlining and accelerating the usual slow pace of such reviews, risking accusations of gerrymandering. Whether Cameron can persuade 65 of his fellow MPs that they must do themselves out of a job is another matter. Two thirds of the cuts could be made to fall in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where MPs have reduced workloads post devolution, justifying a “devolution discount.” Such a ploy would lose Cameron very few Conservative MPs. But he is also a staunch defender of the Union, and such a strategy could boost separatism. So it is most likely that the cuts will fall evenly across Britain. If so, 53 of the 65 seats would be in England, and most will be Tory ones. That will not endear him to his own backbenchers.

The second problem is Cameron’s pledge to repeal the Human Rights Act (HRA), which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and replace it with a British bill of rights. The aim is to direct the courts to balance rights more strongly with responsibilities and public safety. It stems from a series of court decisions involving suspected terrorists which have prompted the tabloids to depict the HRA as a foreign import and villains’ charter. The key decision here is whether a British bill would build on, or detract from, the ECHR rights. Cameron’s rhetoric suggests the latter, but this risks a battle with judges, who will oppose any attempt to restrict their right to interpret and enforce the existing rules. The likely outcome is a repackaging of the ECHR as a British bill of rights. It will be worthwhile if the public embrace it, but it risks a big fight along the way.

Finally, Cameron has made bold commitments to strengthen and revive local democracy, not only by giving public sector workers the option of forming their own co-operatives, but with referendums on elected mayors, local vetoes over council tax rises and elected police commissioners. This could mean more mayors in large cities. But elected police commissioners will be staunchly opposed both by local authorities and by the police themselves, who fear “politicisation” and BNP candidates as police commissioners. Referendums on council tax and other local issues will also be strenuously resisted by local authorities, most of which are now Conservative controlled, and which fear being burdened with policy or spending commitments they cannot afford. A weaker option would make such referendums advisory, meaning a successful petition would give supporters the right to have their proposals debated at a council meeting. But this isn’t exactly giving power to the people.

The risk of talking big but delivering small runs through all three of these notions. More worrying for the Tories, all of them will alienate groups who should be their natural allies: Conservative MPs and councillors, judges and the police. This is bold, but perhaps not quite in the way Cameron intended.