Tories turn on Cameron
LONDON — British Prime Minister David Cameron faced signs of unrest from within his own Conservative Party Sunday after the ruling coalition took a beating in midterm elections.
Outspoken MP Nadine Dorries said Cameron could be removed, and others from the right wing of the party also went on the attack after voters suffering from a double-dip recession switched to the Labour opposition.
“Unless there is a dramatic change of tack, it is almost certain that David Cameron and George Osborne will be replaced within a year,” Dorries wrote in the Mail on Sunday newspaper.
Dorries — dubbed “Mad Nad” in the British press for her colourful views — said party chiefs needed only 46 signatures to replace the PM and chancellor.
“Their downfall will have been brought about by arrogance and a sneering disregard for true Conservative values,” she wrote.
Dorries’ attack was the second in two weeks after she branded the pair “two posh boys who don’t know the price of milk.” Both Cameron and Osborne come from aristocratic roots.
Capping the worst month of Cameron’s two years in power, Labour took control of 32 councils in Friday’s elections and won more than 800 seats at the expense of the Conservatives and their coalition partners the Liberal Democrats.
Finance Minister George Osborne insisted the government would “learn” from the elections, the only bright spot in which was the re-election of Conservative London Mayor Boris Johnson.
“Let me take it on the chin. Last week’s elections produced a tough result for the government at a tough time for the country,” Osborne wrote, also in the Mail on Sunday.
Osborne also tried to distance the Conservatives from coalition plans to reform the House of Lords, parliament’s upper house, and to legalize gay marriage.
“I think what people are saying is focus on the things that really matter, focus on the economy and on education and welfare,” Osborne told the BBC.
Osborne apologized for the presentation of his widely criticized recent budget, in which he announced a top-level tax cut as well as an addition of value-added tax to the price of some hot snacks. The gay marriage and Lords reform plans are unpopular with much of the Conservative Party, and Cameron has been urged to return to key “Tory” values.
Veteran Conservative lawmaker Brian Binley said Sunday that Cameron should “wake up and smell the coffee,” while another, Bob Stewart, called for some “sanity” in next Wednesday’s Queen’s Speech.
The speech is delivered by the Queen in parliament but is written by the government to set out their plans for the coming session of parliament.
Richard Ryder, who was chief whip for former Conservative prime minister John Major, urged Cameron to develop “strategy and vision.”