Westminster blog

The Conservatives’ reluctance to ditch their plans on inheritance tax – lifting the threshold to £1m – is curious. It suggests an inability to react nimbly to the downturn; fiscal policies which aid the rich look inappropriate when unemployment is soaring. Ken Clarke’s recent confusion over whether the policy would still be implemented in a first term looked amateurish at best.

There were three more moments this week which are bad “box office” for the party because they suggest, rightly or wrongly, that David Cameron’s re-branding may not have reached the outer corners of his party.

1] Dan Hannan, the Tory MEP, claiming the NHS had been “a mistake for 60 years”. Hannan would have been ignored a month ago. Since then 2 million people (or more) have seen the Youtube video of his sharp and effective critique of Gordon Brown in the European Parliament. Unfortunately for him that means another big audience for his Fox News interview, where he warns the Americans not to go down the route of universal healthcare.

Clearly the NHS is not perfect. But how could any British politician be so out on a limb from public opinion that he wants to see the whole thing dismantled and – presumably – replaced with the US insurance system? Conservative Central Office say Hannan’s views are out of kilter with their own. But the sooner Cameron comes out and repeats this the better.

2] Edward Garnier, shadow justice minister, is out and about trying to repeal the Hunting Act of 2004. Again, the Conservative leadership claim this is a one-man campaign and fox-hunting will not feature in the manifesto. Yet the issue is Old Conservative. Raising it at this point in the electoral cycle is a mistake.

3] George Osborne‘s claim on Monday that the three-year pay deals for nurses, teachers and police could be re-opened. This is dangerous territory. Sure, there is public concern about the bloated state. People don’t like chief executives of local authorities making £200,000 a year, true. And there is envy about superior pensions in the public sector.

That doesn’t mean they want the government to cut nurses’ wages though. And all of those workers have votes; they may not like being characterised as a burden on the taxpayer. Yesterday afternoon Osborne was forced to row back from the suggestion that the Tories would reopen existing three-year pay deals. By then the potential damage was done.