I haven’t written for some time. Partly because I’m new to blogging & partly because events are moving too fast forward to keep up (lame excuse I know). After much analysis by others over the General Election debacle, we’ve got through conference season and now can take stock as to where we are.  In doing that, I want to share some thoughts. The incident and furore with Shapps yesterday was a watershed moment (for me at least) – I think that the No 10 team orchestrated it magnificently. 

They were the ones who released the story. They knew that Shapps had nowhere near the thirty names that he claimed. They also knew that he was well short of the amount needed to 1. Inform the whips/PM & 2.Trigger a leadership challenge. Yet they released the story, they dealt with it there and then. 

Talk in Press land on Wednesday/Thursday was about whether May would survive the week, but it was not in line with what they saw at conference.  They galvanised the Party whose core activists had just fine back from a conference that felt successful (despite the media not reporting it so).

I was in shock with what I saw on Wednesday, and I was livid that the speech could happen like that. I felt (now obviously wrongly) that the team had let May down. The PM could not help that Lee Nelson got in and tried his stunt, but someone needs to answer questions as to why there was this breach of security? No-one could have calculated that the F in display (see what I did there) would come apart. But again someone needs to answer the question why? I was disappointed that her cough got the better of her & feel that her team could have done more. I still do. One off temporary treatment would have prevented the calamity. But I guess that took the sting out of the first two incidents, which as stand alone would have looked worse. Yesterday however, May’s team came into their own. They protected their PM and they elevated their PM.

It was a brilliant strategy, executed meticulously. Unfortunately for Grant Shapps, it was am unmitigated disaster. The team knew that he was a media whore who would jump at the chance of talking to the press all day, which he did. The more he talked the more stupid he looked. His threat, which was a pre-conference one was hardly a nuclear bomb, it was barely a stink bomb.  My favourite part of yesterday, was after doing interview after interview, was Shapps’ complaint that it should not have gone public. The result was that it galvanised the Parliamentary Party 

The team behind May decided to quell a potential rebellion by seizing an initiative that was lost. The speech was meant to reenergise the Party. Conference looked like it would present that opportunity. It was all set up. And yet it worked out differently. So the team used this to do the same objective. And it worked.  They understood the mood of the activists and have ensured renewed support for the Prime Minister. 

The fall guy is discredited. I’m sure his association will want to have “conversations” with him. Any real challenge is very much on the back burner. 30 signatories may have been true pre-conference, but they weren’t around post conference. We are only aware of three, but I’m sure that before the release of this story, there may well have been more. 

What is clear is that there is no appetite for a leadership challenge anytime soon. There is clear evidence that if there is one, it will fail. And the plan to allow May good time to deliver a good Brexit is still back on track….. For now.