David Cameron and the Ken Clarke problem

The process David Cameron has to go through on Ken Clarke and his interview comments about rape is fairly complex. First of course he has to decide what he thinks of the comments themselves.

There’s the kind interpretation: Ken Clarke is an experienced barrister who would never regard rape as a trivial matter. But he knows there are some crimes that are more serious than others, some murders are more brutal, some rapes more violent and so on. He didn’t mean it the way it came out. He made a PR gaffe but he’s corrected himself, he’s an elder statesman, is popular and the kind of chap who can get away with it. Of all the men in the Conservative Party he is not one of the “nasty party”.

Then there’s the harsh one: Ken Clarke revealed a worryingly out of date attitude towards rape of the kind judges used to get pilloried for. He seemed to mean what he said about there being serious rapes and, by implication, less serious ones. When challenged on it by the media pack he revealed a striking inability to talk to women journalists from the younger generation. He looked too old and out of touch.

Next the PM will have to think about the point of Ken Clarke in the Government. He was brought into the Tory shadow cabinet at George Osborne’s suggestion partly, it is said, to face down the idea that the young Shadow Chancellor would never make it into number 11 and have to be replaced by Clarke, and partly because he was an asset with which to take on Peter Mandelson at the Business Department. But he has served his purposes in those respects. Nobody now suggests Clarke should take over from Osborne. Labour has no big beasts left against whom Ken Clarke needs to be deployed. In short David Cameron doesn’t need him anymore and he is no longer especially seen as an asset.

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But if things are starting to look dicey for the Justice Secretary, David Cameron would first have to confront his wise instinct to put off a reshuffle as long as possible. He has apparently learnt from the messy attempts by Blair and Brown to freshen up their teams which never seemed to make them more appealing (even the arrival of Mandelson, though exciting for the press, did little for voters). And if he does reshuffle now there’s the Andrew Lansley problem. Moving him from health might be a good idea electorally before the next election but would look like a huge defeat for the Government if done right now. And sacking Ken Clarke is what Ed Miliband demanded, which will make David Cameron want to do the opposite.

On the other hand Mr Cameron might just think Andrew Lansley is stubborn on the NHS, Chris Huhne is at loggerheads with George Osborne and embroiled in a bizarre fight with his ex-wife about speeding tickets, David Willetts is embattled over university tuition fees, Theresa May is at war with the police, and Liam Fox is being troublesome at defence and using his position to snipe from the right. On top of all that the Lib Dems are starting to cut up a bit rough on the NHS and now Ken Clarke does this?! The PM could be forgiven for thinking this just the time to start reasserting his authority in government.