Battling 'Maggie' May: Tories’ top choice to replace Cameron

Theresa May has just been voted by grassroots Tory supporters the top choice to replace David Cameron as party leader, if and when a replacement should be needed, ahead of Boris Johnson.

The vote of confidence in the Home Secretary comes despite – or perhaps because of - a week of troubles, including the hissy-fit resignation of Lib Dem Norman Baker as crime prevention minister in May’s department and the loss of Fiona Woolf as chair of the inquiry into child sex abuse.

Anyone else would be trailing in the opinion polls but May has come smelling of roses. Even Paul Goodman, the former Tory MP and editor of the ConservativeHome website, finds it difficult to understand the results of his site’s straw poll: Theresa May 24 per cent, Boris Johnson 22, Michael Gove 11, George Osborne 10, Sajid Javid: nine.

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Says Goodman: “The second loss of a child abuse inquiry chairman. A backbench backlash over the European Arrest Warrant – which isn’t all that popular in Downing Street or the Whips’ Office either. Revelations of enough illegal immigrants undeported ‘to fill Wembley Stadium almost five times over'. Politicians described as having had their ‘worst week ever’ have seldom actually had it. But it is hard to think of a worse one than last week for Theresa May – notwithstanding Norman Baker’s welcome resignation.”

Goodman says she’s either highly rated by Tories for doing a good job in a legendarily disaster-prone office, or she’s “a front-runner in a lacklustre field”.

Cathy Newman, the Channel 4 News presenter, has a different take. Writing for the Daily Telegraph, she says May should be buying Baker a drink for the favour he’s done her. His valedictory interview with The Independent, in which he described working with May as like “walking through mud”, will, says Newman, have “your average Tory” cheering “their new darling for putting the kibosh on the Lib Dems’ plans to pilot prescriptions of heroin for hardcore addicts, licences for the medical use of cannabis and free foil to help addicts inject safely".

Frustrated by the compromises of four years of coalition government, adds Newman, Tory activists will lap up Baker’s description of the Home Office “as a Conservative department in a Conservative government, whereas in my view it’s a coalition department in a coalition government”.

Newman: “A coalition department? Grassroots Tories can’t think of anything worse.”

Quite. And the news just gets better for Tories who are saying “good riddance” to Baker.

As the Daily Mail reports today, Conservative MPs are clucking with glee that two more senior Lib Dems – Mark Hunter and Jenny Willott – have followed Baker’s example and decided to quit their government posts, because they want to distance themselves from the coalition and concentrate on trying to hold their seats at the May 2015 general election.

Setting aside the fact they were whips who are not even household names in their own households, the Tories called them “chickens”.

As for Norman Baker’s rather more high-profile departure, it prompted David Cameron to issue a paean of praise in support of his Home Secretary: “She is a very effective politician, a very effective administrator. I want someone who is a tough Home Secretary – it’s a tough world out there.”

May's not just the closest thing Tories can find to their dear departed Maggie Thatcher, she's a survivor, having seen off the formidable Michael Gove after their spectacular falling-out when he was Education Secretary over who was to blame for failing to tackle Islamic extremism in schools. Gove was transferred out of Education to become Chief Whip.

Today she’s involved in another Cabinet spat, this time with Culture Secretary Sajid Javid.

As The Times reports, Javid wants to force mobile telephone companies to provide all users with “national roaming” so that when you enter a “not spot” – an area where you suddenly don’t get a signal – your phone switches to another provider, just as it would if you were a foreigner holidaying in Britain.

It seems an innocuous enough solution – possibly influenced by David Cameron’s complaints that his mobile doesn’t work efficiently when he’s on holiday in Cornwall - but Theresa May claims it would make it easier for would-be terrorists to slip out of the reach of intelligence service snoopers.

Despite a lot of ducking on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, Javid appeared to confirm the Times report that May has sent him a stiff Whitehall memo telling him to back off.

May, it seems, is on a roll. But there is one battle ahead that could trip her up: the forthcoming vote on the European Arrest Warrant. The Tory right hates it because it has Europe in the title. May and Cameron want it because it will help to deal with criminals across Europe.

There is going to be a huge Tory rebellion and May will have to rely on Liberal Democrats, Labour MPs and her old foe Michael Gove to get it through. How she handles that could be the biggest test yet of her leadership qualities.