Love Theresa May - hate David Cameron. That was the message from the Brexiteering newspapers as they vented their wrath at the former prime minister by criticising the man they view as his proxy, Sir Craig Oliver.
He was Cameron’s communications director and, according to the Mail on Sunday’s serialisation of his book, he claimed that May torpedoed Cameron’s remain campaign in the run-up to the EU referendum.
She had pursued a “submarine strategy” by disappearing from view rather than responding to pleas to speak out in public. She had declined to help on 13 occasions, said Oliver.
That not only prompted May’s political “allies” to speak out on her behalf by rejecting Oliver’s claims. It spurred her national newspaper supporters to rally to her side.
Foremost among them, naturally, was the Daily Mail. After noting that he was knighted in Cameron’s “much-derided resignation honours lists”, it lashed Oliver for his “self-serving attack”.
He had been “one of the main architects of Project Fear” and, “primed by Mr Cameron and George Osborne... was a key player in Remain’s propaganda offensive.”
Sir Craig, it said, “is the epitome of the arrogant political class” and “a classic example of why the public has lost faith in British politics.”
May, by contrast, is “a leader determined to promote a more honest, upright kind of politics and steer Britain to a prosperous post-Brexit future.”
Mail columnist Andrew Pierce also sank his teeth into Oliver, quoting an unnamed minister who called Oliver part of a “snooty metropolitan elite”. According to Pierce, Oliver “never hesitated to use the black arts to undermine politicians he decided had not been sufficiently supportive” and May “was high on his hit list.”
The Sun thought May was being painted as a villain “from the perspective of David Cameron” who “thinks the Remainers could have won if Mrs May had behaved differently.” Its editorial continued:
“Deluded doesn’t even come close. Remain lost because Mrs May was right...
Sir Craig’s book is meant to show how everyone else except Sir Craig was to blame for Remain losing. It does the opposite, demonstrating how the Cameroons still haven’t grasped what happened on June 23.”
Oliver also claimed in his book that Boris Johnson had a secret last-minute wobble about leaving the European Union.
Charles Moore, in his Daily Telegraph column, didn’t think much of the revelation, arguing that Johnson’s agonising “was all over the front pages for several days at the time.”
He thought it positive that Johnson had dithered over such a difficult decisions, and then came a dig at Cameron:
“I suspect that one of the reasons for Mr Cameron’s downfall is that he has the unusual vice of being too decisive, tending to snatch at something... and rush forward without thinking it through.”
As Laura Perrins pointed out in a piece for the i, Cameron resigned as an MP in order to avoid being “a distraction” from May. Yet he appears relaxed about having “flung a hand grenade” at his successor “safely from the distance of his country pad in Chipping Norton.”
Brexiteer Perrins, co-editor of The Conservative Woman - “the foremost voice of social conservatism in Britain” - argued that “Brexit was entirely of Cameron’s making” She wrote:
“He made a promise at party conference that he could not keep, in order to secure votes. That makes him a politician. But the fact that he now seeks to blame others for his miscalculation makes him a petulant sore loser.
These protestations will do little to salvage his growing reputation as one of the most irresponsible prime ministers in history.”
It would appear that it is open season on Cameron, even from those who benefitted from his decision to hold the referendum.
It goes without saying that the Remain side are still outraged by his manoeuvre. Moreover, they are lifted - despite Labour’s internal split - by what the Daily Mirror contended are “fatal Tory divisions over Europe.”
The paper said the government “is not as secure as the unelected prime minister would like us to believe” and called for Labour unity. Its members “should try remembering the Tory party is their enemy, not each other.” Good luck with that one!
