Cameron: Labour in terminal decline
Sunday, 07 May 2006 08:50
David Cameron
The government has lost its authority and is in "terminal decline", Conservative leader David Cameron has said.
Following Labour's cabinet reshuffle on Friday after the party lost more than 300 seats to the Tories in the English local elections, Mr Cameron said backbenchers were plotting to oust the increasingly beleaguered Tony Blair.
Mr Blair is to hold talks this weekend with chancellor Gordon Brown about Labour's future.
Questioning why John Prescott carries on as deputy prime minister despite losing his departmental brief, Mr Cameron said Labour had "ministers who've been kept in office even though they've failed."
And he said the local election results – in which the Tories picked up 40 per cent of the vote share – showed voters wanted a change of government, not another reshuffle.
"The MPs are plotting rather than thinking about policy, they're attacking each other rather than standing up for the country," he said.
"We've got ministers who've been kept in office even though they've failed, some who've been kept actually with all the trappings of office in the case of the deputy prime minister, but without any real ministerial power."
Mr Cameron also called for the prime minister and ministers to be stripped of key powers and made more accountable to MPs.
He said the premier of the day should no longer command the right to "ride roughshod" over parliament and decide on ministerial probity.
"In a number of important areas - going to war, agreeing international treaties - there is no formal mechanism for consulting parliament, the nation's elected representatives," he said.
"In other areas like making senior appointments, reorganising government departments, the prime minister is able to exactly as he likes without consulting parliament at all."
He also called for whips' powers to be curtailed with more free votes in the House of Commons.