Being In Opposition Is Like "Guerrilla Warfare", Says Former David Cameron Aide

A former senior aide to David Cameron has warned that being in opposition is like “guerrilla warfare”, and that the next leader of the Conservatives will have to deal with receiving much less attention than they got when in power.

Baroness Fall, now a Conservative peer, worked for former Tory leader Michael Howard in the 2000’s before becoming Cameron’s private secretary when became Conservative Party leader in 2005. After the Tories won power in 2010, Fall was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff in Downing Street and was nicknamed ‘The Gatekeeper’ of No10.

In 2024, as the Conservative Party follows through the process of selecting its new leader, the contenders and the wider party machine will have one eye on what they must do next to recover from the party’s worst general election defeat in its history on 4 July.

According to Fall, this will mean learning to be “agile” and adapting to having “influence rather than power”.

“When you come out of government, a lot of people who are fighting for these jobs are used to having lots of people, lots of support,” she told PoliticsHome.

“[In opposition], you basically have a small, agile team. It's guerrilla warfare, rather than having some huge department behind you.”

The biggest challenge, Fall said, would be for the new leader to figure out how they would handle the “blame game” of what went wrong for the party.

“Where are we heading? What does the centre-right now look like? Why are people voting for you?,” said Fall.

She said that a “skilful politician would not have to make the choice” between more right-wing voters and those in the centre, and instead should think about how the Tory party can appeal to as broad a voter base as possible – something which she felt Cameron was able to