Shooting across David’s bows

Tory Whips this afternoon texted MPs not to respond to press questions about the anonymous letter which Conservative Home got hold of today in which a Conservative MP appears to attack David Cameron as “Stalinist” and “despotic.”

It arrived in Tory MPs’ post on Monday morning and despite one Tory MP being convinced that it came from the Labour minister Ian Austin (he’ll be thrilled with that), the vast majority believe it’s from one of their own, probably an older member and perhaps one who has had his expenses dragged through the papers.

I found a couple of MPs who agreed “100 per cent with every word of it,” one who said it was exactly what people had been saying in private and that the older MPs worried that the leadership was conducting drive-by shootings in the wake of the expenses stories.

One Tory frontbencher said the attack the letter makes on David Cameron’s “short-term media management” was “a very useful shot across David’s bows.”

There was always going to be some comeback for the brutality that allowed David Cameron to win several news cycles in the expenses saga, but if this is as bad as it gets he won’t lose much sleep over it.