Should shadow Cabinet members have outside jobs?

It was previously reported back in Nvember that David Cameron wanted his front benchers to quit their outside jobs so that they could focus their attention on fighting Labour and winning the next general election.

However, today the FT reported that Cameron had climbed down and was no longer going to insist they give up their other jobs.

Many in the Tory blogosphere have reacted badly to the news.

Ben Brogan has written a post entitled Cameron gives in to part-timers and argues that "It's difficult not to conclude that David Cameron has scrapped his plans to impose a ban on Shadow Cabinet moonlighting because he did no want to suffer the resignation of senior colleagues, most notably William Hague."

And James Forsyth over on the Spectator's CoffeeHouse blog has said: "This really does call into question their commitment to the cause. One begins to wonder which job they actually regard as their first priority."

Apparently William Hague told Cameron he'd resign if the Tory leader forced a ban, as did two other front benchers.

But how much of an issue is this really? The FT said that "the onset of recession will add weight to Labour jibes that Mr Cameron’s 'two-jobs team' is not devoting its full attention to mitigating the impact of the downturn," but the only time i read about the outside jobs of the shadow Cabinet are when the Tories get in a tizzy over it - whether it's Cameron wanting to enforce a ban (encouraged by Steve Hilton and Andy Coulson) or front benchers who are unwilling to give up their extracurricular jobs and resentful about overbearing centralisation and control of Team Cameron.

To the average man and woman on the street, this story is just not registering. But it might if the Tories keep on talking about it!

To my mind, outside jobs are a good thing. People often criticise the fact that we live in an era of the professional politician who has never had a 'real job' and no experience of business and running things. But when politicians do have these jobs and experience they are attacked for not devoting themselves to their political job. They can't win!

As far as I'm concerned, outside jobs are only a problem if:

1) they are under-performing in their front bench role because they are not devoting enough time and effort to it as a result;

2) their outside job conflicts with their front bench role; and

3) their outside job becomes the story and detracts from Tory messages.

Two of the Tories with significant outside jobs most often mentioned are Hague and shadow Business Secretary Alan Duncan. With regard to these two politicians i agree with Tim Montgomerie from ConservativeHome who writes: "Mr Hague is proof that it is possible to combine outside interests and a high profile portfolio... Alan Duncan, Shadow Business Secretary, is most vulnerable in the next reshuffle. His outside interests have been a growing concern to Team Cameron although it is reported that he is cutting back on them."

Hague is safe. Whether he should be throwing his weight around, standing up to his leader by threatening to resign, is a moot point but i take the view that his outside jobs do not rule him out of his shadow Cabinet job judged by my three criteria set out above. However, Alan Duncan has underperformed in my view. He is a pretty good media performer but his media presence is no where near as high profile as it ought to be especially given the fact that he is now shadowing Lord Mandelson who is in the papers every day. I have read previously that Cameron is considering bringing Ken Clarke into the shadow Cabinet as shadow Business Secretary, replacing Duncan. Don't get me wrong, i like Duncan, but this would be a move i would endorse. Clarke is a 'big beast', a 'political heavyweight', who would prove an effective counterweight to Mandelson and he would be able to bring a wealth of experience and a strong media presence to the role.

In short, message to fellow Tories: stop making this out to be a big deal. You are in danger of making a non-story into a story. So long as their outside jobs do not fall into any of the three criteria above, their experience should be spun as a positive, which it is. That said, of course there will come a point when we approach the next general election that these outside jobs will need to be dropped but it is not now in my opinion - especially if the general election is in 2010.