text: Why did the PM think Warsi was right for the chairman's role? (Photo: PA)
  
  Baroness Warsi, co-chairman of the Conservative Party, has been notable by her absence since news of the "Cash for Cameron" affair first broke. Instead it has fallen to a tag team of Francis Maude and Michael Fallon to go from studio to studio explaining why this is a "bit of nonsense" (in Maude's words) which simultaneously the Conservative party leadership takes seriously.
  
  Warsi's co-chairman, Lord Feldman – Andrew Feldman, ennobled by his close friend David Cameron – has not been seen either. This is less surprising, as Feldman is the Cameroon's fund-raising lynchpin and keeps a low profile. He was interviewed for the Financial Times recently as part of a profile on Cameron's first two years as PM. Feldman explained that his friend was good at his job and works tremendously hard, but does look a "little tired" (in contrast to many millions of Britons who commute, work to keep their heads above water, do not have access to two grace and favour homes and look completely knackered).
  
  "Cash for Cameron" has underlined the absence of a proper old-style Tory party chairman. Matthew Barrett ("Where's the Party Chairman?") spotted this yesterday, when Fallon and Maude were doing the 10,000 metres media relay. He suggested that Cameron needs to get himself a chairman to lead from the front pronto.
  
  Equally, that person would have seen it as part of his or her job to protect the party leader from donors and insulate him from potential scandal in the first place. "We are in a mess on Cruddas," a senior Tory told me yesterday, "because we haven't got a strong party chairman who is experienced in the ways of politics as well as being experienced in the ways of the world."
  
  The absence of such a person at the top of CCHQ under Cameron has been entirely deliberate. Cameron and George Osborne decided that Conservative strategy – for the general election and in government – would instead be driven by and defined overwhelmingly by their close relationship.
  
  Osborne's reasons for not wanting someone in post in the mould of Peter Thorneycroft (1975-81), Cecil Parkinson (1981-83), Norman Tebbit (1985-87), Kenneth Baker (1989-1990) or Chris Patten (1990-92) are obvious. Having a big beast at CCHQ would cut across his relationship with Cameron and weaken his control of the Cameroon project.
  
  What is extraordinary is that the Prime Minister should have gone along with this so willingly when it is not in his or his party's interests. Margaret Thatcher would not have dreamt of giving Nigel Lawson the Treasury brief and making him general election supremo in charge of party direction, even though she rated him very highly. Far better to let him concentrate full-time on the economy, and have a party big-beast chairman with a direct route to the PM who could give unvarnished advice, regardless of whether it was at odds with what the Chancellor had been saying.
  
  Francis Maude (2005-2007) was the closest the Cameroons got to having someone in post with clout – but he is an uber-moderniser and was always unlikely to be robust with Cameron and Osborne on strategy, other than to suggest that they go further and faster on initiatives such as the A-list for candidates.
  
  After that it was Caroline Spelman, and then Eric Pickles. Whatever the strengths of Pickles, he was not remotely in the same league as Osborne in terms of influence with the Tory leader.
  
  Then came the decision to split the post. The last time that was done was when Liam Fox and Lord Saatchi were joint chairmen under Michael Howard. Even though both were sharp operators, the Tory party found it was not a happy experiment.
  
  But when Cameron split the role it was even worse. He chose two figures with very little experience of politics. One was his friend, party fundraiser Feldman, the other was Baroness Warsi. It was never clear what her qualifications were for the post. If the hope was she would grow into the job then those hopes have not been justified.
  
  It looked rather as though Cameron and Osborne wanted to advertise the party's commitment to diversity, whilst putting their ultra-loyal money-man and friend in alongside Warsi so that he would do every piece of their bidding.
  
  One cannot imagine Feldman or Warsi ever saying, with a mix of charm and well-intentioned menace: "Prime Minister, I regret to say that we do seem to be getting badly off beam with a lot of the people we need to vote for us if you are to carry on with the job of being such an excellent PM after the election. I know the Chancellor and his friends from the SDP take a different view of this. They seem to think that the solution is tax cuts for the very poorest, who regrettably do not tend to vote Conservative anyway, an assault on grandmothers, tax breaks for the rich and contempt for millions of aspirational strivers who want their families to get on in life. There are alternatives to our current approach, and I think the party would rather like them to be explored. Just a suggestion, Prime Minister."
  
  Once again a design flaw in the original Cameron/Osborne project is causing significant problems for the Tories.
summary: Baroness Warsi, co-chairman of the Conservative Party, has been notable by her absence since news of the "Cash for Cameron" affair first broke. Instead it has fallen to a tag team of Francis Maude and Michael Fallon to go from studio to studio explaining why this is a "bit of nonsense" (in Maude's words) which [...]