Give Andrew Mitchell his job back, and show who's in charge Which brings me to an anniversary and a recommendation. A year ago today, Andrew Mitchell was marking his first full day as a backbencher, having resigned on October 19. He had admitted to swearing at a police officer at the gates of Downing Street, apologised and, quite rightly, been reprimanded. But he denied absolutely having used the word "plebs." I believed him at the time, and wrote as much. As a number of Mitchell's colleagues, including Osborne, reflected, it did not chime with their knowledge of the man. I was perplexed to learn that Michael Portillo had mused on a late-night television show last week that he had heard Mitchell use the word in private, and was not surprised that the former defence secretary, who has a Castilian sense of honour, subsequently withdrew his remark. In the year since his resignation, Mitchell has been rehabilitated with a speed that would have seemed unthinkable last October. Thanks to the investigations of Michael Crick and Channel 4 News, we now know that the police account of the confrontation was wholly misleading (CCTV evidence shows that). An all-important email supporting the police log's version of events was fabricated. The Independent Police Complaints Commission ruled last week that three members of the Police Federation had lied about what Mitchell said to them in a private meeting (where are their resignations?). These investigations are not complete but it is now beyond doubt that Mitchell was stitched up like a kipper. Politics is a brutal game. You think journalists are "feral beasts"? The speed with which many of Mitchell's fellow Tories deserted him was like something from a documentary about the cruelty of the veldt ("now watch as the MP for Lichfield - not an alpha, look at his mangy coat - tries to lead the pack away from the wounded minister..."). Yet, now that Mitchell is back, you'd think they'd all been at his side when it counted. The relevant topic of conversation at last year's Tory conference was how to get rid of him. At this year's gathering, in Manchester, the question was what role he should take when he comes back to high office. A return to Cabinet or a spell in Brussels as EU Commissioner? The case for the latter is clear. As one Cabinet minister put it to me: "David is going to need someone in Brussels that the party trusts on Europe." True: the strategy that Cameron set out in January - renegotiation of Britain's EU membership, followed by an in/out referendum by the end of 2017 - depends on voters giving him a second term and his parliamentary party keeping faith with him in a process that is bound to be messy. Having Mitchell in Brussels would be of clear practical and symbolic value. Yet there is a more straightforward way of putting right this wrong, one that would also help Cameron more immediately and appreciably. Mitchell was appointed Chief Whip for a good reason, which is that Cameron and Osborne knew they needed someone outstandingly good at the job of parliamentary management in the challenges that lay (and still lie) ahead. As a former Maastricht whip, Mitchell already knew the job inside out - its curious combination of menace and charm. Patrick McLoughlin, his predecessor, is hugely admired by the Prime Minister as a sibylline source of wisdom, a former miner who truly understands the lost realms of working-class Toryism. But he was unable to prevent or contain the Lords-reform rebellion - the calamitous consequence of which was that Nick Clegg withdrew Lib Dem support from the boundary review, perhaps denying the Tories victory in 2015. Mitchell's successor as Chief Whip, Sir George Young, is a charming and capable man - and a mysterious choice for this role. Most of Cameron's pile-ups of the past year - Europe, the handling of party opinion on gay marriage, Syria - had at their heart shambolic parliamentary management and extraordinary failures of political intelligence-gathering. Counter-factuals are pointless. We cannot know how Mitchell would have handled such problems. But it is certain that many more such moments lie ahead. So put him back in the job he left a year ago. This would be good for the Government (with apologies to Sir George). It would also send a signal to all those unions, professional associations and special-interest groups, that they do not decide who occupies Cabinet posts. Mitchell's resignation set a perilous precedent. The Police Federation was rewarded for its persistence. It claimed a scalp, quite unjustly. In so doing, it encouraged every other vested interest to fight reform by any means available. The lesson was: keep at this Government, because, in the end, they'll buckle. Voters need to know that Cameron and co are competent managers of the economy. But they also need to know that the re-elected Tories would stand up to those they challenge - whether trade unions or energy companies - and that HMG really is in charge. Sometimes the best solution is the obvious one. Make Mitchell Chief Whip (again). 'In It Together," by Matthew d'Ancona, is available from Telegraph Books at £23+£1.35p&p. See books.telegraph.co.uk