Family-friendly politics
Fraser Nelson 10:41am
The urgency behind the “family friendly” agenda - which is to be the theme of the Tories’ spring conference in Gateshead - can be traced to an internal opinion poll presentation delivered by Lord Ashcroft a few weeks ago. Mothers were going off David Cameron, apparently – which panicked the Cameroons not a little, as one of their favourite boasts was that women liked the Cameron/Osborne duet while considering Brown a clunking great fist. Queue panicked policy production: that declaration that they’d claim back the playgrounds from the yobs, and today headlines about six months of fathers’ leave. There will more of this stuff, I’m told, until Ashcroft’s poll improves – and this is the central objective of the Gateshead spring conference.
I gather that almost all internal polling is about the party (and Cameron’s) standing – not on policies. Since Michael Howard left, for example, there have been no polls conducted on crime. Conservatives are having very depressed discussions with each other at the moment, asking the whereabouts of this wider cause they’re supposed to be fighting for. Since I wrote that piece about the drift in CCHQ the week before last (and the talented people who are slowly quitting) several people have told me “alas, you’re right”. Concern about short-termism and poll-based policymaking is rife. I suspect this latest paternity leave announcement will do nothing for this sinking morale.
Mr Cameron has plenty of good ideas, but he needs to mould them into a discernable Tory mission. He did that in Blackpool last October, when his back was against the wall. Let’s see if he can do it in Gateshead this weekend.
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Comments
Ian C
March 14th, 2008 11:25amCameron has made progress in the 9 months and has moved to a new plateau. If what you say about CCHQ is right it is very worrying. However, if he is the guy who we natural right of centre voters are beginning to think he is we must be betting that he might be we must hope that he will focus on the detailed policy in the run up to the next election - i.e from this autumn. He simply cannot do everything at once and with any luck the red light on CCHQ problems will be flashing on his dashboard. We are just rather nervous about him because of the near meltdown last year. I think this would have happened whoever was leader (with the benefit of hindsight) because it was part of the Blair/Brown strategy that a handover would give Nu Lab new legs. Your report on the reinvigoration of No 10 is noteworthy but not alarming - yet. Let's see what unfolds in the next few months up to the Autumn conference season.
JR
March 14th, 2008 5:27pmAgreed. He's starting to look desperate. One of the areas he needs a definite position is child poverty. I'd advise against trying to fight on Labour's success or otherwise on their targets which Greyling et al are doing at the moment. The Conservatives have nothing in the locker to reduce child poverty in the short term and neither have they articulted what they'd do about child tax credits and wider tax credits. If they ditch them they plunge huge amounts of people into poverty but also screw work incentives (because work would pay comparably less and the poverty trap would be extended) without drastic changes in taxation. A more fruitful angle is really emphasising across policies (and messages) a reduction the number of children in workless households (which is huge) to reduce poverty and - that plays both to emphathetic middle class voters and the core Tory vote. At the moment middle class voters (both trad tories and of a pursuadable liberal bent) are stuck with significant tax burdens (to fund redistribution to keep child poverty down) and no idea what the tories intend to do about it. Personally I'm not sure a hard line approach (cutting taxes and abolishing some of the tax credit system) is a vote winner - I think marginal voters are much more central. If they don't get a position on a range of these type of issues asap they're going to get more and more reactive especially in this area with the Government promising more child poverty/welfare reform announcements in the coming months.
Ray
March 14th, 2008 8:44pmI just wish the Conservatives would stop trying to outbid Labour on the welfare front - a policy that is ultimately doomed because the socialists will always prove more willing to fritter away taxpayers' money to pay for ever more ludicrous entitlements. Cameron needs to return to the Party to its core mission of getting Government off our backs. Promising to throw more money at the NHS and saddle businesses will ever greater costs is hardly the best way to do it.