The Tories cannot continue to fight the election on the vague promise of ‘change’

Wednesday, 3rd February 2010

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics

In the last few weeks, Mr Osborne — and his growing number of allies — have been winning the argument. Last weekend, for example, David Cameron announced that a burglar leaves his human rights at the door when he breaks into your house. This was intended as an example of a policy that can be sold on the doorstep: something to sway the voters who believe that voting Tory won’t really change anything. It was also significant that Tory plans to freeze council tax were dusted down and taken for a spin this weekend. This has been Tory policy since it was announced in George Osborne’s 2008 conference speech and Tory candidates say it goes down well. But it is rarely, if ever, emphasised by the party nationally.

Alastair Campbell was fond of saying that the ordinary voters only begin to hear a message when the media is growing sick of it. The Tories have not grasped this. Too often when you ask them why they don’t talk more about a particular policy, they’ll point you to a particular front page or segment on the News at Ten as if that was enough to drum it into voters’ minds. By contrast, Gordon Brown repeats the same messages endlessly.

The current discussion over strategy echoes — in both personnel and seemingly in result — the one that took place before the election that never was in 2007. Then, Mr Osborne told The Spectator that the über-modernisers were wrong and that ‘we have to have something to say’. The Tory conference that followed duly produced a promise to take all estates worth less than a million pounds out of inheritance tax, to abolish stamp duty on properties worth less than a quarter of a million pounds for first-time buyers and plans to let anyone set up a school. This package said enough about the Tories’ fighting spirit to make Gordon Brown call off the election.

Mr Osborne now has two powerful allies arguing for his position: the party’s director of communications, Andy Coulson, and George Bridges, who has recently returned to work for the party. Significantly, Osborne was responsible for hiring both men, who add balance to the Tory top team. Friends of Coulson and Bridges say they have already struck up a strong bond. Unlike some others, they have no desire to distance themselves from the party’s grassroots. Both are also on the right of the party — Coulson is a former tabloid newspaper editor and Bridges in his time away from the party chose to join the board of the Centre for Policy Studies, a think tank which regards itself as the keeper of the Thatcherite flame. The pair can be expected to push for a subtle increase in the emphasis on immigration. Coulson is said to favour using Sayeeda Warsi, a second-generation Pakistani immigrant, to turn the volume up on the party’s message on this issue.

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oldtimer

February 4th, 2010 2:51pm Report this comment

Vision alone will not cut it. The Conservatives needs some, not too many, specifics of what they will do. Unless people know what is soming the next government will lack the political authority to do it.

This point was powerfully reinforced by Gillian Tett (author of Fools Gold) on the Daily Politics. She said this was the concern she encountered at Davos when speaking to potential foreign investors about the state of UK government debt. Do the politicians have the popular support necessary to do the unpleasant things that must be done to get the debt down and under control. It seems they are not convinced.

Then there is the question of Cameron`s backbone. Is it made of blancmange or billets of steel? I have no idea. We shall only find out if/when he is elected if he is to be a Heath or a Thatcher.

The Man

February 4th, 2010 3:06pm Report this comment

If Hilton was responsible for the vain and hubristic poster campaign then he should be dismissed immediately. It was obvious from the outset that it invited ridicule and parody and should have never got beyond the earliest planning stage.

I haven't been impressed by Osborne thus far but if he is successful in bringing detail and substance to the policy and strategy, then he'll have my respect, although it's really no more than common sense.

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