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David Cameron’s judgment day

This will be Cameron’s finest hour — or the scene of a lynching

Fraser Nelson

Wednesday, 26th September 2007

This will be a make-or-break conference for the Tory leader

The plan in Conservative headquarters is to launch the new Tory vision with much greater clarity through a series of keynote interviews delivered with Cameron, Osborne and Davis in the course of the conference. ‘Some proposals from the policy reviews will be explicitly rejected, others explicitly accepted,’ says a senior Cameroon. ‘He’ll say he promised to change the party, that he has and now it’s time to deliver. It’s time to draw clear dividing lines with Labour.’ The aim will be to portray Mr Brown as a Labour leader touting failed ideas, not the father of the nation who is above party politics.

Of all the policy reviews, the most influential has been Iain Duncan Smith’s ‘broken society’ inquiry which is to be discussed on two of the four days in the conference. The former leader himself has been unexpectedly asked to speak, an indication of how his work — a true labour of love — has moved to the very heart of his party’s strategy and message.

Meanwhile, the wackier ideas to emerge from the other policy groups will be junked, among them Mr Goldsmith’s proposal for a ‘Happy Planet Index’. His many critics argue that this sort of idea seems to have been hatched on Mars (‘and it’s likely to remain on Mars’, says Mr Osborne). Yet environmentalism will not lose its totemic importance in the Cameron project. Greenery remains central to the party’s plans as a means of saying ‘we’ve changed’ — although this necessarily means green taxes. The conundrum is how to go ahead with this without taxing the less affluent out of the sky.

‘Balance’ is the new buzz word. Steve Hilton, Mr Cameron’s chief strategist, has chosen four key themes: health, environment, the broken society and crime. Yet how far he or anyone else can dictate the agenda is another matter. On page 16, Lord Tebbit sets out a very different plan, focusing on immigration, multiculturalism and English votes for English laws.

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James B

September 27th, 2007 2:48pm

It is quite correct that the marginal seats are where it is all happening, and not the Winter Gardens. Relentless targeted leaflets and letters, paid for by Lord Ashcroft can do far more to make up a swing voter's mind than the grumbling of a few discontended party members in Blackpool. Most voters simply do not pay attention to party conferences. It's only the political geeks - and in this category I include myself and just about everyone who contributes to this blog - who get excited about 4 days at the seaside in autumn. I assume that the Conservatives are conducting their own polls in the target seats just as Labour is. I would very much like to know what these polls are saying. That way we can know whether David Cameron's recent challenge to Gordon Brown to call an election now is based on hard evidence that, where the votes matter, his appeal is succeeding. Or whether it was pure bluff. So far as Blackpool is concerned, I simply can't see it being anything like a re-run of 2003, when IDS made a desperate and ultimately futile pitch for his own job against a backdrop of staged applause from CCO stooges.

Barbara Bishop

September 28th, 2007 9:36am

Gordon Brown is waving Cameron off as if he were nought but a pesky midge on a Highland ramble. It is indeed deeply tragic that the Tories laboured and brought forth a Tony Blair clone just at the time when charisma was going out of fashion and sober substance was taking its place. Michael Howard never should have resigned after winning those seats at the last elections (it was always an odd decision for a winner to make?). But he didn't have the vision or apparently the will to "reframe" the Tories which is what was needed to capitalise the gains. So there you go.

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