Conservative party

‘Pick the target, freeze it, personalise it and polarise it.’ This is the best-known of Saul Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals, and even if you haven’t heard of the man or the book, you’ll be familiar enough with the technique. We saw a classic example a couple of weeks ago: the way that off-the-cuff remark on Keynes by Niall Ferguson was seized by his enemies on the left to ‘expose’ him as a wicked homophobe. We saw it again in the recent black-ops campaign conducted by Conservative Central HQ against Ukip. What CCHQ did, you’ll recall, is get all its spotty interns to go through the social media pages of every

After all the parliamentary back and forth yesterday, gay marriage passed third reading by the comfortable margin of 366 to 161. Tory sources are briefing that fewer of their MPs voted against at third reading than second reading, though we’ll have to wait for the division lists to confirm that. We probably now have only a couple more Commons votes left on this; there’ll be on any amendments made to the bill by the House of Lords. The atmosphere in the House as the result was read out did not seem particularly historic. There was some clapping from the Labour front bench, but the Treasury bench didn’t join in and

MPs have just defeated Tim Loughton’s ‘wrecking amendment’ to the Same Sex Marriage Bill by 375 votes to 70, after approving the Government and Labour amendment (more on how that works here) which will introduce a consultation on heterosexual civil partnerships. Those in favour of gay marriage will, if this Bill does make it out of Parliament and into law (and we still have all the stages in the Lords to go through) give David Cameron credit for continuing to push when many faces were set against him. But Labour has played a very impressive game today, appearing to save the legislation by making a tweak to an existing government

If four years ago, a Liberal Democrat politician had attempted to portray the Lib Dems as the natural party of government we all would have laughed. But that is just what Danny Alexander tried to do on The Sunday Politics. Being interviewed by Andrew Neil, he implicitly contrasted Lib Dem steadiness with Tory in-fighting. He said: “You know some people at the time in 2010 said that it would be difficult to keep a coalition going because one party might not be able to remain united and disciplined. Let me reassure you and your viewers that Liberal Democrats will make sure that this government continues to be strong and stable

Clearly it is not a good idea for the Prime Minister’s chums to call members of the Conservative party “swivel-eyed loons“. No, not even at a “private dinner party”. I suspect that the identity of the “senior Conservative” who is “socially close” to David Cameron will be out by close of play Sunday and that he – it seems most unlikely it is a she – will, as James says, be removed from whatever position of responsibility he currently enjoys. I also suspect most voters will have no idea who this man is even once his name is revealed. That doesn’t matter. Adrian Hilton wrote a good piece at ConservativeHome last

There’s plenty of speculation in Westminster today that Philip Hammond is busy positioning himself as a future leadership contender. Last night he had some pretty strong words about the Government’s proposals for same-sex marriage, saying: ‘There is a real sense of anger among many people who are married that any government thinks it has the ability to change the definition of an institution like marriage.’ Meanwhile the FT identifies him as a reluctant cutter of his own department’s spending in its report about George Osborne’s £9bn black hole. Hammond certainly features on the list of names that I’ve compiled from conversations with Tories about who has either told their nearest

If you ask what’s the problem with David Cameron’s European strategy, a cacophony of voices strike up. But it seems to me that most of their complaints are tactical when the fundamental problem is strategic: what does Cameron actually want back from Brussels? Some of those involved in preparation for the renegotiation tell me that this is the wrong question to ask, that what Cameron is seeking is a systemic change in the way the European Union works. But I’m still unclear on what their strategy for achieving this is. One insider tells me that inside Number 10 they’re ‘terrified of detail’. One can see why. Nearly all Tory MPs can