Conservative party

The Tories know that if the next election is a referendum on the current government, it’ll be very difficult for them to win. But if it is a choice between them and a Labour government, then they are in with a good chance. David Cameron’s speech to his party’s Spring Forum today ends with a list of what a Labour government would do in its first 100 days in office. It shows how keen the Tories are to frame the next election as a choice, not a referendum, that Cameron is prepared to publicly contemplate defeat to do this. Interestingly, there’s no mnetion of the Liberal Democrats or the coalition

Conservative MPs who have previously supported statutory underpinning of press regulation are meeting on Monday morning to discuss how they will vote. There is a list of 75 Tories who have backed the idea, but I understand that if an agreement isn’t reached on Monday between the main parties, there are around 20 MPs who would be minded to vote against the Conservative three-line whip and support Labour’s amendments. The Conservative part of the government has just published its Royal Charter, and Labour and the Lib Dems are also tabling more amendments today. Once all the information is available, pro-statute Tory MPs will make up their mind on whether to

Speeches by Theresa May and Liam Fox have produced a surge of interest in what Conservatives stand for. Politics in recent years has become an endeavour by a political class, divided by only superficially different beliefs, to use mass advertising techniques to manipulate public opinion. The emphasis on ‘modernisation’ and detoxification grew out of this narrow, calculating spirit, but it has led the Conservatives away from the ideals that have made this country worthy of allegiance. And yet, readily to hand, there are guiding principles that could stir the heart of many a potential Conservative voter. Many conservatives see themselves as champions of liberty. But what does such a claim

There’s so much to disagree with in Rupert Myers’ piece arguing that the Tories should raise the minimum wage that it’s difficult to know where to begin. Raising the minimum wage will be bad for the most vulnerable in the workforce and will lead to less employment. The question of whether it would win support for the Conservative party is another matter. This is really basic economics. Raising the price of labour by dictat will reduce the demand for it, other things given. Or as Paul Krugman put it back in 1998:  ‘The higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to unemployment.’  It might not necessarily

Lynton Crosby spoke to Tory MPs this evening about the imporance of party discipline. With the Chief Whip in the chair, meetings of the Tory parliamentary party are normally fairly loyalist events. Tonight’s was no exception and with David Cameron and Lynton Crosby in attendance there was an even greater incentive to good behaviour. I’m told that James Morris, who sits for a West Midlands marginal, earned cheers when he implored colleagues to remember that when they sound off, they hurt those like him who are trying to cling on to their majorities. Kris Hopkins, the no nonsense leader of the 301 Group, complained about ‘self indulgent buffoons’ who keep

How do the Conservatives continue to tackle the deficit, grow the economy, and persuade voters that they are – as the Home Secretary Theresa May put it in her measured keynote speech to the ConHome ‘Victory 2015’ conference yesterday – a party for all? There’s a chance that the answer to all three problems might be to make targeted increases to the minimum wage. Americans are starting to look at the potential stimulus effects of a similar increase in their minimum wage, and this may be the time for the Treasury to contemplate something radical. Whilst the electorate continue to view Ed Miliband as out of his depth, one of the biggest

The question about Theresa May has always been what does she believe? Well, today in the widest-ranging speech of her political career she went a long way to answering that. You can read the speech, delivered at the Conservative Home conference, here. Several things struck me about the speech. First, on economics May is not a classical liberal or a Lawsonian. Instead, she is more in the Michael Heseltine camp. She made the case for a buy British government procurement programme that strikes a ‘better balance between short-term value for the taxpayer and long-term benefits to the economy’. But, in other areas, May is prepared to be more free market

At last some leadership on Iran. And from the Conservative benches. After last week’s appalling Jack Straw piece in the Telegraph, the Conservative MP James Morris has a brilliant and blistering response in the same paper. ‘It is vital that we continue to pressure the Iranian regime through tough and sustained sanctions – and leave the possibility of a military option firmly on the table. The Iranian regime must be under no illusions about our determination and resolve in preventing them from achieving their objective of developing a nuclear weapons capability. Those of us who understand the grave danger a nuclear Iran would pose – and there are many –

The only Tory more Tiggerish than Michael Fabricant is the party chairman Grant Shapps, and perhaps that’s why the two work so well together on campaigns. But even the jovial Conservative vice chairman is exhausted after the full-throttle Eastleigh by-election. Fabricant was shouted at in the street by a voter who, thinking he was a Lib Dem, harangued him about Chris Huhne, and one voter placed notice on a wheelie bin telling campaigners to dump their leaflets there, not through the letterbox. But in spite of that, from the glowing way he describes the campaign, you might be forgiven for thinking the Tories won it, or at least came second,

What sort of Budget will George Osborne unveil on 20 March? In this week’s Spectator, Fraser Nelson predicts that it will be an empty one, devoid of radicalism. The piece outlines one meeting in which the Chancellor explained why he is feeling so cautious: Before every Budget, George Osborne always seeks the advice of various MPs. He usually doesn’t heed it but it’s a good way, he thinks, to keep the troops happy. As the economic headwinds have strengthened, this advice has tended to be increasingly radical and in a recent meeting with the Free Enterprise Group of Tory MPs, the Chancellor made clear he was in no mood for

Who are all these folk jumping on Nigel Farage’s bandwagon? Ukip — which received just 3 per cent of the vote in 2010 — is now averaging about 11 per cent in the polls. Its rise has fuelled all sorts of speculation about where its supporters are coming from and why they’re turning to the party. Today, YouGov have thrown a bit of data into that speculation. They’ve combined the results of all their February polls, which sampled 28,944 people including 2,788 who said they’d vote Ukip. The results are a mixture of the expected and the surprising. First, the expected: most of them voted Tory in 2010 — 60

Liam Byrne launched Labour’s campaign on the ‘bedroom tax’ today, while Helen Goodman, who was the Labour minister responsible for the party’s own attempt at cutting the housing benefit bill when in government, raised the cut at Education Questions today. Tory MPs groaned a little. Michael Gove pounded the despatch box, and shouted ‘this is not a tax!’ and Labour MPs groaned back. But behind the scenes, I understand that far from groaning, Conservative MPs have been lobbying the Prime Minister on this particular cut, which comes into effect on 1 April. At a Downing Street lunch for a number of Conservative MPs recently, David Cameron received a bit of