Conservative party

Wednesday

David Blackburn

Purnell’s ‘empowerment’ pledge falls flat

James Purnell envisages a society of ‘empowered’ voters left to make decisions for themselves. It is an attractive concept – individual responsibility displacing state directives will save money and, providing those running the institutions are competent, improve public services. Writing in the Times, Purnell acknowledges that these concepts can become lost in the abstract terms in which they are expressed. What a pity he didn’t take his own advice – his article is an extended abstract noun. Not that it’s all bad. What power is there for parents who can’t afford to move close to a good school, he asks. His answer is broadly similar in tone and substance to

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Branson’s comments are nectar to the Tories

Sir Richard Branson may often personify a leering joke, but, as Steve Richards observed this morning, this election is descending into a personality contest. Branson remains a symbol of British entrepreneurial success: his endorsement is crucial and I expect to see this story splashed across the right-wing tabloids tomorrow. The Standard quotes Branson saying: “I believe the UK’s record budget deficit does pose a serious risk to our recovery. “It would be damaging if we lost the confidence of the markets through delayed action and saw interest rates have to go up steeply. “We are going to have to cut our spending and I agree with the 20 leading economists

David Blackburn

Much to do if Britain is to manufacture its way out of trouble

The City had hoped that Britain would export its way out of trouble. Dream on City Boys: Britain’s trade deficit is £7.3bn. It is perverse that the Thatcher government is blamed for manufacturing’s decline. Certainly, deficits were a feature of the Thatcher years but Labour came to power with a £1.8bn trade surplus and the gap has widened every year thereafter; Britain was £56bn in the red by 2006. With a possible inflation crisis louring in the distance, precipitated in part by weak sterling and a dependency on imports, British manufacturing needs to be stimulated. John Redwood has a typically incisive post:       ‘It is quite possible to make things

David Blackburn

MPs, porkies, pigs and scum

The headline might almost be word association, but when it comes to Twitter the devil makes work for idle thumbs. Guido points out that tweets cannot be edited once posted. Labour whip David Wright has previous with labelling the Tories ‘scum’, and he maintains that on each occasion he has fallen victim to a would be Lisbeth Salander, who uses their genius to post inane political slurs in no more than 147 characters. Either that or he’s artless at deceit.     CCHQ scent blood and Eric Pickles is gunning for Wright’s head. He has written a letter arguing that Wright has breached the ministerial code. I can see this row

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cutting it with the Fink

I couldn’t let today pass without a response to Danny Finkelstein. We do agree on the ends, but not the means. And, as he says, this debate mirrors one about the methods of reform. So, let¹s go through his points. 1. ‘I am afraid I think Fraser overestimates (a lot) how politically difficult this is all going to be. And how personally painful for a lot of people. And how technically difficult.’ Painful, yes, but necessary ­ and it will be resented if Cameron is not straight about the cuts he will have to make. But how painful? Gordon Brown¹s great intellectual victory is to persuade the Tories that ‘cuts’

Monday

James Forsyth

Why Adeela Shafi didn’t get a namecheck

There is real jumpiness in Tory circles at the moment about the prospects of more candidate disasters. So eyebrows were sent upwards when David Cameron failed to name check Adeela Shafi in a section of his speech this morning which mentioned many of the Muslim candidates standing for the party. The omission seemed surprising as Shafi was one of the people who spoke in the prestigious slot just before the leader’s speech at Tory conference in 2008 and is, I think, the only female Muslim candidate standing for the Tories. The assumption was that she had not been mentioned because of the recent stories about her financial problems. But the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The three Tory pin-ups are brave

The three voters who have agreed to be featured in the Tories’ new ads are brave folk. I would wager a considerable amount that right now there are a whole slew of people digging into their pasts hoping to find some piece of evidence to discredit them. It might not be appealing but it is how politics is done. Remember how the American media hammered ‘Joe the Plumber’, the man who confronted Obama about his tax policy and the McCain campaign tried to turn into a poster boy for those worried about Obama’s economic policies, for owing income tax and not having the right kind of plumbing license. Just last

Peter Hoskin

The Tories’ new poster campaign is a massive improvement over the last

I know there’s a danger of expending too many words on poster campaigns, so just a quick post to flag up the designs the Tories launched this morning.  There’s one of them above, and two more based on the same theme – “I’ve never voted Tory before, but…” – which you can see here. To my eyes, at least, they’re a massive improvement over the last, graveyard poster: refreshingly positive, while also attacking The Way Things Are Now.   Now, I know there are CoffeeHousers who liked the Death Tax poster precisely because it got down ‘n’ dirty, taking the fight to Labour.  But, despite their sunnier front, these latest

Mark Bathgate

Turbo-charged fiscal crises

The crisis in Greece shows just how quickly a fiscal crisis can blow up. Just two-and-a-half weeks ago, Greece was able to raise several billions in financing, with demand for almost 25 billion of their debt in an auction. The very next day, their bond market collapsed and the rout began. Just ten days later, they were turning up in Brussels with a begging bowl, and inviting the European Commission and IMF to Athens to start making their tax and spending decisions. There can be nothing worse for a government than having your economic policy dictated by the markets, and then other governments, as access to finance disapears. All you

Peter Hoskin

The politics of Osborne’s co-ops

There’s plenty of buzz this morning about George Osborne’s new policy proposal: allowing public sector workers to run schools, job-centres, hospitals and other services as cooperatives. James Crabtree, Tim Montgomerie and Spectator.co.uk’s very own Martin Bright have exhaustive posts on why this might work in practice. It is, as they all suggest, pretty radical stuff.   But it’s also clever politics.  It is something which appeals directly to people on the left (like Martin), as well as public sector workers.  When so much of the Tories central “post-bureaucratic” agenda is about decentralising power from the government to individuals or to private enterprise, this says that the public sector won’t be

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

The Tories take the fight to Labour over social justice

Statistics about educational inequality in this country always tend to shock and dismay in equal measure.  And this latest piece of research from Michael Gove’s office is no exception: “New analysis by the Conservatives shows that just 45 pupils on Free School Meals (FSM) make it to Oxford or Cambridge each year. One top London private school gets an average of 82 Oxbridge admissions a year – almost double the number of FSM admissions. One leading independent girls’ school produces the same number of Oxbridge entrants as the entire FSM cohort.  Just 1 per cent of FSM pupils go on to a Russell Group university.” Just to be clear, the

David Blackburn

Ashcroft returns fire but the ‘scandal’ rolls on

Lord Ashcroft looks like a man not to cross and he will do anything to protect his privacy. He faces down criticism with complete silence, patient before turning on his detractors. According to the Sunday Times, Ashcroft has attacked Labour over its ‘smears’ about his tax status. His tone is derisive but his intention is clear: back off. He has obtained documents held by the Labour party, detailing its strategy to expose Ashcroft. One activist wrote: ‘Think the Guardian most likely to go for it.’ Smart chaps these Labour wonks. Sure enough, the front page of the Observer trails an interview with Eric Pickles, who is ‘frustrated’ by his deputy’s obfuscation.  Reading Pickles’ comments, the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cameron steps up his game

There’s something about a trip to Scotland that brings out the best in Tories giving speeches, and David Cameron lived up to the occasion the other evening. He reprised his social justice passage – easily the best part of his 2009 conference speech. Listing how Labour has made the rich richer and poor poorer, and how the Tories are the party of Wilberforce etc. Promising a “radical zeal” Conservative party – Amen to that. “Some people will say ‘you can’t do things like that.  You can’t afford to take those risks.’ I say with so little money and so much failure we can’t afford not to.” That’s the spirit.  “Those

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

Cameron brings some clarity to the table

Maybe it’s just a slow Saturday, but the Conservatives’ latest WebCameron video (see below) strikes me as one of the most effective yet. The pitch is straightforward: make an appeal to people who voted New Labour or who “have never voted Tory before”.  So things like Sure Start and the minimum wage get a namecheck. But, aside from that, it’s striking just how clearly and unequivocally Cameron sets out Tory commitments such as recognising marriage in the tax system. Indeed, the passage on the “root causes of our social breakdown”, and how the Tories would deal with them, harkens back to his powerful address at the party conference.  Only, this

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Tim Montgomerie’s broad church

The FT Magazine has a cover boy today: Tim Montgomerie. It’s about how “a small group of Christian Conservatives are rewriting party doctrine,” and has positioned Tim in such a way that there appears to be a halo behind his head with his eyes heavenwards. Something tells me this was not the picture Tim was expecting. The front cover tease sounds like one of these conspiracy theories you get in America: the capture of a political party by a small band of idealogues etc etc. Read on, and the piece is fair and instructive: it tells the important – but hardly controversial – part of a key aspect of Conservative

Peter Hoskin

A ceasefire in the VAT war?

Has another dividing line faded into the sand?  It sure looks like it, going off this Times report on how both Labour and the Tories are considering hiking VAT to 20 percent.  If you recall, it was thought that Brown blocked Alistair Darling’s plan to introduce the rise in last year’s Pre-Budget Report – and all so he could attack the Tories over reports that they would do similar.  The PM will find it a lot harder to stage that attack after this morning. A few weeks ago, the rumour was that Labour would make keeping VAT at 17.5 percent a “main election pledge”.  Whether that pledge now appears, or

Friday

Peter Hoskin

Darling enters election mode

There must be something about stepping back onto Scottish soil that invigorates Alistair Darling, because his Edinburgh speech is one of the most political and confrontational he has delivered for some time.  Sure, Darling is a Labour man, so it’s part of his job to oppose the Tories.  But, compared to his Cabinet colleagues, he’s normally so restrained about it.  Here, though, the gloves are well and truly off. The Chancellor calls Cameron a “real risk to Scotland’s future,” and throws in a dash of Thatcher-baiting (“The Tories … are as out of touch now as they were 30 years ago”).  But, really, there are two passages worth dwelling on,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

There is a massively important principle at stake in Northern Ireland

The Times continues its attack on the Tory policy of trying to field candidates in Northern Ireland today. In its leader on the subject, it declares that the Tories should abandon their efforts and that this is relatively easily done as ‘there is no great ideological cause at issue.’ This is wrong. There is a massively important principle at stake here, a party that aspires to govern the United Kingdom should run candidates in all parts of it. To put it another way, the people of Northern Ireland deserve a chance to vote for the Tories. David raises some valid points about the problems the alliance between the Tories and

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The social, moral, and economic case for smaller government

Ten days on and Danny Finkelstein still seems to be upset with me for my Keith Joseph lecture, where I said the Tories risked being ensnared by Brown’s ‘investment v cuts’ rhetoric. For reasons that I’m still not quite sure of, Danny hates the idea of cuts. He may have (and I hope he didn’t) take it personally when I said it was precisely this attitude amongst the Conservatives that created the climate for the fiscal crisis Britain is now facing. Over the last decade, Brown increased spending by 16 percent of GDP (see graph below)- not only faster than any developed country, but faster than any major country of

David Blackburn

The Tories’ meddling is undermining the Unionist cause in Northern Ireland

The Times reports that Owen Paterson, the Tories’ Northern Ireland spokesman, will review the process by which the Northern Ireland First Minister is appointed – by creating a Northern Irish executive and official opposition. The prospect of what Paterson describes as a “voluntary coalition”, presumably between the Unionist parties, has the potential to keep Sinn Fein permanently in opposition. Such a coalition jeopardises Cameron’s neutrality if he becomes Prime Minister, a point that Sinn Fein will exploit. The Conservatives seek to move Ulster’s politics away from sectarianism and into the mainstream, concentrating on public services. That is a welcome aim but their means are ill-conceived, stemming from a misunderstanding of