Conservative party

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

How should the Tories respond to those Labour guarantees?

If you’re going to take anything away from Andy Burnham’s press conference this morning – apart from his denials about a £20,000 “death duty” – it’s how heavily those Labour “guarantees” are going to feature in the election campaign.  Here we had social care guarantees, cancer treatment guarantees, waiting line guarantees, and even a new website and poster (see above) attacking the Tories for not signing up to the same guarantees.  So far as the government is concerned, it matters not that these pledges have been made before – what matters is the opportunity to draw more dividing lines across the landscape of British politics.  “Caring” versus “cruel”, as far

David Blackburn

Plenty to encourage the Tories in the Populus poll

Well, the Populus poll isn’t all good news for the Tories. As James pointed out last night, they have shed another point and Labour have regained some ground. But, as both Peter Riddell and Mike Smithson note, the Tories can still secure an outright majority on the basis of these figures. The numbers which lead the Times’s frontpage coverage are more encouraging for Cameron & Co. They show that the public are attuned to the Tories’ broad narrative. 73 percent think society is broken; 82 percent think that now is the time for change; and 64 percent believe Britain is heading in the wrong direction. After 13 years in power,

Peter Hoskin

A day to damage Brown?

Contain yourselves, CoffeeHousers.  I know that we’re all really excited about today’s Parliamentary vote on an alternative vote referendum (it is, after all, something our Prime Minister has described as “a rallying call for a new progressive politics”), but it isn’t a done deal just yet.  That “new politics” might still be put on hold. Indeed, things could get messy for Brown in just a few hours time.  You’d expect him to win the vote, what with Labour’s majority and the creeping sense that Downing St very much wants this to happen.  But even the slightest hint of a Labour rebellion, or of Lib Dem disquiet, and the story could

Monday

James Forsyth

The Tories think Brown is their most potent weapon

‘We just need to ram Gordon Brown down the electorate’s throat’ one Tory staffer said to me today when talking about how the party could get back on the front foot. The unspoken thought was that the prospect of five more years of Gordon Brown would be enough to send voters into the welcoming arms of David Cameron.    The Tories are frustrated that in the last few weeks this election has gone from being the referendum on the government to almost being a referendum on them and their plans for government. They are determined to turn the focus back onto Brown, hence Cameron’s aggressive attack on Brown this morning.

David Blackburn

If this is a suspension, what is an expulsion?

Sky’s Jon Craig’s asks one of those questions you wished you had posed: wasn’t Elliot Morley suspended already? Yes, he was, on the 14 May 2009 and with immediate effect. However, showing a fine disregard for the manner in which repeat offenders are usually treated, Labour suspended Morley again for good measure. Seeking a clarification about the initial suspension, Craig was told that Morley had been denied the ‘privileges of the PLP’. What might they be? Subsidised beer and sandwiches perchance? The rumour is that Morley was either re-instated on the quiet or had escaped in the first instance, lending more weight to the sense that Labour’s response to the

David Blackburn

What happens if Labour wins?

Bruce Anderson’s column in the Independent is a must read today and it concludes with this telling anecdote: ‘The other day, a Cabinet minister had lunch with a journalist. “What happens if you win?” enquired the hack. The minister looked astonished. It was clear that this possibility had not occurred to him. Having regained the power of speech, he replied: “There’d be an immediate leadership challenge”.’ Really? Brown was immovable when trailing by twenty points; a mandate will make him impervious to everything except death and possibly blindness. A narrow Conservative victory followed by a second election this autumn is a more likely scenario than a Labour win. Would Brown

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A note of caution over Cameron’s welcome attack on lobbyists

The Tories will be happy with their start to the week. David Cameron’s speech this morning has succeeded in highlighting how Labour had not suspended the whip from the three MPs charged by the CPS and drawn one of the Tories’ favourite contrasts, decisive Cameron versus dithering Brown. It was also refreshing to hear Cameron take a tough line on lobbying, proposing to double the waiting period before ministers leaving office and taking private sector jobs to two years. Lobbyists already have far too much influence on our politics. But there are risks to Cameron in this Obama-style play. As one Tory insider said to me just before party conference,

David Blackburn

Brown’s personality defines the character of his government

David Cameron will re-launch his election campaign with a personal attack on Gordon Brown. Cameron will embark on the straightforward task of proving that the Road Block is not a moderniser – the Prime Minister’s sudden avowed passion for PR is merely a marriage of electoral convenience. Cameron has led the expenses reform debate and will use Brown’s dithering over the latest furore to condemn him as a ‘shameless defender of the old elite’. According to Francis Elliot, Cameron will say: “There is no chance Gordon Brown will do what is right and put the public interest before his own political interests. He cannot reform the institution because he is

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

The cuts consensus

John Rentoul today puts Trevor Kavanagh and myself in the dock for demanding “massive spending cuts” and concludes that if we “had any power” we would be “about as helpful to Cameron as Sarah Palin was to John McCain” but believes Cameron “will hold to his strategic course”. I mean: massive cuts. How crazy is that? Surely only swivel-eyed maniacs would be planning cuts – real, hard-core ideologues – would plan that when the deficit is a mere 13 percent of GDP. Surely? It struck me, reading this, that John is unaware of the massive cuts which Labour is planning (understandable, as they were in the small print and have still not

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

What’s needed now is a modern Conservative party with clear, discernible principles

I’d like to do a final round of responses to comments to my Keith Joseph lecture. It’s easy for debates about Conservatism to be caricatured as being for or against Cameron – and my lecture fits into neither category. I’m a big supporter of Cameron’s, but often wish he’d have more faith in himself: I fear he feels he has to make more short-term concessions than he has to – thus blunting his message of ‘change’. For years, any debate about Tory policy is described in the terminology of Tory civil war circa 2002 (which all too many people, from both sides, are still fighting) – ie that you an

David Blackburn

Parris versus Nelson

Here’s a question: to be a good angel or a bad angel? We know what Fraser thinks; Matthew Parris differs. Writing in the Times today, he asserts that he would give David Cameron the same advice he offered Margaret Thatcher in 1979: agree a gloriously unspecific manifesto. The details of hard-edged manifestos are ambushed well before polling day; discretion is the better part of valour. In the immediate circumstances of the Tory wobble both arguments are commendable. The Tories have unwound when trying to supply detail to flesh out their broadly radical ideas. Recognising marriage in the tax system has been their foremost blunder. The impassioned denunciation of Labour’s record on

Friday

James Forsyth

More fuel for the anti-politics fire

Obviously, after the news that three Labour MPs and a Tory lord have been charged with various criminal offences over their expenses, there is a limit to what can be said for legal reasons. But it can be noted that because the four charged are from the two main parties, the politcal impact will be more anti-politics than anything else. I suspect the attempt of the the three Labour MPs to claim Parliamentary privilege will exacerbate these feelings. P.S. In case any CoffeeHousers missed the news, Lord Hanningfield has resigned from the Tory front bench and had the party whip suspended.

Peter Hoskin

The Tories need to push the fiscal case for public service reform

Andrew Haldenby’s article in the Telegraph this morning got me thinking: when was the last time the Tories really pushed the fiscal case for public service reform; that the government can indeed deliver better services while spending less money? By my count, you’d have to go back around six months to George Osborne’s speech on progressive politics at Demos. There, the shadow chancellor said this kind of thing: “Indeed, I would argue that our commitment to fiscal responsibility in the face of mounting national debt is not at odds with progressive politics, but fundamentally aligned to it – as politicians on the left from Bill Clinton to former Canadian Prime

Peter Hoskin

Four Parliamentarians to be charged over expenses

It’s just been announced which Parliamentarians will face criminal charges over their expense claims. They are: David Chaytor Jim Devine Elliot Morley Lord Hanningfield So, three Labour MPs and one Tory Lord.  Expect plenty more public anger – the Legg report has no way near drawn a line under this issue.

Daniel Korski

Post-election Entene Cordiale?

If there is a strategic thought lurking inside the Tories’ grab bag of foreign policy ideas, it seems to be closer cooperation with France, particularly on defence matters. Should William Hague become Foreign Secretary after the election, he might end up working with a new French counterpart, as rumours persist about Bernard Kouchner’s imminent departure (knowing this, he apparently even floated his own name for the Kabul UN job). A new Parisian counterpart for Hague – for example, the current French Agriculture Minister, Bruno Le Marie – could make a new Entente Cordiale easier. But, even then, would the French be up for closer links with the UK? Angela Merkel

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

In response to CoffeeHousers

CoffeeHousers have left some characteristically forthright and thoughtful comments on the blog about my Keith Joseph lecture, and I thought I’d answer them in a post.   Tiberius says that I don’t mention voters very much – I talk only about ideas. The voters have been taught Labour ideas: isn’t this something the Tories have to deal with? First, I firmly believe that the public are open to persuasion, open to new ideas having seen the collapse of Labour’s ideas. But, in my lecture (full text here), I do mention voters quite a lot. As Keith Joseph put it, it is folly to seek the ‘middle ground’ between political parties,

Thursday

Alex Massie

New US Army Division: The Fightin’ Hermaphrodites

Given that homosexuals are permitted to serve in the armed forces of, I think, every NATO country bar Turkey and the United States and that none of these countries have reported any great difficulty as a consequence of ending this discrimination, it’s hard to see how lifting the ban on gays serving in the military can really destroy the United States military. For that matter, in the draft era, thousands of gay men obviously served in the army and, as best I can recall, this didn’t have any significant operational impact. Still, it’s grimly amusing seeing what excuses the opponents – including a flip-flopping John McCain – can come up

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why winning isn’t enough – and a response to The Fink

I delivered the Keith Joseph lecture last night, entitled Winning Is Not Enough. My point: that the Tories have adopted so many Labour policies out of tactical considerations that they are in danger of getting to office only to find they have signed up to continuing Gordon Brown’s agenda. The problem is not so much Gordon Brown himself, but his misunderstanding of government and politics: it’s his ideas that are so dangerous. If those ideas survive with a blue rosette, they are no less dangerous. And if a Tory government adopts these ideas then that’s not change. It’s more of the same.   By the time you add up all

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

The chip on Brown’s shoulder

So the former roadblock is now a born-again reformer – and, like most born-again types, he wants everyone to know about it.  Writing in today’s Guardian, Gordon Brown sells his proposal for a referendum on the alternative vote system as “a rallying call for a new progressive politics.”  And, from there, he gallops through written constitutions, Lords reform and digital democracy.  Watch him go.   Amid it all, though, I couldn’t help noticing that the PM repeats a key mistake from last year: “I am inviting the leaders of all parties to engage positively in these debates and back our constitutional reform and governance bill. So far the Conservative leadership

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Was today a turning point?

I suspect that when we look back at this year, we might conclude that today’s PMQs was a turning point. David Cameron has had a poor January but today he was back on form, winning – as Lloyd Evans says – PMQs for the first time this year. Perhaps more significantly, there was real noise from the Tory backbenches, which have been noticeably quiet in recent weeks. It was as if the party was pulling back together after a relatively trying period. It was also significant that Cameron stayed on the offensive throughout; he didn’t get drawn into conducting the debate on Labour’s terms despite Brown’s best efforts. Gone was