Conservative party

The Lib Dem’s policy to make everyone’s first 10 thousand pounds of income tax free is, whatever its imperfections, a significant doorstep offer. By that, I mean it is something that those canvassing for the Lib Dems can say in an attmept to get the voters to listen to them rather than shut the door in their face. This is something the Tories are short of. At the moment, the Tories have a bunch of smaller policies — abolishing HIPS, freezing council tax, only millionaires paying inheritance tax — that by all acounts go down well on the doorstep. But they lack a big policy that defines the party to

That Zac Goldsmith has non-dom status is an embarrassment to the Tories. Given the anti-politics mood in the country, the whiff of hypocrisy is extremely dangerous to any political party and for the Tories anything that helps Labour’s effort to portray them as a party dominated by a wealthy clique is damaging. I suspect, though, that this story will only get bigger if it turns out that there are other Tory candidates who have non-dom status. Given the way candidate selection has been handled in recent years, there is no guarantee that CCHQ has established that all candidates are both resident in the UK for tax purposes and do not

The national YouGov poll and the one of northern marginals out today give us a sense of the electoral lay of the land. The national poll result which has the Tories below 40 percent and failing to win an overall majority shows that the Tories remain quite a way from sealing the deal. However, the poll of northern marginals which has the Tories on 42 percent suggests that the Tory marginal seats strategy is working. Indeed, whenever you talk to Tory candidates in Labour held marginals you are struck by just how confident they are; something that is particularly striking given how jumpy candidates normally are. I suspect that the Tory

In the politics column this week, I write about how the Tories plan to hand over many of the traditional policy making powers of the Cabinet to a seven man policy board. The Cameroons are going to do this partly because it is a model that has worked well for them in oppoistion and that they are comfortable with but also because the Cabinet is just too large for effective, detailed discussions about policy. The shadow Cabinet currently has 34 members in it. In government, this number will have to drop by at least ten. But still, a 24 person group is, probably, too large to foster constructive and detailed

When the Tories first got interested in nudge theory in the summer of 2008 there was some sneering and questioning of what practical policy applications it had. But Grant Shapps’ speech today on the Tories’ Green Deal shows how nudging can be applied in government. Shapps proposes that consumers be reminded of the Green Deal offer – your house retrofitted to cut its energy usage at no immediate cost to you – every time they use the stores of one of the firms involved in the scheme. This should, in theory, boost take up of the scheme. The Green Deal, the brainchild of Greg Clark, is one of the Tories’

After the Ipsos MORI hullabaloo, it’s tempting to treat the YouGov/Telegraph poll on Westminster voting intentions in Scotland with extreme caution.  But, for the record, here are the headline figures, and a hefty rise for Labour: Labour — 39 percent (up 9 points from August) SNP — 24 percent (down 2) Conservatives — 18 percent (down 2) Lib Dems — 12 percent (down 6) As this fits in with another recent poll, it’s safe to say that Labour have solidified their support in Scotland during and after the Glasgow North by-election.  And there’s more discouraging news for the SNP: at 29 percent, support for Scottish independence is hardly overwhelming –

The Observer’s Ipsos-Mori poll has dominated political discussion since its publication on Sunday. But two things that I have heard tonight have increased my scepticism that it marks a dramatic shift in public opinion. First, I hear that another of the big pollsters had a survey in the field at the same time and it showed a fourteen point Tory lead. Second, a new poll for Political Betting has Labour down on 22, only a point ahead of the Lib Dems. With polls it is the ones that are surprising that make waves; I’m sure we’ll all run down a few more rabbit holes before election day. The odd surprsingly

The success or failure of Cameron’s EU policy rests in part on the promised British Bill of Rights. What is clear is that Tories are unclear what should be included in it. One question that is yet to be answered is whether aspects of the constitution should be entrenched? Writing on the Blue Blog today, Michael Howard writes: ‘Any decision about these rights requires a balancing of competing rights. The fundamental question is who should be responsible for striking that balance: elected MP’s or unelected judges? On terrorism, Parliament twice, after great debate, reached its view. Yet twice the judges have held that Parliament got it wrong. In doing so,

Michael Portillo believes that a future Tory government, like those that came before it, will not succeed in cutting public spending. I agree with Pete: public finances are so parlous that cuts have to be made. Demolishing the state is not an overnight job; it will take time and cost money, and so it should because the stakes are too high for a quick fix, cowboy politics solution. But, immediate savings are to be made through efficiencies. ‘Efficiency savings’ are derided as being insubstantial. Such an analysis is simplistic. Endemic waste is perpetuated by irrational systems. The Department for Work and Pensions runs an administrative budget of £2.7bn. That is colossal – half