Conservative party

Here at Coffee House Towers, we frequently point out the risks with the Tories’ pledge to keep on increasing health spending in real terms.  As I suggested last week, the two main problems are that it plays up the Brownite idea that spending is a good thing in itself, and it could force the Tories into a position from which they can’t row back in government.  Now, in a acerbic article in the Guardian – in which he describes Tory policy as “an incoherent mishmash of ideas designed by focus group” – Larry Elliot kicks off by highlighting the confusion the Tory line creates: “On Tuesday night David Cameron warned

There’s plenty to be sceptical about with this #welovetheNHS Twitter campaign – not least the manner in which it’s falsely polarising the debate into “lovers” or “haters”, given that 140-character “tweets” hardly allow for nuanced arguments.  But, as Fraser pointed out last night, there’s little doubting that it’s a spot of good luck for Gordon Brown: a campaign by the left, for the left, which he managed to seize on with uncharacteristic speed.   Indeed, Brown beat David Cameron to the punch for perhaps the first time in months, and has put the Tory leader on the defensive.  Hence Cameron’s blog post last night, which set out his own #reasonsforlovingtheNHSbutstillwantingittoimprove,

The Tory grassroots have spoken, and they want Alan Duncan out.  Here are the main results from a poll which has just been published over at ConservativeHome: “A ConservativeHome.com poll of 1,622 Tory members carried out today finds 65% want Alan Duncan to resign and 55% think he should be sacked. A massive 91% think he should be moved from his current job where he has a role in deciding Conservative policy on MPs’ expenses and allowances. 61% are dissatisfied with Alan Duncan’s performance. 31% are satisfied.  This makes him the least popular member of the shadow cabinet. 38% agreed that ‘Alan Duncan was telling the truth – the antagonism

Nearly all the papers have run articles on Rachel Whetstone today. These pieces concentrate on the fact that she’s the partner of Steve Hilton, Cameron’s chief strategist, and that the Tories mention Google quite often. Frankly, this strikes me as a nothing story. The Tories are mentioning Google so much because it is the kind of modern, successful brand that they want to be associated with, not because Whetsone, who was Michael Howard’s political secretary and who used to be close for Cameron, works there. Also, considering how Google has become shorthand for so much of the technological change going on around us, it would be rather hard for a

The Tory response to the story that they plan to raise Vat to 20 percent after the next election, worried me. The Tory line is that there are no plans to do this and that there have been no high-level discussions about it. But, frankly, there should have been. Not because increasing Vat is necessarily the right thing to do, but because the Tories should be exploring what can be done to get this country out of the huge fiscal hole that Brown has dug it into. I find it less than encouraging that less than a year out from an election, the opposition hasn’t even — or so it

Is Andrew Lansley using his untouchable status* to bounce David Cameron into a three-year budget settlement? On the Marr sofa (or the Sophie Raworth sofa as it was today), he announced that the Tories are planning “real term increases to the NHS year on year.” Well, David Cameron has only said he would protect health from cuts – but he has not specified how long for. It could be as little as one year. In my political column for this week’s magazine I recommend Cameron keeps uses this to wriggle out of what is now an unaffordable promise. He should freeze NHS spending for a year, then take a scalpel

Reports that the Tories are thinking about appointing a Minister for Afghanistan raise the broader question of how they should structure their national security team. Though the Tories bang on about their idea of setting up a National Security Council, there has been precious little detail given  of how it would work, how it would be different than the Foreign and Defence Policy Secretariat in the Cabinet Office and who would staff it. The National Security Council should be led by a minister, sitting in either the Commons or the Lords, who would also act as the National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister, supported by a National Security Director,

When David Cameron flew to Georgia last year, it was perhaps the clearest and most welcome statement of foreign policy made by the party since he became leader. Liam Fox’s piece on conservativehome today pays tribute to this, and gives us a welcome reminder of the stakes. The Russian threat is growing: there are 10,000 troops there and settlements will soon start. The best the West can do is show solidarity, and there is no clearer sign than going there. As Cameron did. Like Israel in the Middle East, Georgia is a light of democratic freedom in an area with plenty of unlit candles. There is something totemic about its