Conservative party

The Tories have to fight on their ground, not Labour’s

At the beginning of the autumn, strategists from all three parties assumed that the theme of the season would be Labour’s poll lead narrowing as the economic recovery picked up pace. But that hasn’t happened. Instead, Labour’s lead has remained and its own poll numbers have actually ticked up. This is, largely, thanks to Ed Miliband’s reframing of the political debate about the economy, making it about living standards But the autumn statement showed that when the political conversation is focused on the broader economy, the Tories have the better of it. Thursday has weakened Ed Balls, strengthened George Osborne and begun to move the political debate off Labour’s turf

Boris Johnson’s Tory colleagues refuse to stick up for him on IQ comments

Boris Johnson insisted today that critics of his comments about IQ had chosen to ‘wilfully misconstrue what I said’. He told LBC radio this morning that ‘what I was saying actually is that there is too much inequality, and my speech was actually a warning, as correctly reported by many newspapers, actually a warning against letting this thing go unchecked. Because if you look at what’s happened in the last 20 to 30 years, there’s been a widening in income between rich and poor – there’s no question about that.’ He also managed to fail an IQ test, which was an inevitable consequence of this whole debacle. But Labour is

Someone rid us of the awful slogan: ‘hardworking families’

This is a message to any politician out there thinking of using the phrase ‘hardworking families’ or ‘hardworking people’ – I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you. A day does not go by without a Tory politician using this highly irritating slogan, especially in the regular spam emails I get from the party. The latest occurrence happened today with the energy minister telling WATO that ‘We are determined to protect hard-working families from fuel bill rises’. I must be out of touch with public opinion, as usual, and this idea must resonate with people in general, because otherwise the media-obsessed Tories wouldn’t repeat

Michael Gove and Boris Johnson: partners in power?

Boris Johnson’s speech at the Centre for Policy Studies, much misrepresented, is still grabbing headlines. Boris gave the Margaret Thatcher memorial lecture, so it’s no surprise it has been interpreted as a bid to succeed her. But another relationship is just as intriguing: was Boris also stealing Michael Gove’s clothes? The Mayor said much about the significance of the Conservatives’ past, but the Govian aspects of his speech offer a glimpse of what the party’s immediate future might look like, particularly when it comes to a future leadership contest. Boris’ ‘cornflake packet’ argument about meritocracy is a classic piece of Govian thinking. Posing the question ‘what would Maggie do?’, Boris

Isabel Hardman

Tim Yeo deselected by local Conservative association

Tim Yeo’s local Conservative association in South Suffolk have deselected the 68-year-old MP via secret ballot last night, the BBC reports. Yeo was only recently reinstated as chair of the Energy and Climate Change select committee after the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards ruled he had not broken rules on lobbying. As Yeo has previously said he wants to stand again in 2015, he can now either appeal or apply to be the new candidate for South Suffolk. His majority is 8,689. There is some theorising this morning about whether this is about the ‘green crap’ row over green levies and taxes on energy bills. Yeo is an outspoken supporter of renewable energy

Latest Tory energy stance gives ground to Labour

One of the techniques that horror writers employ to make their novels as frightening as possible is to avoid describing their monster in any great detail. Read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and by and large it will be your own imagination filling in the details of Victor Frankenstein’s creation as the creature lumbers out of its inventor’s room and into the streets of Ingolstadt. Our imaginations frighten us far more than authors can. The same elision is at work in politics, except the authors aren’t doing themselves any favours. The Tories have a habit of staying very quiet indeed on a social problem, whether it be payday loans or something else

Will George Osborne play Santa next week?

When George Osborne stands up next week to deliver the autumn statement, he’ll have some good news to deliver. Not only is autumn, the dreariest of the British seasons over, but borrowing has come in lower than expected and the OBR will upgrade the growth forecasts. But the return of growth, as I say in the magazine this week, poses a strategic dilemma for Osborne. If he declares the economic emergency over, the public might conclude it was safe to turn back to Labour. But equally he has to show voters that he’s sharing the proceeds of growth. I suspect that Osborne will steer clear of too many sweetners. They’ll

Isabel Hardman

Tory agitators choose their stalking horses carefully

Labour is enjoying some success with its narrative that the government is running scared of all sorts of awkward votes and campaigns at the moment, from plain packaging to payday loans. Yesterday Miliband’s spinners were briefing that this included the Immigration Bill amendment tabled by Nigel Mills and supported by influential backbenchers such as 1922 Committee chairman Graham Brady. It now has 49 signatures. It’s worth noting that Mills’ amendment is the latest example of how Tory Eurosceptics now work together to get what they want from the Prime Minister. I explained this unity between the factions in a recent Telegraph column: ‘Now all these factions have united into a

South Thanet polling highlights the Ukip threat in 2015

It appears Laura Sandys has made the right decision to stand down at the next election. A new poll from Survation targeting her South Thanet constituency suggests that if a general election took place tomorrow, the Tories would fail to hold onto the seat. In the constituency once represented by Jonathan Aitken, the Conservatives have dropped 20 points since the last general election, pushing them into third place. Labour would take the seat with 35 per cent of the vote but most worryingly for some, Ukip’s vote has risen hugely, shooting into second place with 30 per cent: Constituency level polling is quite rare, so it’s always interesting to see

Boris Johnson: greed can be good

Boris Johnson prides himself on being one of the few politicians who gets away with saying the unsayable. He stuck to that theme tonight with his Margaret Thatcher lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies, in which he argued that greed isn’t a bad thing. He said: ‘But I also hope that there is no return to that spirit of Loadsamoney heartlessness – figuratively riffling banknotes under the noses of the homeless; and I hope that this time the Gordon Gekkos of London are conspicuous not just for their greed – valid motivator though greed may be for economic progress – as for what they give and do for the

Isabel Hardman

Cameron, Osborne and Crosby grilled by backbenchers: exclusive details

Last night David Cameron, George Osborne and Lynton Crosby held a meeting with the Conservative parliamentary party. Coffee House has exclusive details of what took place. There was a presentation on how well the party was doing from the Prime Minister (without any new information), and one from Lynton Crosby in which the strategist asked Tory MP James Morris to stand up and take a round of applause for passing on the ‘nightmare’ email from the Ed Miliband’s office to the Mail on Sunday. Sir George Young brought less exciting news that MPs will have to pull their weight a great deal more by serving on more statutory instrument committees.

Andrew Mitchell vows to continue Plebgate fight

So Andrew Mitchell is going to pursue his fight with the police over the ‘plebgate’ row, even though the Crown Prosecution Service said there was insufficient evidence to suggest the officer who claimed Andrew Mitchell called him a pleb was lying. The former Conservative chief whip told a press conference this afternoon that not only is he pursuing his libel action against The Sun newspaper, but that he will use this opportunity in court to force PC Toby Rowland, the officer who wrote the account of the altercation that involved the word ‘pleb’, to give his story under oath. Rowland is not one of the five police officers facing disciplinary

Isabel Hardman

Influential 1922 Committee chair backs rebel immigration call

The swell of support continues for Nigel Mills’ amendment to the Immigration Bill which would most likely land the British government in court by trying to extend transitional controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants to 2018. I have learned that Graham Brady, influential chair of the 1922 Committee, has now signed the amendment too, and the rebels organising behind it tell me they now have more than 40 backers. The list now includes a number of 1922 Committee executive members, including Nick de Bois, John Whittingdale, Charles Walker and Jason McCartney. A number of Conservative MPs who have never rebelled before (yes, they exist) are considering signing the amendment because they

Isabel Hardman

Crap and courage of convictions: the political problem with Osborne’s payday loan plan

There is still a great deal of heat and rather a little less light over George Osborne’s decision to ‘step in where government needs to step in’ and cap the cost of payday loans. Does this mean he’s actually a lefty? What is he up to? Writing for the Telegraph, David Skelton, founder of the very thoughtful Renewal campaign to broaden the Conservative party’s appeal, argues that this is ‘the right thing to do and it sends a powerful signal that the party will tackle rip-off companies and help the vulnerable’. But Allister Heath argues in his City AM column that this is not the right way to help those

What Lynton Crosby told David Cameron’s political Cabinet

The next time you see a Tory minister on television, count how long it is until they say that David Cameron is a leader with a long term plan for this country. This is the Tories’ new message. In a presentation to Cameron’s political Cabinet on Tuesday morning, Lynton Crosby told the ministers present that the Tories would probably lose the election if it was held today or tomorrow. But, as I report in the Mail on Sunday, he stressed that the election was still 16 months away so the Tories had time to turn things round. He emphasised that they should play up that Cameron is a man with a

Cameron and the Romanians and the Bulgarians

For months now, Number 10 has been fretting about what to do about Romanian and Bulgarian immigration. From the end of this year, any Romanian and Bulgarian will be able to move here in search of work. Downing Street knows that if they come in large numbers it’ll negate everything that the government has done to try and get immigration under control. Fairly or not, it’ll be fatal to the Tories’ reputation for competence on this issue. David Cameron is, as today’s Times and Mail reveal, now planning a major intervention on this issue. He wants to achieve three things. First, show that his government is handling the issue better

Is the real anti-Cameron brigade the Brady bunch, plus Adam Afriyie?

In September 2012 Mr Steerpike revealed that 14 Tory MPs had signed letters to Graham Brady, the Chairman of the 1922 Committee, calling for a leadership challenge to David Cameron. Today, Adam Afriyie, the alleged leader-in-waiting (who has not written to Graham Brady), called a vote on his amendment to James Wharton’s EU Referendum Bill. The amendment is designed to bring forward the plebiscite to 2014, because it’s Afriyie’s belief that delaying the vote until 2017 will cost the Tories the next election. Mr Afriyie won just 15 votes. A coincidence? Probably not, but it’s certainly a telling sign of just how small the real anti-Cameron brigade is. Douglas Carswell, Nadine Dorries and Andrew Rossindell were among the dissenters. Guido

The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage

Perhaps there is something mildly tawdry about discussing an issue such as gay marriage in terms of its impact on perceptions of the Tory party or the extent to which it helps the Tory evolutionary project. It is, after all, a rather larger, better issue than that. A Conservative who only supported equal marriage for these tactical reasons would be a poor and shilpit thing indeed. Yesterday the Scottish parliament, catching up with Westminster, debated gay marriage. The best speech was that given by Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Tories. It shows her – and her party – at their best and is well worth six minutes of your

Nick Boles is right: the Tory party must change.

Another outbreak of the Tory Modernising Wars! What larks! Nick Boles’s speech to Bright Blue, a newish think tank for metropolitan swells folk who think the Tory message needs rethinking, has, as it was designed to, caused a minor rumpus. Rod Liddle thinks Boles is off his head. Iain Martin is kinder but concludes the Cameroons are still obsessed with fighting the wrong battles. Other commentators are gentler still, conceding that Boles is asking the right question but that he’s searching for answers in the wrong places. Nick Denys and, to some extent, Paul Goodman fall into this camp. On the other hand, Ian Birrell and Matt d’Ancona essentially agree

Labour’s welfare worries exposed by one cheeky headline. The Tories should exploit this

The Telegraph carries a story under the title ‘Labour: We’ll scrap benefits for under 25s’. This has sent Labour supporters into mild panic. The party’s welfare spokesman, Rachel Reeves has said: ‘This is not and will not be our policy.’ ‘It’s not our plan.’ ‘It is totally not my position!’ Mark Ferguson, editor of Labour List, the grassroots website, says: ‘That all sounds pretty clear to me.’ While George Eaton of the New Statesman, who is close to the Labour leadership, has made some calls, and concluded: ‘Is Labour planning to scrap benefits for under-25s? [T]here is a definitive answer: no.’ So there you have it. The leadership and its supporters