Two weeks ago you raised a variety of questions for Lynton Crosby. Mr Crosby is a leading architect of Australian Prime Minister John Howard's successes and was Campaigns Director for Michael Howard's 2005 General Election effort. ConservativeHome selected ten of the questions your posed and Lynton answers them below.
Henry Edward-Bancroft: "What mistakes were made at the last general election?"
Everyone makes mistakes. There are always things that in hindsight you would do differently. I think the biggest mistake the Conservative Party could make is not to recognise that winning an election does not start with the election – you cannot “fatten the big on market day” as John Howard likes to say. You have to lay the foundations for community acceptance and electoral success well before the election. Labour themselves have shown that it takes a lot of work over years not months for you to be acceptable – a good campaign, a clever advertisement, a popular policy will count for nothing if the foundations have not been properly layed. The first priority for a party that has lost successive elections is to accept that there are things the voters don’t like about you and respond accordingly . Which means that you must change and demonstrate that you have changed. If the voters have rejected you and you don’t change then they are likely to reject you again. This is where Dave Cameron is spot on – you have to show that you have listened, learnt and respponded to people’s concerns and people have to know what you stand for.
Taxcutter: "What would you have done differently if you had had 3 years to work on a General Election campaign rather than 6 months?"
Spent more timing laying out how the Conservative Party had changed, encouraging the party to engage directly and more effectively with local constituents more effectively, rebuild Central Office – it was more geared to government than opposition - done more to hold local Labour MPs to account for their part in Labour’s failings, done more to demonstrate the positive plans the Concervative Party had developed for Britain. Above all else ensured that voters really knew what the Conservative Party stood for. This all takes time.
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