ConservativeHome was first launched on Easter Monday 2005. It looked a lot different then...
ConHome has made a fair share of mistakes but reflecting on those four years I'm proudest of the following...
- Representing the grassroots: The way in which ConHome has brought the grassroots of the Conservative Party to the table. Through the monthly surveys, through Platform articles and through comments left on a blog that is widely read by journalists, parliamentary researchers and politicians they have a voice they've never had before. Representation of grassroots feelings was particularly important during the grammar schools row, against the much disliked A-list and more recently on 45p.
- A daily news service: By 9am each day we pick the most important Tory news stories of the day and have them all listed in one place. More than 5,000 people now subscribe to our daily email.
- 'Narrowcasting': ConservativeHome's micro blogs - on seat selections, Tory videos, Harry Phibbs' local government blog and Tom Greeves' parliamentary reports - provide coverage and accountability that isn't provided by the mainstream media.
- Protecting party democracy: ConHome's proudest single achievement of all was initiating the fight against Michael Howard's attempts to rob members of a decisive vote in the leadership of their party. Others played very important roles in the campaign too but it was a successful fight that ensured David Cameron was elected with a mandate from all sections of the party.
- The most coverage of the 2005 Tory leadership race: The archive of which is still live.
- Breaking stories: Publishing the membership of the A-list, predicting accurately the outcome of the Tory leadership election, breaking the news that Brown had bottled calling a 2007 General Election and accurately calling London for Boris Johnson.
- Campaigning for a balanced Conservative message: We critiqued the unbalanced path that Cameron took in the early part of his leadership - arguing for a 'politics of and' that combined the messages that have dominated Tory thinking in recent times with a greener and more socially-just conservatism. The shields in the masthead capture our commitment to build a broadly-based conservative coalition.
- Initiating campaigns: Our campaign against the 2007 pledge to match Labour's spending plans has been vindicated by events and we will continue to seek a more hawkish stance on the size of the state.
- Promoting new talent: Creating the CentreRight group blog and promoting great writing talents including Graeme Archer, Peter Franklin, Andrew Lilico and Matt Sinclair.
- Championing the role of the internet in politics: We've argued for bolder use of the internet by the Conservative Party and proved, I hope, that not all blogs are places for tittle tattle and gossip. In coming months we want to produce a lot more viral video of the kind we have recently produced against Gordon Brown - here and here.
Four people deserve special mention:
- Stephan and Rosamund Shakespeare for providing the financial underpinning. ConHome may not have got into a third year without Stephan's generous and enthusiastic backing.
- The hugely talented Samuel Coates for being Deputy Editor for two-and-a-half years before going on to bigger and better things in David Cameron's office.
- Jonathan Isaby for being (I think) the first UK political journalist to leave the old media for the new.
And final thanks to all readers for their loyalty and wisdom.
Tim Montgomerie
