If Cameron's popularity is achieved at the expense of his Party, the latter can't be Built To Last

By Paul Goodman
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A survey by Lord Ashcroft recently found David Cameron to be less popular than his Party.  A survey by YouGov has found the opposite, and Peter Kellner writes about it in the Telegraph today.  But whatever the public opinion may be, we can all agree that exercises such as these, which are scarcely new, set the leader against his Party through the simple means of contrasting them.

However, there is a more literal and recent sense in which the one is set against the other.  A core part of the New Labour doctrine was to set Tony Blair against his Party to improve the political prospects of both.  The Tory uber-modernisers, for want of a better term, have consistently sought to graft the belief on to the Conservative Party since its defeat in 1997.

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Welcome to Britain, Stephen Harper – and here are three lessons that David Cameron can learn from you

By Paul Goodman
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Conservative leaders who now govern with a majority, and who previously didn't, don't visit Downing Street every day.  But today marks an exception.  Stephen Harper, Canada's Prime Minister, will meet with David Cameron - and address members of both Houses of Parliament.  Harper led a minority government after Canada voted in 2006; led another after it voted in 2008 (winning more seats in the process), and led a government for the third time after the 2011 election - only, this time, it was a Conservative one.

This Anglosphere Conservative who clawed his way to majority is surely a model for Cameron to follow.  So what lessons can be learned from him?  I suggest three.

• Unify the right... The Progressive Conservatives lost all but two of their 156 Parliamentary seats in 1993.  Harper won 166 in 2011, the year he gained a majority.  The years in between saw the rise of the Reform Party; the merger of Reform and Progressive Conservative members into the Canadian Alliance, and the merger of the Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives into today's Conservative Party.  These were the milestones that marked the journey from disaster to triumph for the centre-right in Canada, and it's worth grasping that Harper was first elected as a Reform MP, not as a Progressive Conservative.  In other words, he came from the end of the centre-right spectrum that might have been lampooned as "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists", or as "mad, swivel-eyed loons".  But unlike most of those in UKIP, Harper wanted to unite the right, not divide it, and to govern as a practical man of power.   If Cameron had been in Canada at the time when the right was divided, he would doubtless have been a progessive conservative.  But he has a common with Harper a preoccupation with winning and government.  And the lesson from Canada is that one needs a united right to get back into that game.

• ...And occupy the centre... But Harper has done far, far more than simply win by re-forming a divided right into one political unit.  Here is an example.  In Britain, Cameron's Party wins roughly 16% of the ethnic minority vote.  In Canada, Harper's wins 45%.  This difference is partly accounted for by the ethnic mix and prosperity levels in Canada (the largest non-white and non-indigenous group is citizens of Chinese origin, followed by those of Indian origin).  But this background is only part of the story.  Conservative Party strategists point out that the mix was much the same at the turn of the century, but that the party's support among ethnic minorities was registering at only 18%.  So what changed?  One version of events is that the Liberal Party's drive for same-sex marriage opened doors for them among socially conservative minority groups who had previously kept them closed.  And once those doors were opened, the Conservatives entered the room - and stayed.  The party's focus on these voters is unwavering: for example, Conservative Cabinet Ministers were compelled to visit ethnic minority events at weekends, and report back.

Cameron is trying a version of the same - sending Cabinet Ministers who grasp the issues, such as Theresa May, Eric Pickles and Chris Grayling, on a similar quest.

However, the Prime Minister's capacity is smaller.  Canadian Ministers are well supported by SpAds.  Alok Sharma, the Party Vice-Chairman responsible for outreach to ethnic minority groups, has a relatively puny resource at his.  None the less, money isn't everything.  One Canadian strategist told me that only connecting with people's deepest values has the party gradually built trust.  Cameron's push for same-sex marriage will, at best, have done him little good with ethnic minority voters, who on the whole have a socially conservative profile, and much harm at worst.

And the third lesson Cameron can learn from Harper?  I would say it is Dare to be Dull - or at least consistent.  The Canadian Prime Minister is not an exciting politician.  But my take is that he concentrates on getting the political basics right, assisted by a strong team - especially, perhaps, John Baird, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Jason Kenney, the Minister for Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism.  (Kenney, a dedicated and relentless campaigner, is known as the "Smiling Buddha" for his outreach to Chinese Canadians.)

"You observe how these new Canadians live their lives. They are the personification of Margaret Thatcher's aspirational class. They're all about a massive work ethic," he was quoted as saying in the same article.  The reference to Thatcher carries the taste and flavour of Harper's team - Movement Conservatives, certainly, who have campaigned against Kyoto; are strongly pro-Israel and have made the endangered position of Christians in the middle east a touchstone of their approach to foreign policy. (Harper takes a very different position on Syria to Cameron.)

But Movement Conservatives who look outward, not inward: who practice what Tim Montgomerie calls the Politics Of And.  If Cameron is looking for advice on how to develop a conservatism for Bolton West, he could do worse than listen carefully to his visitor from Calgary South-West.

How the Conservatives and UKIP can kiss and make up

By Paul Goodman
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The next general election will not be concentrated in the counties, but it will decide the government.  For this reason, voters will return to the two major parties, the Conservatives and Labour, one of which must lead in forming an administration, if not win outright.  Turnout will rise, UKIP's share of the vote will fall, and the best course that David Cameron can take, in the meanwhile, is to hold his nerve, build on his recent conference speeches, and promote a strong, mainstream, sensible programme, for government and for the future.  In short, no single, silver bullet will slay the Farage werewolf.

Such a programme would be a conservatism for Bolton West, as I've put it: reducing net immigration, tackling welfare dependency, holding fuel and electricity bills down, showing leadership at home by bringing the deficit down further, boosting job security and helping to keep mortgage rates low.  All this is the conventional wisdom, and it's true as far as it goes.  I started to look at UKIP and what drives its vote relatively early, and noted that EU policy is not the main factor: immigration and crime are bigger factors.  Above all, UKIP's support is driven not so much by ideas as by anger - by the urge to put two fingers up to the entire political class.

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Margaret Thatcher's legacy should be a Conservatism For Bolton West

By Paul Goodman
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The Conservative Party is itself in poor health as it gathers to bury Margaret Thatcher.  It hasn't won an election in over 20 years.  The effects of vote distribution and out-of-date boundaries conspire against it breaking the habit next time.  It has lost Scotland altogether, and is the third party in much of the urban north.  It won 16% of the ethnic minority vote in 2010: by 2050, ethnic minority members will make up one in five of the total.  It has a serious political competitor on the right, UKIP, for the first time in living memory.

Labour's rout on welfare earlier this month, and its squabbles over leadership and policy last week, have cheered up some Tory MPs - unduly so, all considered.  A doctor's diagnosis of their party's condition would find serious illness, perhaps terminal decline.  And the structural obstacles to a Conservative majority would remain even were this not a Government of which the whole is much less than the sum of the parts.  So what can the Conservatives learn from the most potent election-winner in their history - the woman who they will honour today?

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Four headline conclusions from Saturday's Victory 2015 Conference

By Tim Montgomerie
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On Saturday ConservativeHome held our Victory 2015 Conference - on how we might win the next General Election. Lord Ashcroft has already written his review of the day and here are a few headline conclusions from me:

There is an appetite for serious politics. Saturday was quite heavy. There were some detailed polling presentations, a serious philosophical speech from the Home Secretary and some very thoughtful workshops on how the party might reach out to key demographic groups. And from all of the feedback I received people really enjoyed it. Again and again people said that this was what a political conference should be like. There'll be more events like it from ConHome in the future. My biggest regret was that we booked such a small venue. We'd sold out after about three weeks and had barely promoted the event. We could quite easily have sold two or three times as many tickets. Perhaps, one day in the not too distant future, ConHome will have one thousand people at such conferences.

The next election is going to be very hard to win. Even before the Conference started only 7% of Tory members expected Cameron to win a majority. That was before Lord Ashcroft had published his survey of 19,000 voters in marginal seats. The good news from his mega poll was that the Tories are doing better in the marginals than in the country as a whole. The survey also found that, despite Eastleigh, the Tories could hope to win 17 seats from the Liberal Democrats. Overall, however, unless the outlook improves (and Trevor Kavanagh is sure that it must) Ed Miliband will become Prime Minister with a large Labour majority.

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Calling all young conservatives. Register now for the Young Britons' Foundation...

By Tim Montgomerie
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Yesterday I travelled to Churchill College Cambridge for the ninth Annual Young Britons' Foundation Activist Training Conference. I'd never been before but was impressed with the range of speakers that YBF Director Donal Blaney and his team had gathered together for the 48 hour political extravaganza. They included...

1. Steve Baker MP;
2. The genius political consultant Peter Botting;
3. Graham Brady MP;
4. Rory Broomfield of the Freedom Association;
5. Conor Burns MP;
6. David Canzini, formerly campaigns director for the Conservative Party;
7. Emmar Carr of Big Brother Watch;
8. James Cleverly AM;
9. Alex Deane;
10. Matthew Elliott;
11. Shane Greer;
12. Robert Halfon MP and his colleague Paul Abbott;
13. Jonathan Isaby of The TaxPayers' Alliance;
14. Raheem Kassam of The Commentator blog;
15. Christian May, formerly of YBF;
16. Cllr Paul Osborn;
17. Lord Parkinson;
18. Eric Pickles MP;
19. Cllr Greg Smith of Hammersmith and City Council;
20. Lord Tebbit; and
21. Andre Walker of the Trade Union Reform Campaign.

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Who are your conservative heroes?

By Tim Montgomerie
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At yesterday's Windsor Conference (a terrific event btw that I hope will be replicated in the months ahead) I suggested that Michael Gove (for his school reforms) and Iain Duncan Smith (for his commitment to social justice) were the two most inspiring ministers in the current government.

At a dinner for the European Young Conservatives in Oxford last night, I named four other contemporary conservative heroes - Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin for taking on the public sector interests that had caused his state's deficit to swell; New Zealand's John Key for not just acknowledging but celebrating the role of the government safety-net (we are, after all, small state rather than no state conservatives); Canada's Stephen Harper for his blue collar conservatism; and Boris Johnson for his can do optimism.

I also paid tribute to my great political hero from history, William Wilberforce - the politician who fought a successful forty year battle against the slave trade and then slavery itself. He teaches us the inspiring value of perseverance in the service of great goals.

Please use the thread below to nominate some other great conservatives from history. Say what they achieved and why they inspire you.

And please try not to mention the greats that always get mentioned - Thatcher, Reagan and Churchill. We know about them and, perhaps, our focus on them has sometimes distorted our understanding of the breadth of conservatism.

New group Conservative Voice aims to help build an election-winning Tory machine

By Tim Montgomerie
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It's not quite as exciting as the overnight news from Flushing Meadows but I am genuinely delighted to report the launch of Conservative Voice.

A central belief of ConservativeHome's Majority project is that to win the next election we don't just need a refreshed party message and manifesto, we also need a new Tory machine. We need to rethink our approach to party activism, use of the internet, relations with third party groups, candidate selection and so many other aspects of our party's voter identification and mobilisation strategies. London and the centre right have plenty of policy-orientated groups but not many groups that are dedicated to these questions of party organisation, membership and getting out the vote. This gap has now been filled.

Don Porter CBE, a former Chairman of the National Convention, is the brains behind the initiative and I'm delighted to report that he and the dynamic Conservative Voice team will be working closely with ConservativeHome and our own Majority project*.

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The Iron Lady: A series of interviews with Charles Moore about Baroness Thatcher

By Matthew Barrett
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It's the August Bank holiday, and what better way of enjoying politics this afternoon than watching this set of videos of the peerless Charles Moore discussing Lady Thatcher - whose authorised biography Moore is writing. He is interviewed by Peter Robinson, of Stanford University's Hoover Institution:

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A metropolitan meets MigrationWatch - Nick (or is it Nicholas?) Boles's new book

By Paul Goodman

Book Review: Which Way's Up? by Nick Boles (Biteback, £8.99)

Books by serving politicians tend to fall into three categories (novels excepted).

• Those that are written for the moment which turn out to last far longer (for example, Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France).
• Those that pursue a passion (such as David Willetts' "The Pinch" - a sustained assault on the author's own generation, and a mine of information on heavy petting, vampire bats, and how microwave ovens have raised IQs).
• Those that are written for the moment which - unlike Burke's work or Paine's riposte - turn out to be of the moment only.

Nick Boles's "Which Way's Up?" seems to fall into the third category.  I write "Nick" because this is what the new MP for Grantham and Stamford calls himself on his website, although he's still "Nicholas" to "They Work for You", Wikipedia and Charles Moore, the greatest living Englishman.

The last author of a Conservative work of the moment who was shortening his name at about the time he wrote it was Chris Patten.  The book was "The Tory Case", published in 1983.  (We've not yet had an essay from the pen of "Dave Willetts".)

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