thetorydiary

Moment of 2009

Jonathan Isaby's pick: It was the story that broke during the evening of Thursday 7th May and came to dominate the political agenda for so much of the rest of the year: the Daily Telegraph had bought the discs with the full unexpurgated, unredacted details of MPs' expenses claims going back to 2004 and it was going to make the most of it. Running stories day after day for what seemed like forever, it was explosive stuff and led to the ousting of the Commons Speaker and has caused numerous MPs to exit the Commons - with possible criminal charges yet to follow for some. Whilst the paper's blanket coverage did a disservice to some in the way that it sometimes failed really to differentiate between the worst offenders and those who were merely acting on the guidance of the Fees Office, it was the defining story of the year and has meant that long overdue reforms to the system of MPs' expenses are finally being implemented.

Tim Montgomerie's pick: I agree with Jonathan's choice but needing to pick something different I'll choose the Left's reaction to The Sun's endorsement of David Cameron. Although The Sun's decision was more of a response to Tory ascendancy than a cause of it, CCHQ are very glad to have Britain's best-selling newspaper on side (even if it sometimes goes over the top). My moment, however, is the reaction of the Labour Left to The Sun's decision (captured in the video below and in these words from Harriet Harman). The reaction gives us a taste of the lurch to the left that is underway within the Labour movement. If the retiring generation of Blairites are not replaced with equally strong figures, union leaders like Tony Woodley and left-wing bloggers will dominate Labour in the years to come.

> We have already named our Backbenchers of the Year and Frontbenchers of the Year.

The unholy alliance of The Independent and the right-wing anti-modernisers

In a leading article The Independent argues that "Conservative messages have become increasingly contradictory".

The Independent thinks the party cannot modernise and also talk about more familiar Tory issues: "What made Mr Cameron initially seem radically different from his predecessors William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard was his decision to stop talking about those old Tory obsessions of crime, Europe, immigration and tax cuts. Instead, he set reform of the public services at the heart of his agenda."

The idea that there is a contradiction between these things is a nonsense and it's a view that is shared by many anti-modernisers on the diehard Right (but far from every 'Rightie'*). These anti-modernisers blindly interpret every effort to talk about global poverty or gay equality as a sell-out.

I've long argued for 'a politics of and'.  A politics that twins entirely compatible propositions. A Conservativism that is broader than in 1997 rather than fundamentally changed.  The ConHome shields attempt to represent pictorially the breadth of our ambitions and potential coalition.

Here are a few examples:

The key thing about this broader conservatism is that it can be stronger than the brand that went before.

• It's politically harder for example to adopt a very tough approach on immigration if voters think you don't care about the poor overseas.
• It's harder to back marriage and all the benefits it brings children if some think Tories are homophobic.
• It's harder to trim the size of the state if voters think politicians are still feathering their nests.

Ensuring that we get this balance right and are very serious about the broader conservatism is essential to the future of the Conservative Party. Talking only about crime, tax, Europe and immigration won't be enough to realign British politics. Fusing a concern for the poor, the environment and civil liberties with the issues more associated with the Conservative Party gives us the opportunity to become the natural party of government again.

At the heart of 'the politics of and' is one simple and very British idea: Fairness. Fairness to those who create the wealth and fairness to those who need help. If David Cameron is still looking for a title for the draft manifesto he's launching on 4th January I would suggest fairness as a uniting theme.

Tim Montgomerie  

* Some seen as on the Right have done more to 'modernise' the party than those on the Left. Think, for example, of what IDS has achieved on social justice and David Davis on civil libertarianism.

The Times: David Cameron has yet to make a compelling case for a Conservative government

Key quotes from this morning's Times leader:

"Clearly David Cameron is not making a convincing case. The central charge against him is that, while he is approachable and likeable, his aims and values as a future prime minister of this country are still unclear. David Cameron has yet to answer a basic question: what does he stand for?

...Mr Cameron’s case is not yet persuasive. His speeches are replete with favourable references to charities but precious little about the practical business issue of job creation. He has been fond lately of set-piece speeches of dubious intellectual and strategic wisdom on the iniquity of the big state and health and safety legislation. He would be better advised to get out into the country to visit as many people and places as possible, splitting his time between persuading and listening. Mr Cameron is, instead, projecting the aura of a man who wants power rather more than he knows what to do with it.

...David Cameron has not yet done enough to dispel the suspicion that his programme of modernisation is a pose designed to secure office.

...It is all very well to complain about the Labour record but we still await a clear, unambiguous and compelling case for a Conservative government."

I'm still of the strong view that current opinion polls should not alarm us but the Tory leadership needs to wake up to the arguments presented by The Times. Cameron is at his best when the odds are against him...

• This was true when David Davis was the hot favourite to become Tory leader and David Cameron gave that compelling speech to the Blackpool Party Conference...
• This was true in the autumn of 2007 when Brown was preparing to call a honeymoon election but David Cameron announced that transformational inheritance tax cut...
• This was true at the height of the expenses crisis when David Cameron captured the public mood and insisted on tough action against guilty MPs.

David Cameron is at his worst when he is well ahead in opinion surveys. He stops taking risks and nurses his advantage. It has been said that he treats his opinion poll lead as a Ming Vase that needs the most cautious stewardship.

We are not seeing the best of David Cameron at the moment. He is neglecting the base of the Conservative Party. He is not setting a clear direction on deficit reduction. We are hearing him deliver too many forgettable speeches. After a Christmas break - and he looks in need of a holiday - we need to see a change of gear.

Tim Montgomerie

Cameron's rating starting turning down after he announced his new Europe policy

...suggests a new PoliticsHome survey of one thousand voters:

The downward trend in Mr Cameron's rating followed his announcement that a referendum would no longer be offered to the British people.

The Daily Mail launched a furious attack on Mr Cameron at the time - focusing not so much on the substance of the Europe issue but the [unfair] idea that he'd broken a promise.

David Cameron will be pleased with the coverage he won in today's edition of The Mail. The Mail has welcomed Mr Cameron's reiteration of his support for the married family. CCHQ's wooing of Paul Dacre may mean that the Conservative leadership will find a way of affording some kind of early recognition of marriage in the tax system. The Conservatives don't want to be accusing of breaking another key promise and upsetting the volcanic Mr Dacre twice.

Tim Montgomerie

A number of the shadow cabinet have done well for themselves. And your point is...?

It should come as little surprise that the politics of envy is alive and kicking at the Daily Mirror, and this morning's splash provides the latest evidence.

Their story seeks to highlight the wealth of the Shadow Cabinet by suggesting that they will "make" £7.1million if the party's plans to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million are introduced.

Never mind the fact that Alistair Darling has actually gone half the way to introducing the policy anyway with this Labour Government raising the threshold to £700,000; how grotesque a distortion it is to suggest that removing some of the tax that bereaved relatives are forced to pay on money which has already been taxed once or twice - possibly even three times - is somehow "making money".

I thought that these kinds of Left-wing attacks on the Conservatives were shown to have failed spectacularly at the Crewe and Nantwich by-election and that we would see and end to them.

But no, it seems that desperate times are calling for increasingly desperate measures.

Yes, a number of the shadow cabinet have made money in the private sector. Should we not be celebrating those who have had successful business careers and be grateful that they want to give something back to their country? The same goes for those who may have inherited some money themselves. Shouldn't we be delighted that they want to do their bit in the name of public service?

I refer you to Loanna Morrison's brilliant Platform piece last week, in which the Tory PPC for Bermondsey and Old Southwark stated:

"David Cameron does not need a qualification in poverty to understand the economic challenges facing Britain. Under Labour, the fat cats keep getting fatter and the required tasks for the future of our country are deferred and obfuscated while the chosen few cling to office and quango jobs.

"If qualifications are needed, Gordon Brown is singularly unqualified. He has never held a job outside politics. No wonder he and his equally unqualified Cabinet have made such a spectacularly bad job of looking after the poor... If the Tories are the party of privilege, they will know how to give us some of it."

Jonathan Isaby 

Lady Thatcher pays tribute to The Sun on its fortieth birthday

Lady Thatcher does not write very often but she has written for The Sun this morning, marking the newspaper's 40th birthday:

"For forty years The Sun has informed and entertained the nation. Through your pages we have followed the history of our times - and on occasion watched you making that history...

Throughout those four decades of change there is one cause to which The Sun has remained steadfast: your unstinting support for the men and women who serve this country in our Armed Forces and for their families. From Northern Ireland to Iraq, from the Falklands to Afghanistan, The Sun has supported 'Our Boys' through thick and thin...

For our servicemen and women - far from home, in every dark and dangerous corner of the world - The Sun is a reminder that they are not alone. That the people of Britain are with them. And in every military base, from Basra to Helmand, The Sun brings a bit of home to our troops."

The Sun is not a perfect newspaper (as we saw again last week) but it and Murdoch have been good for British democracy overall. The Murdoch newspapers, notably The Sun, have challenged the dominance of the BBC. As well as supporting our armed forces the newspaper has championed Euroscepticism, freedom from trade union barons and has been a friend to Israel in a newspaper industry notable for its hostility to that embattled nation.

Happy 40th birthday to The Sun!

Tim Montgomerie

How low can the tabloids go?

"David Cameron last night stood accused of exploiting the war dead for the sake of a set of Armistice Day publicity pictures. He took his personal snapper into the Garden of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey yesterday to pose for carefully-choreographed photographs. The Tory leader slipped in by a side gate at 10.15am, 30 minutes before dignitaries including the Queen arrived for a First World War commemoration service. Mr Cameron had clearly been instructed on how to behave and moved briskly from pose to pose, often bending down to read the names on crosses as he was snapped." - Mirror

After The Sun's attacks on Brown (opposed by 65% of the public) you have to wonder if the six months to the General Election (Nick Robinson does not expect a March vote) are going to be very ugly.

The Sun and Mirror are likely to lead the charge... and go way beyond what their political friends would choose to do and, perhaps, would prefer to do. Once they have both finished taking lumps out of their targets you have to wonder what will remain of their own reputations as well as those of Cameron, Brown and our political leaders.

Tim Montgomerie

The enemies of the next Conservative government

The last 48 hours and the row over Gordon Brown's letter to Jacqui Janes have been further proof - if such proof was needed - that we live in a very hostile and unforgiving time. One of the greatest challenges David Cameron will face if he becomes Prime Minister is the management of this ungenerous and fast-moving media culture. Groups will be lining up to cause him trouble. He, like Margaret Thatcher before him, needs to pick his battles carefully. His decision, for example, to tackle the education establishment but not the NHS may, for example, be tactically wise. He also needs to do a lot more to reach out to his friends so that he has more strong allies for the big fights that lie ahead. The lack of contact between the party, the wider conservative movement and sympathetic third party groups (encapsulated in the decision to abolish CCHQ's External Relations Department) is short sighted.

These are the likeliest enemies. Some are unavoidable but some can and should be squared off in order to avoid tension on too many fronts.

Labour and Liberal Democrats. Unavoidable opponents but not necessarily the principal threats that will shape public opinion.

The public sector trade unions. These would be my candidate for number one opponent. I don't often disagree with The Spectator's James Forsyth but I thought his recent column on how the Tories plan to work with the unions was too optimistic. If the Tories are to reduce Brown's budget deficit there'll have to be blood on the carpet. The unions are ready for the fight. The leader of the postal union leader, Billy Hayes, is already flexing his muscles and warning that he is stronger than the Arthur Scargill. The teacher unions, in particular, are certain to give a Conservative government a massive fight. Hopefully someone has a clear strategy to deal with the unions.

The Left 'netroots'. We haven't yet seen the web really take off as a political force in Britain but the Left in the widest sense will probably rebuild online. With Labour close to bankruptcy we will see a huge number of very cheap but very popular internet-based campaigns - national and very local - against Tory spending cuts. These campaigns could hurt the Conservatives but they could also hurt the Labour Party in the medium term as it is dragged to the radical left by purist internet activists. 

Support for the Cameron project grows among centre right columnists

Simon Heffer's loathing for David Cameron's politics is well known.  Two others are clearly in the irreconcilable camp. They prove their status again this morning with columns infused with anger:

• Gerald Warner in Scotland on Sunday reflects on the Tories' new Europe policy: "For an Heir of Blair this kind of betrayal is business as usual: if you take the Great Charlatan as your guru and template, then doing the reverse of what you promised to perform and selling out the national interest are lessons learned on page one of the manual. Cast-Iron Cameron's followers are Britain's Vichy Tories. That title was earned by his party's pathetic Scottish subsidiary when its Holyrood MSPs embraced the devolution settlement and left Scots Tories and Unionists swinging in the wind. The Vichy name now sits even more appropriately on the Cameron clique that has supinely endorsed a treaty that resigns the sovereignty and destiny of Britain pre-eminently into the hands of a German chancellor."
• Peter Hitchens in The Mail on Sunday: "Which is the real David Cameron? The one who talks mistily about the marriage bond and his love of country – or the ferocious backer of Ms Truss? And where has the Tory Party been this week, when the nation’s mature grown-ups have been longing for a clear, hard line against illegal drugs, whose unrestrained use is one of the main reasons that our society is broken? Mumbling into its sleeve, because Mr Cameron will not be frank about his own past, let alone condemn it, and presumably because too many of his own louche, moneyed circle are themselves corrupted by illegal drug use. Which is the real David Cameron? The one who pretends he can mend the broken society – or the one who gives comfort to those who broke it in the first place?"

The mean-spirited nature of these attacks tells reasonable readers more about the writers than the targets.

The centre right columnists most enthusiastic about David Cameron are Matthew d'Ancona, Daniel Finkelstein, Max Hastings, Peter Oborne (although sometimes unpredictably), Matthew Parris, William Rees-Mogg (markedly since his children became Tory candidates) and Bruce Anderson (the first Cameron cheerleader). Interestingly, three are at The Times.

Sympathetic are Benedict Brogan (although from a less ideological perspective), Janet Daley (particularly recently), James Forsyth, Martin Ivens, Charles Moore, Fraser Nelson and Amanda Platell.

More critical than sympathetic (but not unreasonable) are, I'd say, Stephen Glover, Dominic Lawson, Melanie Phillips (never nasty like Heffer and Hitchens) and Jeff Randall (he has become much more sympathetic in recent weeks).

Iain Martin is blogging away brilliantly at the WSJ but doesn't currently have a mainstream column. I'd mark him as sympathetic.

Overall - perhaps not unrelated to the Tories' improvement in the polls - support among the centre right commentariat is much healthier than when ConHome wrote about it in April 2006.

Tim Montgomerie

A thumbs-up from the Telegraph, but the Mail is scathing: a mixed response from Fleet Street to the new Tory European policy

Here's how Fleet Street has reacted to David Cameron's announcement of new Conservative policy on Europe yesterday...

The Daily Telegraph is extremely supportive of the measures announced by the Tory leader:

"David Cameron has had plenty of time to formulate a fall-back plan should the Lisbon Treaty be ratified before he could call a referendum, and he has used it well. The strategy he unveiled yesterday was both coherent and credible, robustly Eurosceptic in tone while wholly realistic in ambition. It may not assuage hardliners, but it is probably enough to placate the wider party."

The paper's chief political commentator, Benedict Brogan, says that the change of course over the Lisbon Treaty referendum was a painful and necessary part of the return of honesty in politics:

"Mr Cameron took a difficult but necessary step to restore our trust not in politics but politicians, by promising no more than he can deliver. To have gone further – including any sort of promise of a post-election referendum to strengthen his hand in negotiations with Europe – would have invited ridicule. Instead, we had a thought-through, realistic scheme for stopping the drift to ever greater European integration. And those holding out hope for a broader referendum over our relations with Europe will have noted his explicit desire to put them on a "more permanent footing". This policy will not satisfy everyone. But it has the merit of being genuinely Eurosceptic and – for once – achievable."

But the Daily Mail editorial is scathing, concluding that yesterday was "a very sad day for Britain, democracy and the Tory Party":

"The implications of David Cameron's retreat over Europe are as simple and devastating as that. The fact that he has behaved as cynically as New Labour on one of the great issues of today is a bitter disappointment to his admirers, including the Mail... Yesterday, the Tory leader's 'cast-iron guarantee' melted away like wax... Mr Cameron pledges only to put any future treaties to referendums, while saying he will introduce a 'Sovereignty Bill' to ensure the supremacy of UK laws. With our system of government at stake, this is pretty sorry stuff."

The paper's columnist Stephen Glover is equally critical:

"For all his Eurosceptic talk of the ever encroaching powers of the EU, he emerges from this decision as a depressingly conventional and timid politician, perhaps touched by that traditional Tory curse of defeatism, who shirks the kind of battle with our partners that Margaret Thatcher was sometimes prepared to undertake."

What has happened to the Tory-Guardian relationship?

The Conservatives may have won The Sun's support but are they losing the goodwill of The Guardian?

It was never likely that The Guardian would back the Conservatives at the next General Election but it had been increasingly open-minded and ran a series of features last year in which it praised Tory efforts to move in a "progressive" direction.  This produced satisfaction at CCHQ where the newspaper is seen as the natural read of the ideas class and, notably, of the BBC.  As part of the wooing process The Guardian has regularly received exclusives from the Tory leadership - often to the annoyance of the traditional centre right press.

In the last week, however, the relationship has appeared to turn sour...

• The lowest point came on Saturday when a front page splash (notably NOT from the newspaper's political team and heavily rebutted since) talked about the "unravelling" of George Osborne's reputation as "a would-be Tory chancellor".  More Mirror, than Guardian.
• This followed very negative coverage of the Tory leader's speech.  The main headline in Friday's edition was "Cameron's war on the state".  Columnist Martin Kettle warned that Cameron risked "unsealing the deal" with the centre left.
• The Guardian's stable mate, The Observer, continued the anti-Tory theme on Sunday.  It led with an attack on the Tories' European allies from Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
• On the day of David Cameron's speech The Guardian attempted to run a story about Tory plans to raise VAT to 20%.  The story was downgraded by later editions.

The newspaper has also been running a pretty silly campaign against The TaxPayers' Alliance - suggesting it may be a front organisation for the Tories.  Tory leaders in local government would form a very long queue to dispute that.

There is genuine concern within The Guardian at the Tory response to the recession (articulated yesterday by Larry Elliott) but the stridency of the newspaper's coverage in the last week (particularly on Europe and against George Osborne) has been surprising.  When the newspaper relaunched in Berliner format it set out to become the newspaper of the establishment - rivalling The Times.  Chris Patten wrote for the first edition of the reformatted paper and Max Hastings (now gone) and Simon Jenkins were recruited as columnists.  The Guardian is no slave of the Labour leadership (its columnists are almost all anti-Brown) but the last week may be a taste of the relationship that the Conservative Party might expect from The Guardian if it comes to power - and a sign that the newspaper is no longer pursuing its establishment ambition.

Tim Montgomerie 

Guardian warns that Cameron's "war on the state" could "unseal the deal"

There were two big themes to David Cameron's speech; one was the emphasis on a socially-just conservatism and the other was an emphasis on government failure. The Telegraph and Guardian have chosen to focus on the scepticism of the power of government.

A reminder of what Cameron actually said:

"Here is the big argument in British politics today, put plainly and simply. Labour say that to solve the country’s problems, we need more government.

Don’t they see? It is more government that got us into this mess.

Why is our economy broken? Not just because Labour wrongly thought they’d abolished boom and bust. But because government got too big, spent too much and doubled the national debt. Why is our society broken? Because government got too big, did too much and undermined responsibility. Why are our politics broken? Because government got too big, promised too much and pretended it had all the answers...

Do you know the worst thing about their big government? It’s not the cost, though that’s bad enough. It is the steady erosion of responsibility. Our task is to lead Britain in a completely different direction.  So no, we are not going to solve our problems with bigger government. We are going to solve our problems with a stronger society. Stronger families.  Stronger communities.  A stronger country. All by rebuilding responsibility."

Martin Kettle, in The Guardian, wonders if Cameron's 'anti-government' rhetoric could "unseal the deal" with left-of-centre voters:

"This was not merely the least technically assured or successful leader's speech that Cameron has delivered from a conference platform. It was also the most ideologically reckless. Its head-on challenge to the role of government was as dogmatic in a diametrically different way as Brown's defence of government had been in Brighton. It came as close to vacating the political middle ground as Cameron has ever been."

The Murdochs are "furious" at Labour's attacks on The Sun

Last week Labour figures lined up to rubbish The Sun after it endorsed the Conservatives.  Notably Harriet Harman and Tony Woodley:

A very good source within News International has told ConservativeHome that the Murdochs are "furious" at the "juvenile" reaction. The Sun was always going to be favourable to the Tories over the seven or so months until the General Election now that it had chosen to back David Cameron (Friday's coverage being a taste of what to expect).  The Labour reaction, however, means that Britain's biggest selling newspaper is now much less likely to give Labour good coverage.  The reaction proved The Sun's point, my source said; Labour has lost its maturity and seriousness.

The sensible reaction would have been one of disappointment and a promise to give Sun readers many reasons to vote Labour and to seek opportunities within the pages of The Sun to outline those reasons.  The hysterical Labour high ups have thrown a lot those opportunities away.

Tim Montgomerie

56% of Tory members say The Telegraph's coverage of the Conservative Party is getting worse

Earlier this year I made some criticisms of The Telegraph's political coverage.

Encountering a senior Telegraph journalist earlier this week it was made very clear to me that this was an unforgivable thing to have done. It appears that newspapers are happy to attack politicians all the time but will bear a grudge if they receive any scrutiny themselves.

Was I unfair in my criticisms of The Telegraph?  In the latest survey of the ConservativeHome Members' Panel I tested my view.  "Please give your opinion on how The Daily Telegraph’s coverage of the Conservative Party has changed over the last two or so years" was the question posed in the survey.  A clear majority believe that The Telegraph's coverage of the Conservative Party is getting worse. The response was clear:

Why has this happened?

The dead parrot Tories are resurrected in The Sun

It might be that the Tories would have preferred the switch to have happened one week later - more as a tribute to the renewed Conservatives than a rejection of the exhausted Labour Party - but they'll be delighted that The Sun will be "on side" for the seven months until the General Election.  A formal endorsement is welcome but having the news pages favourable (if not slavish*) is a much bigger prize.  The Sun's hostility to Labour has been evident for some time and boiled over in Brighton this week with the newspaper's Don't you know there's a bloody war on? campaign.  On Radio Five Live last night the Sun's political columnist Trevor Kavanagh made it clear that Murdoch himself had made the decision.  It was made "right at the top", he said.  The Times will decide its own endorsement but The Sun does not enjoy the same independence within NewsCorp.

The Tories are enjoying their Lazarus moment although the restoration to life has taken eleven years, not four days.  In 1998 The Sun declared the Tories "dead", "ceased to be", "an EX-party". It was a wounding blow to the then Tory leader, William Hague, who was portrayed as a dead parrot on The Sun's frontpage - again during the Party Conference season.

The direction of travel for The Sun has been evident for some time.  It backed Boris last year and Tory MEPs just three months ago.  It is a big victory for Andy Coulson, the Conservative Party's head of communications, who has made the Tories much more "tabloid friendly" since his appointment in 2007.  It is rumoured that The Sun had made it clear that it would not back the party as long as Dominic Grieve remained Shadow Home Secretary.  The previous Sun Editor, Rebekah Wade had made that clear after an unhappy dinner she had had with the man now moved to the Justice portfolio.

The Daily Mail is the next big target.  The Guardian reports that Cameron dined with senior executives of The Mail on Sunday evening.  It may well be, as we predicted earlier in the year, that all but The Mirror may desert Labour.

Tim Montgomerie

* The Sun won't be slavish to the Conservatives.  Expect the newspaper to push the party on Europe in particular.

The Sun officially deserts the Labour Party to back the Conservatives

It's breaking news tonight that will devastate the Brown camp after his speech this afternoon: tomorrow's Sun newspaper carries the headline "Labour's Lost It" alongside news that the paper "wot won it" for Labour at the last three elections is deserting the party and endorsing the Conservatives.

Here are a couple of screenshots of the paper taken from the paper reviews on TV this evening:

Speaking on Sky News, the paper's political editor, George Pascoe-Watson, cited Brown's failure to address Sun readers' concerns about Europe, the Lisbon Treaty and the treatment of our armed forces as being among the reasons for it switching its support to the Conservatives.

11.30pm update: The link to the Sun story is here - although as of late Tuesday night it is only carrying the opening paragraph:

"After 12 long years in power, this Government has lost its way. Now it's lost The Sun's support too."

Jonathan Isaby

The Telegraph concludes its "Path to Power" series looking at the Conservatives by interviewing David Cameron and praising his "strong set of core principles"

There is little new in the Daily Telegraph's interview today with David Cameron, whose hair is - according to the paper's interviewers - "going noticeably grey".

He reaffirms the pledge to scrap inheritance tax on estates worth less than £1 million and describes as "crucial" the party's commitment to maintaining the newly re-established link between the state pension and earnings.

The party leader states that he "would rather not get elected saying the right thing than get elected saying the wrong thing. Because if you get elected saying the wrong thing you are going to be a failure.”

He also refers to William Hague in terms as “a very capable deputy” for the first time.

In a separately written up item, the paper also discloses that Mr Cameron has opened talks with the unions over how to tackle the cost of public sector pensions and pay:

The private meeting with Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), took place in the Conservative leader's Commons office. They had a "sensible" dialogue on the future of public sector pensions, Mr Cameron said.

But there will arguably more interest in picking through the paper's editorial at the end of its series considering the Conservatives' readiness to take power within the year.

In recognising that the party does not have a poll lead quite as vast as that enjoyed by Tony Blair, Mr Cameron runs the risk of being too timid, argues the editorial, and should be extolling his "strong set of core  principles":

"In seeking to avoid complacency, there is always a danger of timidity and eclecticism, of trying to please too many people, while failing to project a coherent set of values and beliefs that voters can easily recognise and with which they can identify. As is clear from many of his public speeches, the Conservative leader does possess a strong set of core principles:

• he believes in the Union and respects this country's traditions and heritage;
  
• he is enthusiastic about social and welfare reform;
  
• he is suspicious of big government and all its trappings;
  
• he is unapologetic in his approval of marriage and the family;
  
• he believes taxes should be as low as possible and that the money should be properly accounted for, that spending should be constrained and the public finances put in order.
  

These are recognisably Tory instincts; they are shared by many who have not voted for the party in recent years who can be persuaded to once again. Mr Cameron has no need to hide them, and every reason to extol them."

It goes on to suggest that the Tory leader needs to be "more collegiate in his leadership style" and "cast his more widely to make use of experienced former ministers" as well as those outside politics - not the first time those criticism have been made.

And in rightly stating that he is wise to take nothing for granted, the editorial concludes:

"The task is to persuade a lot more people who are heartily sick of the Government that a Tory administration offers an alternative that will benefit them, their families and the country as a whole."

Jonathan Isaby

Iain Martin becomes Deputy Editor of Wall Street Journal Europe

My favourite op-ed pages are those of the Wall Street Journal. I read them online most days and on my way home to Salisbury often treat myself to the £2.50 copy of the American edition that I can pick up at the Waterloo WH Smith.  The pages are hawkish, capitalist and sympathetic to social conservatism.  I've never quite taken to the European edition of the WSJ but that might be about to change...

Iain Martin - until recently at The Telegraph - has joined Patience Wheatcroft - another exile from The Telegraph - at the WSJE.  The Telegraph's comment pages (and politics blog) have been duller without him and I'm really looking forward to reading him again - within the main newspaper but also, crucially, on a new blog.

It's perfectly possible to look forward to The Spectator under Fraser Nelson and the European WSJ under Wheatcroft and Martin becoming the key nurturers of conservative thinking in Britain.

Tim Montgomerie

New Spectator editor signals his intention not to shy away from criticising the Tory leadership

Fraser Nelson takes up his new role as editor of The Spectator next week, but in his final act as political editor of the weekly magazine - which is out tomorrow - he has written a column which is far from friendly towards George Osborne. It would certainly indicate that he will not be afraid to challenge the party leadership and continue taking a robust attitude on economic matters when he tales the editor's chair.

In tomorrow's column, headed "Osborne must address the doubts the City has about his economic credentials", he suggests that the shadow chancellor is yet to win over the City:

"Financiers who attend his soirees grumble that it is all politics and no economics. When asked about economics, I am told, he becomes rather glum and evasive. But when asked about political strategy, his face lights up. There are no specific policies causing the City particular concern, but rather a general impression, which one hears repeatedly in the City, that the soon-to-be-chancellor has no expertise — and not even much interest — in the job he is about to inherit."

Fraser states, as he has done previously, that the next Government will have to make cuts "in the range of 15 to 20 per cent" and say that the party would be well advised to draw-up a worst-case scenario (he adds that shadow chief secretary Philip Hammond is in the early stages of a quiet spending review). He concludes:

"What is unnerving the City is the feeling that Mr Osborne is so focused on the election (he is also the official campaign co-ordinator) that he has not reconciled himself to the harsher truths about his dismal inheritance. If he does not start planning soon, the City frets, his first Budget will do no more than another Labour one would to reduce the deficit. However ill-founded these concerns are, it is time for the Tories to address them."

In our August survey, no fewer than 67% of party members expressed the view that George Osborne should not be both shadow chancellor AND general election co-ordinator.

Jonathan Isaby

Fraser Nelson is the new Editor of The Spectator

The news is just breaking that Fraser Nelson is to take over from Matthew d'Ancona as the magazine's Editor.

It is not clear what d'Ancona will be doing next but he already has a must-read column in The Sunday Telegraph and also writes for GQ.  He had the unenviable task of following Boris Johnson when appointed in 2006 and during his time in the Editor's chair the hugely successful Coffee House blog was launched.  In my view it is the best blog in British politics and has nurtured the outstanding talents of James Forsyth and Peter Hoskin.

With a few exceptions - notably grammarsgate - Matthew d'Ancona has pursued a friendly relationship with the Conservative Party.  My guess is that will change somewhat under Fraser Nelson, who until today has been The Spectator's Political Editor.  The magazine will remain a strong supporter of David Cameron but it will start to press the Tory leadership more aggressively on issues of debt reduction, NHS reform and will expect to see real progress on the social justice agenda.  Some of Fraser Nelson's best journalism has been seen in his analysis of Labour's dismal record on poverty and on Brown's hidden spending cuts (Fraser was there FIRST with the 10% cuts story - rivalling Guido Fawkes for the anti-Brown story of the year).  Up until now The Spectator as a magazine - rather than Coffee House - hasn't quite caught the zeitgeist.  It hasn't quite captured the great anticipation that most Conservatives feel at the prospect of the first new Tory government since 1979.

Fraser's promotion will mean a search will begin to find a new Political Editor for the magazine.  James Forsyth, currently Deputy Editor, is a hot tip but The Times' Sam Coates must also be a possibility.

I'd like to see Bruce Anderson return to the magazine in some form.  He remains hugely insightful and would be a lot more at home at The Spectator than The Independent.

I count Fraser as a close friend and have watched in admiration as he moved up from The Scotsman to The Spectator and was then recruited by one Andy Coulson to be the News of the World's main current affairs columnist (replacing William Hague).  He was ConHome's Writer of the Year in 2008.  Congratulations Fraser.

Tim Montgomerie

The scrutiny of the Conservatives is well and truly underway

The Sunday newspapers don't make easy reading for the Conservatives:

The News of the World attacks Alan Duncan as the "Blabbermouth Tory".  The Sunday Mirror reports that the Shadow Leader of the House is in Bali on a holiday that may have cost up to £10,000.

The Mail on Sunday has a story about a group of independent candidates challenging Alan Duncan and David Ruffley.  Jonathan Isaby has blogged about the campaign here.

The Observer builds a mountain out of a molehill with a story about some senior Conservatives being loosely associated with a report that called for NHS reform.  "Being associated" becomes "backed".

On the face of it the most damaging story is in the Independent on Sunday.  The IoS reports:

"The Conservative leader has accepted more than 60 flights by luxury plane and helicopter from 10 industrialists and plutocrats with a combined fortune of £3bn, figures obtained by The Independent on Sunday reveal."

It turns out that the 60 flights are since December 2005.  That's about 15 flights a year or one a month.  Is that unreasonable for someone who is constantly travelling across the country and has a young family that he wants to spend time with?  And what exactly is the relevance of that "industrialists and plutocrats with a combined fortune of £3bn" remark?

The Daily Mail and Sun warn David Cameron not to treat the NHS as a sacred cow

The Sun first:

"Yes, under Labour there have been some improvements.

But it STILL fails to deliver value for the billions it spends.

It STILL operates a postcode lottery for life-saving drugs.

It STILL hasn't fixed filthy wards and MRSA.

It STILL lags on cancer survival rates and waiting lists.

And it is STILL burdened by a vast, often incompetent management.

Nobody reading Mr Cameron's passionate defence of the NHS can doubt his sincerity.

His pledges to improve quality and scrap targets are welcome.

But is he right to vow he will carry on pouring money into the NHS without seeking better value for taxpayers?

Is Mr Cameron saying that in these tough times it is impossible to identify any waste or inefficiency in an organisation that employs 1.5million and eats a billion pounds every three days?

We all admire the NHS. We're glad it's there.

But it could - and should - do better."

And the Daily Mail, too:

"While Mr Cameron and Mr Brown were right to defend the NHS from U.S. slurs, they are reluctant to acknowledge that it has increasingly significant flaws. The Tory leader in particular appears paralysed by the fear that heaping anything but praise on the NHS will make his party 'nasty' in the public's eyes - hence the promise to protect its current budget, despite Britain's £1trillion of debt."

Read the Mail's full leading article.

Tim Montgomerie

Rupert Murdoch's "representative on earth" rubbishes claims that Barack Obama does not see David Cameron as a man of substance

Recently the New Statesman's James Macintyre wrote this piece claiming that Barack Obama had dismissed David Cameron as all "sizzle" and no substance.

It was a variation on the theme Mr Macintyre adopted in December last year when he made similar claims that the then President-elect had branded the Conservative leader "a lightweight" - about which I cast my doubts at the time.

Now the spurious claims have been rubbished by no less a figure than Irwin Stelzer, the respected economist and columnist often viewed as being Rupert Murdoch's "representative on earth". Writing for the Guardian, he asserts:

"Ask... whether it is reasonable to assume that super-cautious Obama, a lawyer without an impetuous bone in his body, is likely to have derided a man with whom he might have to do business for years to come. The answer is that Obama is as likely to have shared that thought with Cameron's political opponents as Thomas More was to have told Richard Rich of his opposition to Henry VIII's divorce."

"But we do know that the president, who had no obligation to do so and who is enough of a politician to know that a meeting would be a big plus for a politician new on the world scene, chose to meet with Cameron during his visit to Britain for the G20 meeting in April – privately, at Winfield House, the Regent Park residence of the US ambassador. If this were merely a drive-by hello, Obama would not have brought with him secretary of state Hillary Clinton, national security adviser General Jim Jones, treasury secretary Tim Geithner and deputy chief of staff Jim Messina."

I wouldn't argue with any of that and remain of the view that whilst a Cameron-Obama relationship would not quite be a meeting of like minds à la Thatcher-Reagan, there appeared to be a certain chemistry between the pair when they first met in London and I am sure that they would have a very productive relationship if and when David Cameron becomes Prime Minister. 

Stelzer also goes on to say that he believes that David Cameron does indeed have substance, which surely adds to the evidence that the Murdoch press, like most of Fleet Street, will dump Labour and back the Conservatives come the general election.

Jonathan Isaby

Simon Heffer launches strongest attack yet on David Cameron

In his column for tomorrow's Telegraph - already online - Simon Heffer accuses David Cameron of "moral and intellectual flaws", "cronyism", "tokenism", " political and intellectual vacuity" and spouting "drivel".  George Osborne is described as Cameron's "economically illiterate shadow chancellor".  Heffer accuses Cameron of being craven on the 50p tax band, Europe and the defence of private education.

Tim Montgomerie 

If Cameron does not change course his government will face opposition on TWO fronts

We know that the public sector unions - supported by the Left in general - will attack the next Tory government.  Employing the power of the internet, in particular, they will target the Tory government nationally and Tory MPs locally as the axe falls on "vital" public services.

We get a warning this morning - from The Daily Mail - that Cameron might also face a rebellion from the Right and from already over-taxed middle classes.

This is the Mail's leading article from today's edition:

"Mr Cameron, seeking to justify his position, says: 'If you're going to have a programme of some austerity... everyone has to share in that.' But those on middle incomes have already taken their fair share of pain, thanks to Labour policies which have benefited mainly the very wealthy and - at the opposite end of society - the indolent, whose access to benefits and other state handouts has never been greater.  Those in between have been ravaged by stealth tax upon stealth tax, and squeezed until the pips squeaked.  In seeking to soak families who already pay more than enough into a profligate Treasury, Mr Cameron is, once again, displaying a desperation not to be considered 'nasty' by the Guardianistas. But here's a reminder for him: the middle-classes have votes, too." 

ConHome has accepted that there might be a need for some time-limited tax rises but, like The Mail, we believe that the Tories must get much more serious about spending restraint first.  I worry that the NHS is being allowed to carry on as if there is no age of austerity. I worry that frontbenchers in charge of major spending briefs tell me that they have had no serious discussions with the part-time Shadow Treasury team about cutting their budgets. I worry that we don't have a growth agenda and that any chances of growth will be flattened by allowing Labour to impose its 50% tax rate (even though it may not raise any money).

I certainly wouldn't want to be a councillor seeking re-election in 2011 or Boris seeking re-election in 2012 if the Tories have not done everything they can to minimise tax rises.  Norwich North showed that other parties are on the rise.  We must deny them opportunities to rise further.

Tim Montgomerie