ConservativeHome's Columnists

Peter Franklin: What Britain needs is a hypertext constitution

There are two great myths about the British constitution:

The first is that is unwritten. This, of course, is wrong. As every politically literate person ought to know, most of it is written – in the form of countless items of case law, statute law and international treaty. What we do lack is a document in which all these strands are tied together in a single, supreme constitutional statement. In other words, the British constitution is uncodified.

The second great myth about the British constitution is that it is inflexible. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are, of course, a few archaic laws and practices that linger on long after their natural lifespan, giving the impression of a constitution preserved in formaldehyde. However, these are peculiarities, not fundamentals – and it is the fundamentals, not the peculiarities, that are the problem. Or, rather, it’s the fact that the fundamentals of our constitution – especially our system of common law – can be, and have been, eviscerated without the informed consent of the British people.

Andrew Lilico: How we should approach welfare reform

Welfare reform is back under discussion.  During the 1980s and early 1990s this was a hot political topic, probably because of high unemployment, and even through the mid 1990s many of us wrote pamphlets in which jargon such as “Wisconsin-style systems”, “workfare”, “compulsory private insurance”, “opting-out” and so on were the lingua franca.  This debate largely perished with the collapse of Frank Field’s “thinking the unthinkable” project, and since then (with the exception of a growing — rather confused — discussion of pensions reform, of which I shall write more another time) Gordon Brown’s bizarrely complicated system of means-tested benefits and tax credits has ruled uncontested-though-roundly-criticized.

More recently, however, the report of Iain Duncan Smith’s Social Justice Policy Group and David Cameron’s speech at the 2007 Party Conference has re-ignited the discussion.  I want here to offer a few principles that I believe should guide our engagement with this issue.

First, I believe that we should paint an accurate but restrained picture of the problem, giving it sufficient emphasis to demonstrate our genuine concern, but avoiding creating the impression of a world in crisis or that matters were much rosier in the past.  If we want a “sunny uplands Reganite” Conservatism, we must appear optimistic about the world — “you can get it if you really want it”.  Implying that things are much worse than they actually are makes one appear dour and unpleasant, whilst implying that the world was much better in the past makes one appear like one of those Conservatives that looked back to a mythical golden age before those “nasty feminists and homosexuals” ruined everything in the 1960s.  I believe that our position should be a “much done, but much left to do” analysis of the world, and we should characterize Labour as having spent ten years failing to move things on.

Stephan Shakespeare: Time for Cameron's team to step forward

I write looking out over Santa Monica beach, Los Angeles, a few surfers just waxing down their boards under the opalescent orange glow of what will become the first clear sunny day following the engulfing fires. I’m here for business and part holiday, so I’ll keep this brief.

In the UK, we’re reasonably up to date on the Hillary-Obama-Giuliani state of affairs, but out here no-one knows much about Gordon Brown, and few even have heard of David Cameron. But they do refer fondly to Tony Blair, and they are more aware of his Middle East missions than of Brown’s ups and downs.

That’s understandable given how much more influential US politics is on us than British politics is on them.  And how much more colourful it is too, with a much broader layer of the population taking an active interest.

It set me thinking on the difference between the US system of Presidents, Senators, Governors, Congressmen, Mayors, and our party representatives.  The American system is of course much more focused on the leader, and there are many leaders at many levels.  Those leaders generally belong to their party, and feel a loyalty to their party, but they are much more independent from them, feel that they derive their legitimacy direct from the people who elected them and not the party that gave them the platform, and they have their own team that they have hired out of their budget, they do not rely on their party.

Graeme Archer's Diary

Risk/Benefit

When was the last time you were in pain? For most of us, fortunately, pain and the trauma of injury are random, or accidental, events. The worst pain I’ve ever had to cope with (touch wood) was caused by some shoddy dental work, and I recovered from it by gulping down scaldingly hot black coffee in a Bow café, with more paracetemol than any hepatologist would countenance. It passed, of course it did. A very minor and transient brush with pain. How many of us, though, go to work in the full understanding that life-shattering pain and injury, perhaps death, are part and parcel of the terms and conditions we’ve signed up to? Not many.

Read this:

At first I couldn't move or speak. I was in shock and the words just wouldn't come out. It was as though I was paralysed. My arms were burnt and bleeding with shrapnel wounds. Then I managed to move. I looked down and could see that my foot had gone - it had been blown off - and I thought: 'I'm going home.' I was gutted because I wanted to stay with my mates. I eventually managed to shout 'Woollard, I've been hit.'

These are the words of Private Matt Woollard, of the 1st Battalion, Royal Anglian Regiment, as recounted in the Sunday Telegraph on the 15th October. He’s 19 now. He was 18 when his right foot was blown off by an anti-personnel mine in North Helmand, Afghanistan.

The medics rushed over and patched me up. I was conscious all the way through the whole thing so I saw and heard everything. I could see the look of concern on the faces of the blokes and I didn't think I was going to make it. I thought I was going to be one of those guys who survives the blast and then dies later.

This man – this nineteen-year-old – has shown more bravery, forbearance and courage than I can conceive of. He’s risked everything in order to carry out the foreign policy intentions of his country, and to help keep the Taleban out of Afghanistan. As a result, he’s left with the sort of injury that would knock most of us down for the rest of our lives.

What’s the very least that such men should expect from their fellow Britons? That their pay and conditions will reflect the risk they take on behalf of us all? Well, no. If you want to make a living in the public sector, best to forge a career spewing foul-mouthed drivel on the BBC’s radio service, than to offer to fight for your country. Risk/benefit, eh? Do we offer, instead, to look after the families left behind? Hardly – the accommodation we offer is reputedly foul, and would most likely be deemed unsuitable for the least deserving on any council’s waiting list. (Even seven years ago, the divorce rates in the armed services were double that of civilians, and I doubt the intervening period has done anything to narrow the gap.) Do we ensure that soldiers are adequately equipped, with the best protective and offensive materials available, befitting the bravest and most professional army in the world? Of course not! Soldiers famously spend what little money we do pay them on bettering their equipment. And when they are injured in the line of duty, do we offer them the best medical service the world could offer, in order to help them get back to peak? Dream on, matey. We sometimes allow servicemen with the most severe injuries to be treated on mixed civilian wards, sometimes next to elderly patients suffering from dementia (how we look after the old: that’s another article. Perhaps just as shaming).

I won’t quote the Military Covenant at you, though it’s worth reading, and I defy you to read it while thinking about Private Woollard and not feel a stab of shame. We should be providing any man or woman who is willing to fight for our country the following: decent pay and conditions; superior accommodation both for singletons and for those with families; world-class kit and equipment; and dedicated military hospital services in Britain, so that the injured can be looked after in a fitting environment.

I heard Geoff Hoon the other day on the radio, blethering on about democracy or something. You remember Geoff Hoon. He was the defence secretary who presided over the demonstrable inadequacies of the kit supplied to the army, kit which was shown to have rendered soldiers at greater risk of death than was necessary. He denied any such gap in provision, although he quietened down after the widow of Sergeant Steven Roberts released her husband’s audio diary, a recording made before he was killed in Basra from a gunwound in the chest, where he complained: Things we have been told we are going to get, we're not – and it's disheartening because we know we are going to go to war without the correct equipment. What happened to Geoff Hoon? Did he step back from public life, to eek out his career in some activity more suited to his – let’s be kind – average talents? Not at all! This is the Blair-Brown era remember! He was quietly refashioned and now sits as “Leader” of the House of Commons, like some overfed, self-satisfied cat, oozing smugness, ready to lecture us sternly about the importance of upholding democracy. What did the designers forget to include, when they put the New Labour Machine together? A sense of shame.

Here’s Private Woollard again, learning to overcome his injuries at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre:

Even if I knew I was going to lose my leg I would do it all again. Being a soldier is the best job in the world.

It probably goes without saying that this young man is desperate to complete his physical rehabilitation, and rejoin his comrades. I don’t want to peddle clichés, but I’m in awe of Private Matt Woollard.

It’s nearly Poppy Day. A piercingly beautiful campaign from the Royal British Legion asks us all to remember the many soldiers like Pte Woollard, as well as the many families who’ve lost a husband, a father, a son. One hesitates to make a political comment; in fact I won’t. I doubt it’s necessary. Remember the men who died for us.

Cameron Watt is away this week

Theresa May MP: Taking Parliament to the people

It is a sad fact about modern politics that Parliament has become distant from the people who elect it.  For example, just 44 per cent of people can name their local MP, and turnout is historically low.  As Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, I believe passionately that Parliament needs to be closer to the people.

But how can we make this happen?  There are a variety of ways that we can make Parliament more relevant.  Only yesterday, I debated a motion that will improve the ability of backbench MPs to get involved in House business.  That’s one small measure.  And we can also make Parliament more relevant by making it stronger.  We need to reform its processes to restore the balance between the Government and Parliament.  We need to answer the West Lothian Question, reform the House of Lords.  And, as I have argued on Conservative Home before, we need to radically change the way the House of Commons scrutinises European legislation.

When we come to government, we will make those changes.  But we can still play our part to make Parliament more relevant to the public.  That’s why, this week, I launched my Parliamentary Roadshow. 

The Roadshow will take Parliament to the people, and ask the public what needs to be discussed and debated by MPs.  Every month, I will travel to a different region of the country, and focus on a different theme, to ask people what they want MPs to do.  So, this week, I went to Birmingham for the Roadshow’s first meeting, and met representatives of the West Midlands business community.

There, I listened to businesses’ concerns about tax and regulation, including about the changes to capital gains tax announced in the Pre-Budget Report, about the decline in our entrepreneurial culture, and about the problems caused by our increasingly risk-averse culture.  I will be raising these issues in Parliament in the coming weeks.

And in the coming months, I will be travelling up and down the country, meeting people from all sorts of professions and walks of life, and making sure that their concerns are reflected in the House of Commons.  If you have any particular areas of the country or themes you would like me to cover on the Parliamentary Roadshow, please feel free to comment in the thread below, on the Roadshow website, or by emailing me.

*****

Wearing my Shadow Minister for Women hat this week, I uncovered some shocking facts about the new Equality and Human Rights Commission – the supposedly streamlined super-quango that replaced the CRE, DRC and EOC this month.  With a budget of £70 million, it will spend 45 per cent more than the three old bodies combined.  It will have 518 staff.  And, for reasons that escape me, it will have no fewer than eighteen different offices up and down the country.  The EHRC only came into existence on 1st October.  This isn’t exactly the best of starts.

Louise Bagshawe: An open letter to Frank Field MP, Kate Hoey MP and Gisela Stuart MP

I hope you will forgive the impertinence of a letter like this from a mere Conservative PPC. But when considering what column to write this week for this website, there was a single subject that suggested itself; to ask the three Labour MPs most respected by their opponents to consider defecting to our party.

Obviously, all of you will have been plagued with the question many times before by journalists. Political parties are by their nature big tents; every MP, even candidates, will have to swallow the odd unpalatable thing for the sake of what they believe to be the wider good, otherwise we would have 650 parties in Parliament. It is quite understandable that all of you have felt that whilst you disagreed with Labour on some issues, taken as a whole, you wished to retain party affiliation. And then there is the childish point-scoring employed when politicians, as the common term has it, “defect”. The very terminology reduces what is often a profound political journey to a cheap card trick; a score for this or that leader against his enemy. I know, from the courageous risks each of you have already taken in your political careers, that you would find this extremely distasteful. In writing this article in the form of a letter, I do not intend such point scoring. My contempt for both Quentin Davies MP and for the Labour Party on the matter of his defection came precisely because it was clear he had not made such a journey. Aside from his heartfelt Europhilia, Mr. Davies had nothing about him that would commend him to the Labour Party were he not a walking opportunity to score anti-Tory points. He has voted against gay rights, been fined for animal cruelty and is a supporter of the death penalty; as far as I know, he has not resiled from these positions. It is unclear to me what political philosophy of Mr. Davies resulted in the offer of the Labour whip. Surely being a Eurofederalist is not enough in and of itself?

Peter Franklin: Politics is showbiz for gorgeous people

The bumper book of political myths has a new entry. Filed under ‘Campbell, Menzies – reasons for resignation’, it states that Ming quit as leader of the Lib Dems because people thought he was too old.

This is nonsense.

Born in 1941, Michael Howard is the same age as Ming Campbell. Yet at the last election, few people were saying that he was too old to run the country. They may have said a lot of other things, but his age was not a problem. Howard’s greying hair may even have been an advantage, helping to soften his image – these things are relative.

Other prominent figures born in 1941 include Bill Oddie, Jackie Collins and Richard Dawkins. I’m not suggesting that any of these should run for high office. After all, one is a wildlife presenter, one writes trashy bestsellers and the other is Joan Collins’ sister. But despite being in their mid-sixties, all of them seem lively sorts to me.

The brutal truth is that Ming Campbell had to go because people thought he looked too old: His hair, complexion and physiognomy, when viewed through the distorting effect of television, gave the impression of a man older than his years. Thus it was aesthetic imperfection that the people took against not the year of his birth.

Andrew Lilico: The role of religious policy justifications in two kinds of liberalism

Let’s distinguish two different ideas that are both called “liberalism”.  In another context I would be tempted to call them Accepting Pessimistic Static Liberalism (APSL) and Tolerant Optimistic Dynamic Liberalism (TODL), for reasons that will become obvious, but since acronyms like this are likely to put readers to sleep, I shall instead call them “American Left-Liberalism” and “British Conservative Liberalism”.

The first form of liberalism is static, in that it sees Liberalism as a final, ideal state of society.  In a truly liberal society we have all the answers there can be; everything that can be resolved has been. There are, of course, brute disagreements between people and between points of view, but these reflect fundamentally irreconcilable moral outlooks and preferences (it is pessimistic about the possibility that such differences of opinion can be bridged).  Since we cannot hope to change each other’s minds and behaviours in these ways, we must foreswear our attempts to persuade or impose upon each other, and instead accept other people with different moral, religious, aesthetic, and spiritual outlooks.  I suspect that it is an outlook of this sort that American Conservatives often have in mind when they condemn their opponents as “liberals”, so I’m calling it “American Left-Liberalism”.

Stephan Shakespeare: The importance of person-to-person contact in politics

Mathematicians have found a pattern in the distribution of votes that casts new light on a key driver of voting behaviour. Their research is across hundreds of elections in many countries over several decades, but in spite of great variations in the political and economic conditions prevailing for each of them, what they have found appears to be an underlying pattern. Interestingly, it holds irrespective of when the election was held, suggesting that recent changes in technology, media, and campaigning techniques haven’t greatly changed the basics.

Unfortunately I haven’t seen the research itself, only the write-up in the New Scientist (13th October 2007), and so I can’t say whether these bold claims stack up. Their conclusion appears to be that the most important driver of what proportion of total votes a candidate (as opposed to the popularity of a party and its policies) gets is person-to-person contact. A candidate tries to convince other people to vote for him or her. Those who have become convinced then influence those with whom they come into contact.

Pretty obvious, one might say, and certainly it is an assumption behind many successful campaigning techniques, especially ones used in the US in recent elections. But in one sense maybe it isn’t so obvious: many political strategists have concentrated almost wholly on the ‘air war’, that is, messages via the media.

The authors of this study wouldn’t deny the importance of the candidate’s communication in the media – this is after all the nearest that most of the population will ever come to contact with the candidate. However, this research should remind us that we neglect traditional personal contact campaigns at our peril.

Graeme Archer on Canadian politics, the Lib Dems, and the BBC

Saturday 8am All the leaves are brown, but the sky is not grey. Walking through London Fields on the way to the Lido. All the leaves aren’t brown, in fact, many are still dark green and clinging to the trees, but there’s a golden brown carpet to shuff-shuff through. The sky, in fact, is warming up to be a crystal clear light blue. Another sunny day, I met you out in the garden (that’s for the other Belle and Sebastian fan who read Conservative Home).

*

So I’ve been in Canada all week, in Toronto. Usually I come back from these trips kicking myself for not having paid the slightest attention to the politics of whatever state I happen to find myself in, thereby having nothing political to write about in this column, so this week I made myself watch the local news (oh God) and read the local newspaper (the Globe and Mail – very impressive). OK! Here’s the Archer factfile on Canadian politics...

Cameron Watt: Abortion – 40 years on

Cameron Watt is Deputy Director of the Centre for Social Justice; he writes here in a personal capacity.

Next Saturday is the 40th anniversary of the passing of the 1967 Abortion Act. David Steel’s Act was central to Britain’s sexual revolution and its impact on our nation has been immense. 6.7 million abortions have been performed since 1967. In 1969, the first full year that abortion was legal in Britain, just under 55,000 terminations were carried out. Last year, there were more than 214,000 – the highest rate of abortion of any European country, and equivalent to the population of Coventry. One in four pregnancies now ends in abortion.

Although the number of abortions is at an all-time high, there are increasing signs that public opinion on this most sensitive of issues is shifting. Technology has given us new, vivid images of unborn life, reinforcing the humanity of the foetus. Research published last month showed 68% of the public want to tighten abortion law and reduce the upper limit from 24 weeks to around 13 weeks. Another study by Marie Stopes International, a leading abortion provider, found that two-thirds of GPs want the time limit for social abortions to be reduced.

In Parliament abortion is, of course, a free vote issue. However the extent to which MPs divide along party lines on these issues is striking. Ann Widdecombe is probably the best-known pro-life MP, and three of her female Conservative colleagues have introduced abortion bills to the Commons in the last year.

Theresa May: On the European Constitution... and rugby

Last night, over dinner and fine wine, Gordon Brown agreed the renamed European Constitution.  It seems that the Prime Minister intends to set aside as many as three months to ratify the renamed Constitution.  As Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, I assure you that the Conservatives will use that time to do everything in our power to force a referendum, and campaign against the Constitution.  I gave my reasons when I recently wrote about the need for a referendum on Conservative Home, and this week in Parliament my colleagues and I attacked the Prime Minister for his flagrant breach of faith.  Never again will the British people feel they can trust Gordon Brown. 

On a lighter note, tomorrow, the country’s attention will be firmly on the Rugby World Cup Final.  So this week I thought I’d do something a little different and tell you about a game we’ve played in the office this week.  Here’s our Westminster First XV:

1.    Loosehead prop: Boris Johnson
Legendary rugby tackler – but most famous for taking out a poor German footballer during a charity match.

2.    Hooker: Mark Francois
A tough cookie; he’s not afraid of a showdown in the big internationals.

3.    Tighthead prop: John Prescott
Brings considerable brawn to the front row.  His fiery temper and quick fists mean he spends too much time in the sin bin.

4.    Lock: Michael Howard
Hard man former Home Secretary wouldn’t back down in the scrum.

5.    Lock: Chris Grayling
Tall and strong, he’s effective in the line out, Likes to get in his opponent’s face.

6.    Blindside flanker: Ed Miliband
Supposed to be writing Labour’s manifesto, but totally lacking in vision.

7.    Openside flanker: David Davis
Famously not frightened to put his nose in harm’s way. Loves a scrap.

8.    Number Eight: Lord Strathclyde
The big man would bring a bit of class to the scrum. Lacks Sebastian Chabal’s beard, however.

9.    Scrum Half: Patrick McLoughlin
Known to the team as ‘the Chief’, he’s canny when it comes to getting the best out of the pack.

10.   Fly Half: George Osborne
Inventive and creative, he’s always a step ahead of his opposite number.

11.    Left Wing: Gordon Brown
Claims to be able to play at centre, but his natural instinct is to stay out on the left. A big kicker, he has broken his manifesto promise and kicked the promised referendum into touch.

12.    Inside Centre: David Cameron
Stands his ground firmly in the centre.

13.    Outside Centre: Nick Clegg
Claims to be in the centre, but policies like an immigration amnesty put him outside the political mainstream.

14.    Right wing: Nigel Farage
Stays too far to the right and gets starved of the ball.

15.    Full back: Tony Blair
After years trying to make his mark, raiding down both right and left flanks, he’s burned out and been substituted.

Tomorrow, Labour loses the election

Louise Bagshawe promises that Brown's signing of the European Constitution tomorrow is just the start of the fight.

The unmissable, ultimate insider blog of Benedict Brogan, political editor of the Daily Mail, posted a key story earlier this evening.

Tomorrow, in full defiance of his manifesto promise, Gordon Brown will sign the European Constitution. Spitting on the voters, whom polls show demand their promised referendum, Brown breaches the latest and most important of New Labour's promises. His strategy is clear; he hopes that the Conservatives will shrink from the fight, rather than expose old divisions over Europe; that the sham debate in Parliament (irrelevant once the Constitution is signed) will bore the voters to death, and that Murdoch, the Sun and the Mail and Telegraph will wave the white flag.

When Brown became certain to succeed to the premiership, I was told by friends not to underestimate him. I responded that we ought not to overestimate him, either. Once again, on this issue, he displays the political tin ear that led him into the morass of the past month. Brown hopes, as Brogan reports, that by holding the election in 2009 he will maximise UKIP and split the Tory vote.

He has utterly misjudged us.

Yes, it is true that in the days of John Major, the party was split over Europe. "Big beasts" like Heseltine, Clarke and Patten, and the MPs that backed them, revered the European ideal. There was, at that time, a genuine Quentin Davies europhile wing of the Tory party.

There is no longer such a wing. The talents and statesmanship of the "big beasts" are quite rightly revered. It was a masterstroke by Cameron to ask Ken Clarke to head the democracy taskforce, and his ideas for remedying England's democratic deficit with Scotland were wonderful. That is just one example. However, it is abundantly clear that today's parliamentary party matches the membership; we are not quite withdrawalists, but are root and branch Eurosceptics. We recognise the free trade benefits of Europe, the cultural and policing co-operative benefits, but we stick there.

Mr. Brown believes that by signing the treaty tomorrow he will kick the issue into the long grass. He is wholly incorrect. David Cameron is the only party leader in the UK, present or future (do you hear me Nick Clegg?) who has publicly called for powers to be repatriated from Brussels to the UK. Ben Brogan sensationally suggests that Cameron will then fight a 2009 election on a platform of a "repudiation referendum" - not merely abolishing the Constitution, but upon the repatriation of sensible powers. Can there be any doubt that, coupled with clear reforms like IHT, such a manifesto would win the General Election? It will appeal to the Gisela Stuart patriotic left, the LibDem voting Eurosceptics in Devon and Cornwall who don't realise what europhiles they are, and ukip voters who, when the crunch comes, will not vote to let Labour in when the Tories offer the resolute alternative.

Sovereignty strikes at our heart. Brown grossly underestimates how much. Tomorrow he attempts to surrender, without the permission of the British people, many of our rights to govern ourselves. But parliament cannot bind its successor; still less Prime Ministerial fiat. Labour has one vision of "Britishness", and it's embodied in the new wording in our EU passports. The europhile LibDems share that vision. Only the Conservatives like Britain just as she is; only we are comfortable in our own skins.

Gordon Brown has shown his contempt for the Britain he bangs on about. And Labour has just lost the election.

Peter Franklin: Inherit the spin

The Labour Party has just learned a very painful lesson in the use and abuse of statistics. For years they dismissed calls to lessen the burden of inheritance tax by insisting that it only affects 6% of estates every year. This is only of interest to the very rich, they argued. However, it was obviously not just the very rich that responded so positively to George Osborne’s conference pledge.

What, then, is going on?

So far, I’ve no reason to doubt the statistical accuracy of the 6% figure. But just because a statistic is true, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be used in a misleading way. For instance, though we’re supposed to think that ‘only 6% of estates’ means the ‘richest 6% of estates’, this ain’t necessarily so. The rich, after all, are well-versed in the ways of tax avoidance, not to say evasion. I even heard of one case where a wealthy man instructed his heirs to keep his body in the freezer should he die too soon after transferring his riches in the form of a gift. Once the minimum period required to avoid inheritance tax had elapsed, the plan was to thaw out the corpse and get it cremated before anyone got suspicious.

Andrew Lilico: Everyone hates you, America, but so what?

A few months back, Lord Saatchi produced a Politeia pamphlet and address, in which he considered, and attempted to counter, anti-Americanism.

America is not universally loved.  That much is clear.  But before leaping in to try to make it loved, let us first understand the senses in which the fact that America is not universally loved does and does not matter.

In Kipling's poem to America, "Take up the White Man's Burden", urging it to take on the burdens and duties of imperialism, one of his stanzas was:

Take up the White Man's burden,
And reap his old reward--
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Stephan Shakespeare: Right or wrong, polls now provide a continuous feedback loop between politicians and the public

Polling has had a huge effect on the life of the nation in the past few weeks. 55% of Conservative members surveyed by this site thought it was the polls that were the decisive factor in stopping the election. The up/down on/off drama which trapped Gordon Brown in a bind of his own design hugely weakened him and boosted David Cameron.

This particular polling dynamic is a new development: until quite recently, we didn’t have the conference season constantly punctuated by the latest measures of voting intention, and for two very good reasons. First, my industry used to say, polls during or just after a conference are distorted by the increased media attention that a party gets, so if they are read as settled opinion, they are misleading. Second, until YouGov came along, polls just couldn’t be carried out that fast. I was once criticised by Sir Bob Worcester for running intra-conference polls, but now that we’ve all sped up on delivery, the whole industry is scrambling to meet the demand.

Whether it’s right or wrong, we now have a continuous feedback loop. Personally, I think it’s right: the more that politicians interact with public opinion, the better for democracy. But only if politicians learn to interact with them appropriately. The tragedy for Gordon Brown was that he didn’t understand the proper way to deal with this new situation. He held the cards in his hand, played them wrong, and was trumped. He deserved no better: this card game was only about winning elections, not about winning for the country.

Graeme Archer: Waterloo Sunrise

I know what you were expecting: a diatribe about the brazen burglary committed by Alistair, Darling last week (I’m sorry but I can’t think of his name without inserting a comma). Well, you know, imitation is the sincerest form of etc etc, and I think recent events will have convinced most people of the difference between a policy enacted from core principles – because a party wants to reduce the tax burden – and one yelped out through fear as a panic-stricken response to a resurgent Opposition. Organic policy growth versus the chattering of a machine, if you like. The difference is authenticity. I don’t think we should care a bit about Labour copying our policies, or the legion of dead-eyed Brown spawn that appear on the news to shriek about how our nummas don’t add up (all numbers add up – it’s one of their basic properties – you don’t need a doctorate in mathematics to know that. Although, I remember an interesting group theory lecture … well maybe another time).

To be serious. Our opportunity arises from our contrast with Brown. Unlike Blair, who had some palpable if mislaid fragment of decency buried deep within his chest, the Fist is hollow. Nothing drives him other than power. I suspect that his self-impressed coterie – the Ed-James-Burnham-Purnell-Andy-Balls creature – can you tell them apart? – really do think that by appearing on C4 News and shouting loudly they will create the impression that Tory policy is ill-thought out. Since our spokespeople have discovered the authority that comes with being calm and unflustered, I advise simply: more of the same please. Every Brown MP on telly is another marginal in the bag.

Cameron Watt: Shrinking Brown’s supplicant state

Cameron Watt is Deputy Director of the Centre for Social Justice, he writes here in a personal capacity.

I’m here in Dublin’s fair city for a family wedding. Ireland’s economic miracle has received considerable and deserved recognition in recent years. As shocking research released this week lays bare the inexorable growth of the UK as a supplicant state, it’s highly depressing comparing the Celtic Tiger to Brown’s Britain.

In the Republic of Ireland, state spending accounts for just 34% of the economy. Incredibly it’s over double that in Northern Ireland – 71%. In Wales, government spending is 64% of GDP; in north-east England it is 63%.

My native Scotland, where the figure stands at 56%, is a microcosm of the problem facing much of the UK. Its considerable natural and human resources could have been harnessed during the last fifteen years of economic growth to tackle crippling state dependency. Aberdeen has been the epicentre of the North Sea oil and gas boom since the late 1970s. Edinburgh is second only to London as a UK financial centre, home to some world-class companies including the all-conquering RBS. Yet taken as a whole, Scotland’s economy – and, more importantly, society – is ailing. In Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city, 26% of working age adults lie beached on out-of-work benefits, and in some areas male life expectancy is less than North Korea and the Gaza Strip.

Theresa May MP: Taking on the Government in Parliament

Parliament returned from recess this week, and I don’t think there has been a more momentous week for the House of Commons for several years. We had a statement from the Prime Minister on Iraq, the Pre-Budget Report, and Prime Minister’s Questions, in which David Cameron well and truly hammered Gordon Brown.  And in addition to these high profile debates, we had a Conservative opposition day debate on Home Information Packs and questions to the Foreign Secretary amongst other things.

First, Iraq.  On Monday, Gordon Brown came to Parliament to make a statement on the British presence in Iraq.   But he’d already shown his contempt for Parliament – and more importantly, his cynical attitude to our Armed Forces – when he went to Basra for a photoshoot, announced a troop withdrawal to the media before he came to the Commons, and, quite shamefully, double-counted the number of troops coming home.  As David Cameron said in response to the statement:

"On reflection does the Prime Minister agree that the way in which he made the announcement about troop withdrawals last week and the way it was briefed to the press were mistakes? He promised to make such announcements to the House of Commons, but he did not. He promised that 1,000 of our troops would be brought back before Christmas, yet is it not the case that 500 had already been announced and 270 were already back in the country?

I have to say to the Prime Minister that this is of a different order of magnitude from what we have had from him over the past decade. This is not double counting of Government spending. This is not just spinning the good bits of a Budget. This is about dealing with people’s lives and the families of our brave servicemen, and does he agree that this is not an acceptable way for a Prime Minister to behave?"

Louise Bagshawe: Blue is the Colour

Louise Bagshawe reflects on her sheer pride at being a Conservative.

Quick, somebody call the RSPCA! There’s been an accident in Downing Street. A lame duck has been spotted limping across the road…

Well, a week is a long time in politics, isn’t it? Last Wednesday I had to call Tim and beg off my column; I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to write another. I cancelled three days in Blackpool, incurring a hefty pre-paid hotel charge, in favour of preparation for a snap GE. Plenty of candidate friends did the same. The polls were telling us that Labour had double digit leads. The blogs were full of Labour supporters crowing merrily. The media could hardly contain their glee. The Sun told us David Cameron had “three days to save the Tories”. “MISSION IMPOSSIBLE”, they said.

Friends will bear me witness that I never quite believed those bad polls. They just did not jibe with the feeling on the ground. Labour has failed so comprehensively in Northants. I was knocking up and leafleting with our excellent candidate for Lloyds ward in Corby, Lynn Wilson, and we did not detect any surge of enthusiasm for Brown in this ultra-safe Labour bastion. But still, polls are polls, and whatever Brown chooses to tell the Lobby, all politicians take note of them. I cancelled Blackpool. I could not justify three days in the Imperial Hotel talking to friends and enjoying myself at fringe meetings when we could get campaigning done.

Peter Franklin: Learning the lessons of yellow Saturday

It would, of course, be very wrong to laugh at our Prime Minister’s recent humiliation (a point I made forcefully to the casualty nurse as she was sewing up my sides last Sunday). With the broad vistas of a full Parliament opening up before us, we’d do much better to learn the lessons of the last few weeks.

Let us ignore the farcical aspects of this story, which require no further comment from the Conservative Party – and certainly no repeat of that half-witted little stunt with the brown bottles. Instead, let us ponder upon the tragic elements, in particular the betrayal of the electorate and their hopes for a healthier democracy.

When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister he spoke of a new kind of politics. It was a cathartic moment, a sense that the spin and sleaze of the Blair years had fled from the presence of a better man. David Cameron, ill-advisedly packaged as the ‘heir to Blair’, found himself treated more as an effigy than an heir.

But then came the miracle of the conference season. You’ll recall Ming Campbell pointing a bony finger at an ecologically-responsible toilet and the sniggering that followed. Well, looking back we can now view this episode as a prophetic foretelling of the fate – and indeed the content – of Gordon Brown’s fresh start.

But the thing is that the people of this country still want a new kind of politics. With Brown at bay and Campbell enjoying his retirement as leader of the Lib Dems, the ball is in our court. We need to commit to a programme of serious, far-reaching reform to our political institutions. Clearly, the European policy and localisation agendas are of huge relevance here, but they do not excuse us from proposing reforms to Parliament itself, the heart of our democracy.

Andrew Lilico: What should we say about the environment?

I have discussed my view of the importance of topic choice previously.  Notwithstanding that discussion, and although I have not always been convinced by the arguments and policies put forward on green issues, in my view Cameron’s early emphasis on the environment had great political potential, but a slight mishandling of the issue has meant that it has not played for us as well as it could have done and could yet be made to do.  I shall explain.

I have no statistics to prove it, but I am confident that many core Conservative activists are much more environmentally conscious and active than the average Briton.  They recycle; they buy dolphin-friendly washing-up liquid, free-range eggs and organic carrots; they are members of the WWF and the RSPB; their favourite TV programmes are David Attenborough documentaries; at the time, they were first in the queue to buy ozone-friendly sprays and lead-free petrol; they write letters to their local paper to complain about urban sprawl or the poor state of their local park; they regularly spend their weekends rambling in the countryside.

Stephan Shakespeare: The Tory surge was 90% policy and only 10% speechifying

What a fabulous week for Conservatives: not only have the prospects for the party turned around 180 degrees, they have done so for fully conservative reasons. My one fear – just a little one - is that in all the excitement, party strategists might wrongly ascribe this fundamental shift in opinion to the stage performance on Wednesday and not sufficiently to the policy announcement. The reversal in fortunes is no more than 10 percent down to speechifying; it is 90 down to the policy. Whether the party, in its euphoria, can stay clinically focused on the important stuff and distinguish it from the fluff will make the difference between a temporary fillip and a proper victory.

I don’t tire of repeating it: Voters need a reason to vote; swing voters need a reason to swing.

I’ve argued in these columns that the internal narrative of the Conservative Party is of little interest to the electorate - that the brand management approach of the last year or two could be of sustained interest only to the media class, and they really don’t matter. Instead, I argued, you need to offer the electorate a hard-edged, bankable deal. You can therefore imagine my relief when last week, the British people were offered exactly that: vote Conservative and taxes will come down. Crucially, those tax cuts were explicitly defined, easy to understand, and unambiguously beneficial.

Graeme Archer: The rise of the machines

Gordon Brown and Labour. Close your eyes for a moment. What did you see?

Sunshine? Happy faces? Did you feel bathed in joy?

I saw: blackness. Ugly faces contorted in hate (to coin a phrase). Metal boxes, the height of skyscrapers, set out in a row and stretching far into the distance. If I listen carefully I can hear a frantic scrabbling and scratching at the walls from within.

You remember I told you once of my obsession with Iris Murdoch. Her novels talk endlessly about machines, indeed one of them is called The Sacred and Profane Love Machine. I think that by machine she meant the almost-cosmic algebra that binds us all together, and can tug hard between proximate humans. (This is the atheist’s surrogate for God.) If you’re in love, there’s a sort of machine binding you to the Other, almost independent of your two selves. Machines like that are good, though I find it important to understand their intent (even if it is only a literary device designed to mask the essential biological imperative we all obey). Work is another machine, one in which it is very important to feel in control. Lose that control at work, and you will lose your self-respect, your self-esteem and ultimately your integrity.

Cameron Watt: Conservatives offer addicts hope

Like most activists, I left Blackpool with a spring in my step. It was a good conference; the Conservative Party proved it has the leadership and ideas to reverse Gordon Brown’s failures. Particularly heartening was the raft of measures announced to reverse the root causes of poverty. British society is broken, but it can be fixed.

David Davis may not have shined at conference, but on Tuesday afternoon he made one of its most significant announcements. A future Conservative Government will massively expand abstinence-based drug treatment. Put simply, Conservatives will offer Britain’s hard drug addicts the chance to get clean and stay clean. Abstinence-based Drug Rehabilitation Orders will be introduced to break the cycle of addiction and offending. The orders will require residential treatment or, depending on the nature of the offence and the circumstances of the offender, day care. The orders will provide a more effective alternative to community sentences for drug related offenders.

The UK has the highest level of problem drug use in Europe. Kathy Gyngell and David Burrowes MP produced a devastating critique of the nature and scale of Labour’s failures in their work for the Social Justice Policy Group. Encouragingly, their report underpins the new Conservative proposals.

Theresa May MP: Come on Gordon, Bring it on!

Well, what a week.  I opened my first conference speech by saying: “we have the policies, we have the candidates, and we have the will to fight Gordon Brown and win the next general election – whenever it is called.”  And, this week, hasn’t the Conservative Party shown it.

In contrast to Gordon Brown’s tired old politics, we have set out our vision for new world and the challenges we as a country will face in the future.  A Conservative government will give people more opportunity and power over their lives; make families stronger and society more responsible; and make Britain safer and greener.

So we set out that vision, but we also set out a raft of detailed policies that show how we will achieve it. 

1. We’re going to cut stamp duty so that the majority of first-time buyers – nine in every ten – do not pay tax on their first homes. 

2. We’re going to set up a lifeboat fund for people who did the right thing, saved for their retirement, but lost their pensions through no fault of their own. 

3. We’re going to continue the education reforms that much of the Parliamentary Labour Party opposed and that Gordon Brown threatens to undermine by stealth. 

4. We’re going to scrap top-down targets in the NHS, empowering patients and liberating professionals. 

5. We’re going to end the “revolving door” of the benefits system and get people who want to work back into work.

Louise Bagshawe is preparing for an election

It may not happen but Louise isn't taking any chances.  Her column has rightly taken second place to her preparations for a possible November poll.

Peter Franklin: The struggle for Conservative values must begin with loyalty

There's nothing quite so pathetic as a cliché that isn’t true anymore. For instance, if you were to tell someone that loyalty is the secret weapon of the Conservative Party they’d laugh in your face. As secret weapons go, it’s got about as much chance of turning up as Saddam’s nukes – indeed since Margaret Thatcher was forced out of office by her own colleagues, only Michael Howard has received anything like the loyalty a Conservative leader deserves from his party.

I’ve no intention of using this article to name the guilty men. Rather, I want to identify the various justifications for the routine treachery that has done so much damage to us in recent years. Disloyalists are to be found across the Conservative spectrum, but Tory traditionalists might like to note the very modern attitudes that lie at the heart of each wretched excuse:

(1) Blind loyalty is a dangerous thing

There is no virtue that cannot be taken to destructive extremes. Contemporary culture rarely fails to remind us of that fact, but forgets that there has to be something virtuous to be perverted in the first place. The traditional virtues, in particular, only have to be named to evoke some negative image. This is certainly the case with loyalty, with its sinister associations of corrupt cliquishness and fanatical devotion. And yet loyalty – meaning respect for, and service to, a legitimate source of authority – is in normal circumstances a great and good thing. It is instructive that Lord Kilmuir, the Conservative Lord Chancellor who first remarked that “loyalty is the Tory’s secret weapon”, also led for the prosecution at the Nuremburg trials.

Andrew Lilico: When all else fails, why not try being Conservative?

I have heard Conservatives argue that 1997 represented some kind of political sea-change that we have to accept.  The British voter proved himself more left-wing than before, and decided that he wanted a bit more spent on health and education, and we have to accept that.  Voters showed that they didn't want more privatization and we have to accept that.  They showed that there were tight limits to the role they would tolerate for the market, and we have to accept that.  Unfortunately it took two more defeats, in 2001 and 2005, before we even began to understand or accept these things.

I want to say the following, and say it loud and clear: I consider that point of view utterly and completely wrong; there is virtually no truth in it at all; it massively under-estimates the scale and nature of our defeat in 1997; far from not accepting this outlook since 1997 we have accepted far too much of it; and whilst we are trapped in that kind of thinking, it will be very difficult to make sustainable advances for the Party.

In 1997 the Conservatives lost.  You were crushed.  Everyone hated you.  Left-wingers hated you because they believed you had destroyed jobs and the union movement, had starved the public services of funds to create a death-by-a-thousand-cuts, and would use its poor performance to justify dismantling it wholesale if you were re-elected.  Eurosceptics hated you because you had introduced the Maastricht Treaty and intended to join the euro if you were re-elected.  Civil libertarians hated you because you had abolished the Right to Silence, had reversed the Presumption of Innocence in a wide range of cases, and intended to introduce ID cards if you were re-elected.  Social Conservatives hated you because you were adulterous and corrupt.  Ideologues hated you because you were pragmatic. Pragmatists hated you because they believed you dogmatic.  Modernists hated you because you were old fashioned.  Traditionalists hated you because you seemed addicted to a continuous maelstrom of change.  Nice people hated you because you were nasty.  Nasty people despised you because you were weak.