ConHome's Tim Montgomerie has written for The Times about the beliefs of the next generation of Conservative MPs. Below is a slightly longer version of his piece.
In six or seven years’ time the Conservative manifesto for the 2010 election will have been superseded. David Cameron’s time as Prime Minister might be coming to an end or might even have ended. His age of austerity will be giving way to an age of ecology, an age of scientific revolution or, perhaps, even the age of Boris. We don’t know. But one legacy of his early leadership will still be casting a long shadow over the political stage.
If David Cameron becomes Prime Minister next year he will have presided over the largest ever increase in the number of Conservative MPs. Half of the parliamentary party will be new if he achieves a Commons majority of one. Fifty to sixty of the new MPs will be women. The larger the majority the larger the infusion of new blue blood. This new generation of Conservative MPs will provide the votes for David Cameron’s programme. They will be the ministers of the future, making decisions throughout Whitehall. Their number might even provide the next Prime Minister.
What they believe matters. Are they Cameroonian loyalists? Are they career politicians? Are they economic, social or national security conservatives?
Polling of nearly 150 adopted candidates by ConservativeHome.com suggests that the 2010 intake are to a large extent followers of Margaret Thatcher and her revolution that started rolling thirty years ago.
Just as Margaret Thatcher had a parliamentary party that learnt its politics under Macmillan and Heath, David Cameron will inherit a parliamentary party that cut its ideological teeth under the Iron Lady.
When the Women2Win pressure group threw a party for female candidates to meet Lady Thatcher the A-list candidates handpicked by Team Cameron rushed for a photo opportunity.
They are overwhelmingly Eurosceptic. They are weary of green taxes. They are much more worried about terror than global warming. They support more restrictive abortion laws. They oppose a fully-elected Lords.
At the same time 100% support David Cameron’s leadership in private polls. They are particularly supportive of his marriage agenda. They embrace many of the changes of recent years, including the civil libertarianism of David Davis. They are certainly not ‘hangers and floggers’. Three-quarters oppose capital punishment for police officers.
It’s also true that the ideological views of the parliamentary party probably won’t matter that much in the early years of government. Research by the University of Nottingham’s Philip Cowley suggests that new MPs tend to be very loyal to the leadership that helped them into the Commons. As the years go by, however, they become more spirited and their natural instincts surface – particularly if the opinion polls become difficult.
David Cameron needs to act now and for years to come if he wants to ensure that the parliamentary party inherited by his successors as Tory leader will represent his socially progressive conservatism. His A list of candidates largely fished from the pool of already committed Tories. Only a long-term programme of talenting spotting and mentoring will build a Conservative parliamentary party with more experience of the public and voluntary sectors, that is more northern and that is a little less white.
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Click on the image below the enlarge the graphic that appears in today's Times, summarising ConservativeHome research:
