Chris Grayling urges Cameron to find more "EU veto moments" as part of his five point election-winning plan

By Tim Montgomerie
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Yesterday evening ConservativeHome held an event to discuss how the Conservatives might win the next election. The speakers were Employment Minister Chris Grayling, YouGov CEO and ConHome columnist Stephan Shakespeare and The TaxPayers' Alliance's Matthew Elliott. I'll write up the contributions from Stephan and Matthew over the next two days but, today, here's a review of Chris Grayling's contribution.

He began by saying that the aim must be a majority Tory government and that "we should do everything we can to achieve that goal". He then went on to set out five thoughts:

1. First, he said, everyone in the Party needs to keep a level head: "We are two years into a five year parliament. We are in the middle of the biggest financial crisis since the 1930s. We are taking tougher financial decisions here than any Government in modern times. We’ve had a poor, but not disastrous set of local election results. But we are still above 30% in the polls." We don't, he continued, need to win an election today but in 2015.
2. Second more needed to be done to secure the core Tory vote. He suggested Bill Clinton as a, perhaps, surprising role model. "Clinton," Grayling said, "recognised very early on in his career that you can’t win an election without your core vote. So he began by reassuring the labor unions that he was one of them, won their confidence, and then built his message of change upon that confidence."
3. Third talk of the centre ground needed to be rooted in a greater understanding of the striving classes: "I had one of those real lightbulb moments when I read the research that Lord Ashcroft carried out a couple of weeks ago. What we believe to be the centre may not be the centre to a voter in a former council house on an estate in Skelmersdale. Certainly the perspectives on life that I have found canvassing the streets of South Liverpool are very different to those of young professionals in Epsom and Ewell. We really need to understand what the centre ground really means today, and particularly what the centre ground means to voters in the front line of our key marginals. Because the next election will be won and lost on the streets of Skelmersdale and towns like it."
4. Fourth we needed to talk about the practical concerns of voters rather than abstract ideas: "It’s much easier to explain to a voter that we are unhappy with what the EU is doing because, for example, it wants us to allow people to come here and settle and be able to access our benefit system without the safeguards that we have in place today. That’s something everyone can understand."
5. Fifth, focus on jobs as a breakthrough issue: "I know I am biased as employment minister – but I think that jobs and unemployment – and the enterprise culture that we need to create jobs - will be a key challenge in the next few years. It’s already a top priority for us. And I am pushing a simple mantra – particularly in Brussels. If a plan or a policy means fewer jobs in businesses in Britain or in Europe we should not do it. Nothing is more important than making sure that our fellow citizens, and particularly the younger generation, have a decent and satisfying future in a real job."