Jesse Norman MP: We need a 2015 manifesto that is short, engaging, clear and focused

Jesse Norman is the Member of Parliament for Hereford and South Herefordshire. Follow Jesse on Twitter.

What should the 2015 Conservative manifesto look like?  I discussed this question at ConHome’s recent Victory 2015 conference.  Of course there’s little use in trying to write a detailed manifesto now, more than two years before the election. But there’s every reason to ask the broader question of what the point of a manifesto is: what it should be trying to achieve, and why.

Official party manifestos are a relatively recent innovation.  When, at the dawn of the Conservative party, Sir Robert Peel published the Tamworth manifesto in 1834, it was a general statement of principles from him as leader, not a party document.  It was not until the general election of 1950 that the Conservatives issued a party manifesto as such.  Even then the document made few if any specific commitments, though its overall thrust was clear.

The past two decades have seen a calamitous fall in public trust in politicians, and a huge rise in interest group politics. Together, these factors have had the effect of lengthening manifestos and encouraging the political parties to pack them full of detailed promises.  Fail to mention some issue, and your inbox will be full the following day.  Offer a long, serious and thoughtful discussion of the issues, as we did in 2010, and it can be hard to break through to voters.  

The result has been a vicious circle, in which any deviation from a party’s manifesto in office is treated by the media as a betrayal, further fuelling voter distrust.  On the other hand, a vast array of undertakings in the small print of a winning manifesto thereby gain special legislative status in the House of Lords under the Salisbury-Addison convention - even when they have had no coverage or prominence in a general election and therefore lack any real mandate.  It is no surprise that few people seem to believe political promises anymore anyway.

Kevin Culwick: The Tory challenge amongst minority voters

Kevin Culwick is Director of Lord Ashcroft Polls. This is a summary of the presentation he gave to ConHome's Victory 2015 Conference on 9th March.

Last year Lord Ashcroft published Degrees of Separation, the biggest ever survey among ethnic minority voters about politics in general and the Conservative Party in particular. At the ConHome Victory 2015 conference I highlighted some of the findings in my introduction to the session optimistically titled ‘How To Win Among Ethnic Minorities’.

The research found that 45% of black voters, 35% of Muslims, 26% of Sikhs and 19% of Hindus said they would never vote Conservative. It also identified the views about the party that tended to accompany this answer – the main barriers between ethnic minority voters and the idea of voting Tory.

The view that the Conservatives do not stand for fairness was the single most important factor for Hindu and Sikh voters who would not vote for the party. This is the familiar brand problem, with which we have become wearily familiar, of the Tories seeming to be for the better off not ordinary people. However, more than half of ethnic minority voters also felt that Conservative policies had shown they were hostile to people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. People felt their communities had lost out disproportionately as a result of Tory policies, and even if this hadn’t been the party’s intention, it didn’t seem to mind very much that it was the result.

Martin Callanan MEP: We need fewer husky rides and more hard-nosed policies that will help people to get on

Martin Callanan MEP is Chairman of the European Conservatives. This is the text of the talk he gave to ConHome's Victory 2015 Conference on 9th March. Follow the ECR Group on Twitter.

The ConservativeHome conference was an excellent initiative by Tim, Paul, and the team. Being one of only three elected parliamentarians from the North East region, I was asked to sit on a panel about 'Winning in the North', alongside Lord Bates and Stephan Shakespeare from YouGov.

The most common misperception we make is that Margaret Thatcher was hated in the north of England, and our fall in support was as a result of Thatcherism. Actually, when she was in power we had many seats in the north, and the Party represented a much better geographical spread than it does today. Ultimately, as a Geordie, my impression of people from my region is that they share very many Conservative values. They are patriotic and have pride in the country's institutions such as our Queen and our forces. They want to work hard and get on. They believe in a strong sense of community and want to see crime stamped out.

So what has gone wrong?

I think that part of the problem was the government's response following the attempts to broaden and restructure the economy of the North. We threw government money at it. As a result, we created a bulging public sector, and a culture of dependency. Don't get me wrong, the money helped in some places, but it also created a swathe of people who relied on big state spending to keep their state jobs, or to maintain their benefits payments.

Matthew Elliott: What kind of machine do political parties need to win elections in the present age?

Matthew Elliott is Founder of the TaxPayers' Alliance and Big Brother Watch, former Campaign Director of NOtoAV, and Chief Executive of Business for Britain, which will launch shortly. This is the text of the talk he gave to ConHome's Victory 2015 Conference on 9th March. Follow Matthew on Twitter.

At ConservativeHome's Victory 2015 conference earlier this month,Grant Shapps explained how he was elected as MP for Welwyn Hatfield in 2005 through effective on the ground campaigning. This was a useful reminder that however much we marvel at the technical wizardry of digital campaigning or the sophistication of Big Data, the most effective way to win someone's vote is for the candidate or someone known to the voter to ask for it in person. Since it is practically impossible for a candidate to speak to every constituent ahead of Election Day, an effective party machine is necessary to win elections. But with the decline of mass membership political parties in the UK, where are the volunteers? Who will deliver the leaflets?

How can canvassing be done? The party that addresses this problem most effectively will be the one that wins a close election.

I remember William Hague saying in 1997 that he wanted the Conservatives to have a million members by the Millennium. At that point, Party membership was about 400,000. Today, some estimates put it as low as 130,000. The fact that the other parties have faced a similar collapse in membership is of little comfort, particularly since the Labour Party can also draw on Union support. The good news is that, whilst the Party might not have the millions of members it had in the immediate post war period, millions of people are involved in third party groups which share aspects of the Party's agenda.

David Skelton: Conservatives have a once in a generation chance of winning a good segment of the working class vote

David Skelton of Policy Exchange provides the latest text from March 9th Victory 2015 Conference. Please follow Dave on Twitter.

64 per cent of voters agree with the statement that the Conservative Party “looks after the interests of the rich, not ordinary people.” That perception is one of the core reasons that the Tories haven’t won an election for almost 21 years.

A large number of working class voters, particularly the C2s and DEs of marketing speak, simply don’t think that the Tory Party understands their concerns and is merely interested in looking after the interests of the rich and privileged. If they don’t change that perception it’s hard to see how they can govern alone with a sustainable majority in the coming decades. Just as Mitt Romney lost last November because he failed the “understanding people like me” test, so the Conservatives continue to fail the “in touch” test.

However, if the Conservatives can develop a ‘blue collar’ offering, there’s a real opportunity for them to build a new electoral coalition, particularly as the working class vote looks to be more up for grabs than it’s been for generations.

There’s a general sense of disengagement from politics felt in many working class areas, with a belief that Tories don’t understand and that Labour have drifted away from their roots. As part of our Northern Lights research, some 86 per cent of working class voters agree that “politicians don’t understand the real world at all”.

Lord Bates: Don’t underestimate the strength of the Conservative base in the North of England

Lord Bates was Deputy Chairman of Campaign North in the last parliament. He was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Langbaurgh 1992-7, and Paymaster General 1996-7. He writes regularly for ConservativeHome. This is the speech he delivered at last weekend's Victory 2015 Conference.

When the prime minister went to Keighley in West Yorkshire last week to deliver a major speech on the economy there were some in the metropolitan elites who suggested that was a ‘courageous’ location to choose, being deep in the Labour heartlands.

Not so. Keighley is a the heart of a large ‘bloc of blue’ containing eight Conservative seats stretching from Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), through Shipley (Philip Davies), Keighley & Ilkley (Kris Hopkins), Dewsbury (Simon Reevell), Colne Valley (Jason McCartney), Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) to Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry)  and Pendle (Andrew Stephenson). 

At that point the prime minister may not have been aware of the latest Lord Ashcroft Polls released on Saturday that showed that this area displayed one of the lowest swings from Conservatives to Labour in the country—in no small part due to the outstanding work of the aforementioned MPs.

This is not Scotland...

Prior to the 1997 meltdown of the Conservative vote nationally the Conservatives held only 17 seats across the North compared to 139 by Labour and 5 by the Lib Dems. Following the 2010 General Election the Conservatives have 42 seats across the North of England compared to 104 for Labour and 11 for the LibDems.

In Scotland in 1997 we lost all 11 Conservative held seats and the extent of the ‘recovery’ is that in Scotland we now hole 1.

Philip Davies MP: Win the Blue Collar Vote or prepare for Opposition

Philip Davies is the Member of Parliament for Shipley and Parliamentary Spokesman for Blue Collar Conservatism. For more information about Blue Collar Conservatism you can visit the website. Follow Philip on Twitter.

The Conservatives cannot hope to win the next election without gaining substantial support from blue collar Britons.  Blue collar voters have been vital to every Conservative election victory since the age of mass suffrage.  2010 was no exception, with our biggest swings coming from C2 and D voters.  Today somewhere between 35% and 40% of people are employed in some form of manual work but, according to Lord Ashcroft’s polls, the numbers describing themselves as working class are as high as 58%.

It is from these groups which we must find the support to give us a majority in 2015.  While this will be a challenge, I believe it can be done.  Indeed, I believe that it should be viewed as an opportunity.

Quite simply, Labour has abandoned the working class.  Blue collar voters were ignored throughout Labour’s time in office and they were amongst those who lost out most as a result of Labour’s disastrous management of our economy.  In fact, far from being for the working class, Labour favours those who do not work!

Gavin Barwell MP: Seven ways of engaging ethnic minority voters

Gavin Barwell is Member of Parliament for Croydon Central. Follow Gavin on Twitter.

I’ve written before for ConservativeHome both about the long-term existential threat to the Party from our low support among Britain’s growing black and minority ethnic communities and about what we could do to tackle this threat.  On Saturday, I had the chance to speak about this challenge at one of the breakout sessions at ConservativeHome’s excellent Victory 2015 Conference.

I set out seven things we should be doing.  But before I get on to them, I want to make two over-arching points.

Black and minority ethnic voters have the same concerns as everyone else.  They’re worried about the cost of living, about jobs, about crime, about the quality of care in our National Health Service.  Doing a good job in government will help to build our support among these voters just like any other group of voters.  But both the Party’s internal polling and the published work by Lord Ashcroft show that this is unlikely to be enough on its own - many black and minority ethnic voters perceive our Party as at best not caring about them and at worst actively hostile to them.  We need to address this ‘brand’ problem if we are to make significant progress.

Whilst I think it is essential that the Party addresses this problem, I am not advocating that it does so to the exclusion of everything else.  It is also important that we win back seats from the Liberal Democrats and that we do better in parts of the North of England and Scotland.  Building support among Britain’s black and minority ethnic communities is one of many things we need to do.

Nadine Dorries MP: My six point plan to win back the trust of C2 voters

Nadine Dorries is the Member of Parliament for Mid Bedfordshire. Follow Nadine on Twitter.

I was delighted to be asked to speak at the ConservativeHome conference on Saturday and to give my opinion on how I think the party can reach out to blue collar workers.

I don’t actually like the term ‘blue collar’ very much as, by implication, it excludes women and so from here on in I will use the socio economic terminology of C2s. It wasn’t an easy talk to give as all the way through I was very much aware that the C2s are no longer going to listen to a thing we say. They don’t trust any of the three main parties very much, anymore.

Back in the day, when I grew up on my Liverpool council estate every member of Liverpool City council was Conservative. The city had eight Conservative MPs. The Conservative Party had a brand. It was known universally as the party of the family. C2s knew who and what they were voting for. The C2 family today lives a tough life. It will only take a minute or two of talking to a C2 before money crops up in the conversation. They know the price of everything; they have to. They shop at Aldi for orange squash, washing powder, detergents, dog food, bread, biscuits and crisps and they go to Tesco for value fishcakes, mince, sausages and chicken. They buy vegetables on the market and only have fish if it is in the reduced aisle. A C2 mum knows if there is enough spare for the chippy on a Friday night and she would love to have enough to go to JBB Sports for the kid’s trainers rather than the market. They know the price of milk.

Andrea Leadsom MP: Three ideas to improve Tory support amongst Britain's women

 Andrea Leadsom is MP for South Northamptonshire. Follow Andrea on Twitter.

Andrea's talk was given to ConservativeHome's Victory 2015 Conference, on 9th March. Read the contributions from Rob Halfon on blue collar conservatism and John Stevenson on winning in the North.

Research by the Electoral Commission into the 2001 general election confirmed that where there’s a woman candidate the turnout among women was 4% higher.

Let’s just think about that for a second.

It’s such a compelling argument for more female candidates that party strategists need almost look no further.

At the ConservativeHome conference on Saturday, my friend Amber Rudd MP, Tom Mludzinski, an IPSOS MORI analyst and I had the pleasure of talking to party activists about how to win the women’s vote.  Tom started off explaining that one of the key differences between men and women’s approach to politics is that men look at the strategy and the tactics whereas women engage with the issues and the fundraising. So all you 'strategic' men out there - if you want a 4% higher turnout amongst women (which is a roughly 2% higher turnout overall) then SELECT FEMALE CANDIDATES!

David Cameron knew about this killer fact when he decided to develop the 'A list' and the experience of three years shows that whilst we may be only 48 in number, the women MPs are definitely making their presence felt.