Nick Faith: So Osborne wants to boost the north. Good. But he needs policies that will do the job.

Nick Faith is Director of Communications at Policy Exchange. Follow Nick on Twitter.

‘Growth must reach the North and low-earners’. The headline of George Osborne’s article in The Times caught my eye this morning. Instead of slapping himself on the back, the Chancellor used yesterday’s positive growth figures to send out a message that he intends to create the conditions for private sector job creation outside the south east.

This is a hugely significant intervention. To date, the Conservatives' strategy has been focused on painting themselves as the only party that can be trusted to take the hard economic decisions for the long term benefit of the country. At every opportunity, Labour politicians – notably the two Eds -  have been ruthlessly portrayed as big spenders unable to manage the country’s credit card. Downing Street wants people to believe that Balls wouldn’t look out of place on a shopping spree with Carrie Bradshaw (she of Sex in the City fame). This approach has worked. Miliband and Balls have consistently trailed Cameron and Osborne in polling on economic competency.

Nick Faith: Osborne should announce local pay bargaining in the Budget

Nick Faith is Director of Communications at Policy Exchange. Follow Nick on Twitter.

Who do you trust more to handle the public finances? This is the most pertinent question a pollster can ask. Regardless of how big a lead Labour has in the polls – and trust me that lead is not nearly as big as it should be at this stage of a Parliament – Ed Miliband and Ed Balls still trail David Cameron and George Osborne when it comes to the question of economic competency. If they don’t start eating in to this lead, then the 2015 election will be tighter than most ‘experts’ are already predicting.

Which leads me to the Budget. The media has begun its countdown to the 20 March. The starting pistol was fired on Friday night following the news that a ratings agency had downgraded Britain’s AAA rating for the first time in 35 years. Some on the Right predictably called for a change in direction based on tax cuts for everyone and fewer regulations. Ed Balls responded by admitting that Labour would borrow more to boost growth if they were in government.

Osborne is left in somewhat of a dilemma. He must produce a Budget that is attractive to two audiences. Firstly, he has to come up with an initiative which will be seen as fair to the ordinary person trying to get on in life or the ‘striver’ (a word that I object to – when was the last time you heard someone in the pub use it?). Secondly, he needs to give his party something that keeps the attack dogs at bay. You only have to look at anonymous briefings from “senior sources in the party” over the weekend to see that there is more than an iota of discontent towards the Chancellor’s performance to date.

Nick Faith: Miliband faces a similar dilemma to that faced by Osborne in 2009

Nick Faith is Director of Communications at Policy Exchange. Follow Nick on Twitter.

“Now let’s see if I’ve just cost us the election.”  This line delivered by George Osborne to his advisers after his party conference speech in 2009 helps explain the Chancellor’s long term political calculations. In the midst of the financial crisis and a deteriorating economy, Osborne had just committed the Conservative Party to public spending cuts eight months before a general election. Voters now knew what they stood to lose from a Tory government.

Osborne knew that Gordon Brown and the Labour party would use his speech to paint Cameron’s modernisers as the same old ‘nasty’ party, ideologically committed to reducing the size of the state and attacking public sector workers. That’s exactly what Brown did in the months leading up to the election. The Conservative’s embrace of austerity probably cost the party at least twenty seats.

However risky Osborne’s speech was – and the Shadow Chancellor was well aware of its political implications – it did make it a lot easier for the Coalition to proceed with its deficit reduction programme. Unlike the Liberal Democrats’ broken pledge to oppose hikes in tuition fees, which has severely dented the standing of the party on the national stage and clobbered Clegg’s own personal ratings, the Conservatives had a clear mandate to proceed with reforming Britain’s hospitals, schools and other vital public services to drive up the quality in a more cost effective way.

Nick Faith: Lynton Crosby's three main priorities when he enters CCHQ

Nick Faith is Director of Communications at Policy Exchange. Follow Nick on Twitter.

Tory high command has appointed Lynton Crosby to head up their 2015 general election campaign. With two and a half years to go, the man who masterminded Boris’ two Mayoral election victories will want to hit the ground running when he steps in to Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ).

There is a huge amount of work to do if the Conservatives are to stand a chance of gaining a majority next time around. No sitting Prime Minister has increased his or her share of the vote since 1974. So where should Crosby start? I believe there are three main priorities that will need to be addressed straight away. There are, of course, many other issues that he’ll have to address but everyone has to start somewhere.

Swing seats

Election campaign co-ordinator Stephen Gilbert, has briefed Conservative MPs (and the media) that the next election will be fought in 80 key seats. 40 which must be retained from the 2010 election and 40 new seats, predominantly located in Northern and Midland urban areas. This presents the Conservatives with a huge challenge. According to research that Policy Exchange conducted earlier this year, they have a +15% lead in the countryside and +17% in the suburbs of towns. Yet in city suburbs (-4%) and among people living within towns their lead is -8%. Their lead is -19% for those who live inside a city. And, this is exacerbated by second order issues.

Nick Faith: How the new Police Commissioners should spend their first 100 days

Nick Faith is Director of Communications at Policy Exchange.  Follow Nick on Twitter.

Despite Ian Blair’s protestations, England and Wales will have 41 newly elected Police & Crime Commissioners (PCCs) on November 16. The first 100 days of any new administration – while purely symbolic - are often scrutinised by political opponents and the media. PCCs will, undoubtedly, be under the spotlight, but it’s important that they do not fall into the trap of announcing a rash of policies straight away.

For the first few weeks, everyone is going to want to meet the successful candidates. My advice would be; clear the diary, appoint a brilliant personal assistant and sit down with a communications professional who understands the local area. I say communications rather than press adviser because politicians too easily think that speaking to journalists is the only way to get their message across to the public.

Nick Faith: Housing - a key issue at the next election in urban marginals

Nick Faith is Director of Communications at Policy Exchange.  Follow Nick on Twitter.

My brother-in-law to be is a self confessed ‘spreadsheet monkey’. He’s also politically extremely savvy and has come up with a very interesting piece of analysis that highlights the Conservative Party’s urban problem.

He has produced a table listing 32 marginal seats that the Tories ought to be targeting at the next election (defined as requiring a 5% or under swing from red or yellow to blue). He has then created an urbanity index by overlaying 2001 Census data on population density – a proxy measure for urbanity – onto these marginal seats.

Constituency	Win from	Swing to Win	Urbanity	Quartile
Tooting	Labour	5.00	83.61	4
Hampstead and Kilburn	Labour	0.10	62.79	4
Sutton and Cheam	Liberal	3.30	48.18	4
Southampton Itchen	Labour	0.40	44.79	4
Eltham	Labour	4.00	40.60	4
Plymouth Moor View	Labour	3.80	37.28	4
Dudley North	Labour	1.70	34.76	4
Walsall North	Labour	2.70	34.07	4
Birmingham Edgbaston	Labour	3.10	32.02	3
Great Grimsby	Labour	2.20	31.20	3
Bradford East	Liberal	0.90	30.33	3
Nottingham South	Labour	4.30	29.20	3
Walsall South	Labour	4.30	27.99	3
Solihull	Liberal	0.30	27.24	3
Derby North	Labour	1.40	27.11	3
Norwich South	Liberal	0.70	24.82	3
Gedling	Labour	3.90	24.16	2
Telford	Labour	2.40	17.63	2
Halifax	Labour	3.40	16.42	2
Morley and Outwood	Labour	2.30	12.92	2
Bolton West	Labour	0.20	11.78	2
Wirral South	Labour	1.30	11.66	2
Newcastle-under-Lyme	Labour	3.60	10.72	2
Oldham East and Saddleworth	Labour	0.20	8.30	2
Wakefield	Labour	3.60	6.44	1
Dorset Mid and Poole North	Liberal	0.60	5.09	1
Middlesbrough South and Clevel	Labour	3.60	4.70	1
Wells	Liberal	1.40	1.66	1
Chippenham	Liberal	4.70	1.63	1
St Ives	Liberal	3.70	1.57	1
St Austell and Newquay	Liberal	2.80	1.25	1
Somerton and Frome	Liberal	3.00	1.07	1

The results make grim reading for Downing Street. The urban challenge facing the Conservatives represents more of a mountain than a molehill. Electoral calculus dictates that the Tories need to win 19 of these marginal seats to secure an overall majority at the next election. Even if the least urban constituencies (those listed in Quartiles 1 and 2) – from Nottingham’s Gedling and the New Town of Telford, down to Cider-producing Somerton & Frome – went to the Conservatives, this would still leave the party some three short of an overall majority.