Iain Dale: It's time to let Gavin Barwell take charge of Conservative revival

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Gavin Barwell’s article on Tuesday on how to rebuild the Conservative Party machine was a timely reminder of how the party is failing to keep pace with the electorate. He was right to say that few people identify with constituency boundaries, and that they think of themselves as residents of a town or city or wider geographic area. In addition, email and the internet give opportunities to include a much wider range of people in party-led activities and fundraisers. Membership must continue to provide certain privileges, otherwise why bother, but it must no longer be the be all and end all. The priority of each and every Conservative Association must surely be to be as inclusive as possible. That’s why opening up candidate selections is an idea whose time has come. There was initially an understandable fear that opposition parties would crowd a selection meeting and vote to select the weakest candidate, but I know of nowhere this has ever happened. Full postal primaries are probably one step too far, mainly because of the cost, but ultimately that is what all parties ought to be aiming for. If David Cameron wants to signal that he is serious about all of this, why not make Gavin Barwell a Party Vice Chairman in charge or organisational regeneration?

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Whatever happened to the notion of Recall? It was in both the Tory and LibDem manifestos and also the Coalition Agreement, yet for some reason it has been kicked firmly into the long grass by Nick Clegg, who is in charge of constitutional reform. There are still twenty months to go until the next election, which leaves plenty of time to get it on the statute book. What is Mr Clegg afraid of?

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They seek him, here, they seek him there, the seek him everybloodywhere. Who am I talking about? None other than the Scarlet Pimpernel of Labour politics, Ed Balls. Having been omnipresent on our TV screens up until last week, he’s now gone to ground. I am sure it is just coincidence that he has become invisible, just as Ed Miliband has a prolonged spat with Unite. It’s something he must have learned from his erstwhile boss Gordon Brown, who adopted a Macavity- like persona whenever Tony Blair could have done with some support from his Chancellor. Same old Brownites.

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If you have always wanted to virtually stroke an MP’s pussy, you can now do so HERE.  The new Mrs Slocombe of the Tory benches, Catham & Wailsford MP Tracey Crouch has acquired two muts called Mungo and Basil and has even gone to the lengths of creating a purrfect Facebook page for them. But her colleague Nicola Blackwood (Oxford Whiskers & Abingdon) is going one further. She’s going round showing other MPs her pussy on her iPhone. And it’s blue. The iPhone, that is. The things MPs in marginal seats do to win the pet vote!

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Can I just apologise to anyone who is offended by ‘pussy’ jokes? I get them from John Inverdale.

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Is the Theresa May bandwagon about to roll? I’ve said in a previous column that Mrs May’s main weakness as a potential successor to David Cameron is that no one is very clear on what she stands for. She doesn’t have much of a following in the Commons. Or at least not until now. I think the Qatada deportation has transformed her standing as a front rank politician. I was hearing gossip that Cameron was thinking about moving her from the Home Office in the reshuffle to be Party Chairman. Inevitably, that would be seen as a demotion, but I doubt very much whether she would be prepared to go back to a job she first did more than a decade ago. Her position is now strong enough to she could refuse to move, and there’s little the Prime Minister could do about it. She is seen, even by her opponents, as a successful Home Secretary, and you don’t get many of those to the pound. The only argument she could make to herself for a switch is that she should get out while the going is good.

Oh, and if you were wondering who May’s potential successor would be? Step forward Michael Gove. That would be a crying shame because there is no one else who could take his education reforms forward. Gove should stay put, right up until the election.

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Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt is a canny old Vogel. The 94 year old chain smoker is getting round a ban on menthol cigarettes by hoarding them. SPD Chancellor candidate Peer Steinbruck told an interviewer that his predecessor had bought 200 packs of his favourite smokies, presumably calculating that they should see him out. That works out at 38,000 cigarettes. If he smokes one packet a day he will have enough to last him until his 100th birthday. It seems rampant euroscepticism has overtaken the SPD and Steenbruck has railed against the “unerträgliche Regelungswut” (intolerable lust for regulation) of the Brussels Commission. Expect Nigel Farage to immediately adopt that expression.  Steenbruck himself has admitted to hoarding his favourite French lightbulbs in case they too might be banned. Welcome to our world Mr Steenbruck.

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I much enjoyed Ed Miliband’s ‘landmark’ speech this week on union reform, which bore all the hallmarks of being cobbled together in five minutes flat. I half expected him to say ‘And another thing…’ at one point. Tucked away in the small print was a commitment to hold a primary to choose London’s next Labour mayoral candidate. Good, good, I thought. He’s learning. And then I read the even smaller print. It’s not actually a primary at all. It’s a meeting of people who all vote Labour. I thought the whole point of a primary was to allow anyone to take part who wants to, but in this case you will have to have registered as a Labour supporter. That should get the attendance up to thirty, I guess. People always seem to think that opponents will pack a primary and then vote for the weakest candidate. There is no evidence for that at all. In the primary I took part in in Bracknell in 2009 (God, that seems a long time ago) there were indeed activists presents from the LibDems, but for once they took a principled decision and watched but didn’t vote. It’s the modern equivalent of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

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Excuse the shorter than usual offering this week. Yesterday I finally, after six months, got the keys to our new house in Norfolk, so on the day I usually pen this piece I was fretting about mortgage money coming through in time, wondering if BT would do as they had promised and filling holes in the garden fence to keep the dogs in. And this time next week I shall probably still be doing two of those things. Some holiday…