The Conservatives must campaign for Justice for England in 2015

By Paul Goodman
Follow Paul on Twitter.

On this day three years ago, David Cameron and Boris Johnson took themselves off to Leadenhall Market where, according to the Daily Mail, they were joined by knights in chainmail, morris dancers and maids in "traditional outfits with plunging necklines".  Yes, it was St George's Day - and time for a spot of general election campaigning.  The Mayor "risked angering party chiefs by saying that the Tories could make St George's Day into a Bank Holiday".  Three years on, amidst a day of gorgeous sunshine, we are bowed over our computers - those of us who are working, at least.

We are also waiting, more fully, for justice for Engand.  As Peter Hoskin suggested recently, the Mckay Commission report is going nowhere fast, the Blair/Brown post-devolutionary settlement is blatantly unfair to England, and polling suggests that only a quarter of English people are content with it.  Those who believe that only poor leadership is preventing the party from returning to the golden years of the Thatcher age are neglecting stark electoral realities.

The way in which votes are distributed, and the slowness with which the boundary commission follows demographic change, gives Labour a big electoral advantage.  (Try running a few imaginary results on Electoral Calculus, and see what you get.)  The solution to the problem for the Conservatives to is release the natural Tory majority in England.  Which means redressing the wrongs inflicted on it by Blair and Brown.  Which means winning an election outright - not easy, given the electoral dispositions, but a big push for Justice for England must be part of the party's appeal in 2015, after the Scottish referendum is tucked safely, I hope, out of the way.