The Victory 2015 Conference. Saturday 9th March 2013. Will you be there?

You are warmly invited to an exciting one day Conference that ConservativeHome will be holding in central London on Saturday 9th March 2013 to discuss how the Conservative Party might win a majority at the next general election. Keynote speakers include Lord Ashcroft, Dan Hannan, Theresa May, Tim Montgomerie and Grant Shapps.

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Happy Christmas to all of our readers

Invitation to David Davis lecture on Europe

The bigger and bolder new font

By Tim Montgomerie
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Two days ago I sought comments on our new font. Many of you complained it was a bit too small and a bit too thin. We've beefed it up a bit in response to those observations. The screen capture below compares how the font looked on day one and how it looks now.

What do you think of our new font?

By Tim Montgomerie
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Do you like the new font? Please express your view in the thread below. I think it's cleaner but some people are finding it harder to read. To help you assess it I paste one of my favourite political quotations/ arguments below (from Boris Johnson):

"If you want to predict the course of the next 50 years, says [Matt] Ridley, it is not unreasonable to look at the last 50. Let us go back to 1955, the year that baby Willetts and so many other babies boomed into the world. It was already an epoch of astonishing prosperity, with consumption proceeding at such a pace that the economist JK Galbraith complained of an "affluent society" that was over-providing for material wants. But look at what happened in the next 50 years, and the way those benefits were spread around the world. By 2005, average global incomes had gone up by one third, in real terms. Infant mortality is down by two thirds; life expectancy is up by one third as advances in medicine have helped to reduce cancer, heart disease, stroke and virtually every other affliction of humanity. The average IQ of the poor is steadily rising and – get this – the world's population is now expected to stabilise by 2050 rather than maintain a Malthusian progression. The average Mexican is now living longer than the average Briton did in 1955, and the average Briton is living longer still.

We are so much richer, as a society, that an unemployed man on benefit now receives more – in real terms – than the average working wage in Macmillan's Britain. London's air is far cleaner, and so is the Thames; and a car travelling at top speed emits less pollution than a parked car in the 1970s, mainly because cars no longer leak. Now the question is: will baby-boomer selfishness really call a halt to this progress? Are we really likely to see an interruption of the process by which human beings have been able to become, on the whole, richer, taller, healthier, more able to take holidays and pursue hobbies and – in important respects – happier?"

And continuing with the next bit in italics:

"...Ridley's key argument is that, whatever the economic difficulties of today, it is the baby-boomer technology that is delivering and will deliver incredible improvements in the standard of life of the next generation. Who gave us email and eBay? Who gave us Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart, iPod, Prozac, BlackBerry and spreadable butter you can keep in the fridge? It was the baby boomers. Who is responsible for the tolerance and openness that has helped to break down sexism, racism and homophobia? The baby boomers, that's who. Who ensured that you can read this article either on Finnish newsprint or with electronic technology sourced from around the world? It was us baby boomers, and our doctrines of liberal market economics.

Of course David Willetts is right to draw attention to the financial and environmental problems of the world. But then Matt Ridley is even more right to show how human beings have solved those problems in the past. Yes, we still face the challenge of pollution – but then someone once predicted that horse-drawn traffic was growing at such a rate that by 1950 London's streets would be under 10ft of manure. Where is that dung today? As Ridley says, there is no limit to our inventiveness. Solar-powered LED bulbs offer the hope of zero-carbon illumination for the 1.6 billion Africans who don't have mains electricity. Ever since Hesiod, ever since Isaiah, human beings have loved to listen to prophets of doom and they have loved to believe that theirs is a uniquely fallen and selfish generation. I don't believe it of the baby boomers, and in any case I am sure the next generation is well up to the challenge."

Mr Iftikhar Awan

An article appeared on ConservativeHome, dated 19th November 2011, under the heading 'Pickles and Warsi wrestle for control of Government strategy on Anti-Muslim hatred'.

This article referred to Mr Iftikhar Awan. We accept that any suggestion that he was knowingly associated and allied with the 'Union of Good' was false and totally unfounded.

We regret any distress or embarrassment which the wording of this article caused to Mr Awan, and we are happy to take the opportunity of apologising to him and correcting the position.

Three big things I've got wrong since I've starting blogging and commenting

By Tim Montgomerie
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It is a real honour to be a columnist for The Times and it was an extra honour yesterday to be chosen as Political Columnist of the Year by Editorial Intelligence. I greatly enjoy being able to get up each and every day and pontificate on this blog, in particular, and on other platforms. Overall I'm pretty happy with most of the views I've expressed over the years. I look back, for example, at my opposition to the Tory decision to match Labour's spending plans when it was already obvious that the public sector was getting too big. My concern that the Tories should be focusing on energy prices rather than climate change - particularly pertinent at the moment. My belief that our party under David Cameron has long lacked a blue collar message. That Osborne's first budget lacked a growth agenda. That the election debates were going to be a mistake. This blogpost isn't meant to be a list of things I and ConHome have got right, however. I just wanted to remind you of some of the things I've got right before I make a few confessions and risk you never trusting my judgment again.

So here goes with some confessions. I've got a few big calls wrong and I thought I'd share them with you in the interests of transparency and, I hope, an honest editor-to-reader relationship. The three things listed below aren't the only things I've got wrong. I opposed, for example, John Bercow becoming Speaker but I think Jonathan Isaby was right. Mr Bercow (constant attention-seeking interventions aside) has been a very good Speaker for parliament and for backbenchers. The list below refers to big policy judgments and on three big issues I thought it was time for a hands up moment.

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Read all of the four editions of the ConHome Conference Daily

By Tim Montgomerie
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You can read all the ConHome Conference newspapers via the links below;

• Sunday edition: A plan to win a majority
• Monday edition: Boris and Osborne preview edition plus fantasy Cabinet of 2020
• Tuesday edition: Remembering Thatcher correctly edition
• Wednesday edition: Previewing Cameron's big speech.

Boris Johnson features in ConHome's biggest ever Party Conference programme... and calls for tougher strike laws

By Tim Montgomerie
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Boris Johnson will be the headline star of ConservativeHome's biggest ever Party Conference programme this year. We'll publish full details of that programme tomorrow but other speakers include Nicola Blackwood, Graham Brady, Janet Daley, David Davis, Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Fallon, Michael Gove, William Hague, Robert Halfon, Richard Harrington, Sajid Javid, Patrick McLoughlin, Andrew Mitchell, Jesse Norman, John Redwood, Grant Shapps and Kay Swinburne.

Boris speaks at 6pm INSIDE THE SECURE ZONE on Monday evening. It will be the third year in a row that the Mayor of London will have been the guest of honour at ConHome's Conference rally. If you are going to Birmingham please ink the time in your diary. We are planning a big celebration of Boris' re-election and of an "Olympotastic" year.

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New group Conservative Voice aims to help build an election-winning Tory machine

By Tim Montgomerie
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It's not quite as exciting as the overnight news from Flushing Meadows but I am genuinely delighted to report the launch of Conservative Voice.

A central belief of ConservativeHome's Majority project is that to win the next election we don't just need a refreshed party message and manifesto, we also need a new Tory machine. We need to rethink our approach to party activism, use of the internet, relations with third party groups, candidate selection and so many other aspects of our party's voter identification and mobilisation strategies. London and the centre right have plenty of policy-orientated groups but not many groups that are dedicated to these questions of party organisation, membership and getting out the vote. This gap has now been filled.

Don Porter CBE, a former Chairman of the National Convention, is the brains behind the initiative and I'm delighted to report that he and the dynamic Conservative Voice team will be working closely with ConservativeHome and our own Majority project*.

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