ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Cameron and Osborne spurn Murdoch's tax advice

Yesterday Rupert Murdoch gave a rare interview and encouraged David Cameron to shrink the government's burden on "over-taxed" Britain.  The media mogul also said this of the new Tory leader:

"I've had a couple of very charming meetings with him he's very bright. He's put together a more impressive front bench than was there before, but it seems to be all about image.  I would really like to know a little bit more about what his vision is for the future of this country and his people.  You know, some facts and some real policies rather than just a lot of almost throw away positions they take to change their image - so much so that if you believe everything he says there's not going to be an alternative between him and a New Labour government certainly."

Mr Cameron uses an interview with this morning's FT to move away from support for a lower tax burden, however.  He told the FT that: "When it comes to the economy, I am absolutely clear that stability and responsibility come first, second and third as our priorities - and that they come before the commitment to cut taxes."  George Osborne will give a speech later today in which he will unpack this emphasis on stability.  He is expected to emphasise tax simplification rather than tax reduction.

This cautious approach to tax relief will dismay supply-side conservatives.  Their arguments for tax relief are threefold:

• Britain must compete in the global economy but Gordon Brown's taxes are endangering business' ability to do so.  Last week's The Business revealed that UK tax levels are about to exceed those in Germany for the first time in a generation.
• Many of Labour's stealth taxes have fallen most heavily on the poor.
• William Hague and Michael Howard waited until the final months of the last two parliamentary cycles to start selling their modest tax relief packages to voters.  David Davis used his leadership bid to say that tax relief was essential for growth-driven revenue growth and the challenging political case for lower taxation needed to be made for a whole parliament.

ADDED AT 2PM: Download osborne_speech.pdf

Tory members give top ratings to Hague and Davis

Yesterday we posted the main results of January's ConservativeHome.com Members' Panel.  82% of 1,351 Tory members told ConservativeHome that they were very or fairly satisfied with David Cameron's leadership.  There were, however, clear majorities of members who disagreed with his policy on grammar schools and his 50% male/ 50% female 'Priority List' for parliamentary candidates.

Listed below are members' ratings for ten of the biggest names in the shadow cabinet.  You can click on the graphic for a slighty enlarged and clearer version of it.

William Hague - long a darling of the Tory grassroots - and David Davis enjoy the highest levels of support among members.  Mr Davis may have benefited from the dignified way he ended his leadership bid and for having loyally served Mr Cameron since having been reappointed Shadow Home Secretary. 

For a relatively new member of the top team George Osborne scores very highly with a 68% net approval rating.

David Willetts who has been high profile in the last week - because of the sex offenders in schools scandal - scores well, too.  With a net positive rating of 61% he outperforms Liam Fox on 55%.  Dr Fox has been relatively quiet since dropping out of the leadership race last October and particularly since being appointed Shadow Defence Secretary. 

Francis Maude, Tory Chairman, finishes bottom of the list of ten.  Although 55% of members are satisfied with his performance, 27% registered dissatisfaction.  This may reflect the legacy of last summer's bruising fight over members' voting rights (when he was Michael Howard's Chairman) and Mr Maude's responsibility for the controversial 'A'-list for parliamentary candidates.  60% of party members oppose this list.  Also scoring relatively poorly is Oliver Letwin.  63% are satisfied with Mr Letwin as Tory policy supremo but 27% are dissatisfied.  Mr Letwin's pre-Christmas remarks on redistribution enraged visitors to this site and may have contributed to the rating.

Mr Hague's net rating of 83% reflects the fact that 87% of members are satisfied with him and his performance - just 4% are dissatisfied.

Ratings for these ten figures will be tracked every month by the Members' Panel.  Different months will also see questions on more junior shadow cabinet members, the chairmen of the policy groups and rising parliamentary stars.

Supporters appear slightly less enthusiastic about Tory fortunes than members

The final numbers from the ConservativeHome.com Members Panel survey cover the views of those who identify themselves as Tory supporters - rather than as members.  This site is a big advocate of a more open Conservative Party that involves Tory voters in the selection of, for example, parliamentary candidates but we are cautious about reading too much into what these supporters say because only 334 took part in last week's panel voting.  That 334 contrasts with the 1,351 participating members and is therefore subject to a much bigger margin of error.  The additional health warning is that we know the Panel of members accurately predicted the outcome of the leadership election.   We cannot be so sure that we are yet reaching a balanced number of supporters but intend to actively recruit more over coming months.

But, with those health warnings in mind, the Tory supporters within the Panel appeared slightly less enthusiastic about David Cameron's leadership.  While 82% of members were satisfied with DC only 73% of supporters were satisfied.  Nearly a quarter of supporters (24%) were dissatisfied compared to just 16% of members.

There was also less expectation of a Cameron-led government after the next election.   Tory supporters expected such a government by a margin of 67% to 24%.  77% over 17% of members told ConservativeHome that they expected Mr Cameron to become PM on the next polling day.

69% of supporters thought the Tory party was on the right course compared to 76% of members.  25% thought it on the wrong track - 17% of members did.

Views on the five policy issues were almost identical to members.

Tory members are satisfied with David Cameron despite policy concerns

The two posts below - on overall satisfaction with David Cameron and concerns over his education and candidates' policies - summarise the main message of the latest ConservativeHome Members' Panel survey.  Selected findings are reported in today's Observer.

How does the survey work?

This poll was conducted on ConservativeHome's ConservativeDemocracy.com website between 19 and 21 January 2006. We report today the results for the 1,351 Conservative Party members who participated. We emphasise that the data has been weighted to a control group of respondents from a previous ConservativeHome poll taken in the days leading up to the leadership election.  The proportion of Cameron/ Davis supporters has been matched to the actual outcome of that election. We are therefore confident that this first CH Tracker Poll fairly reflects the views of active Conservative Party members, and will continue to do so in all future tracker polls.

Here's how it works:

Email addresses for DD and DC voters were retained.

The new poll also required email addresses. We found out how the previous DD/DC respondents voted in each of the options of the first question ('satisfied with DC'). The options were then weighted so that there was the correct proportion of DD to DC voters in all - and all other questions weighted accordingly.

In fact, all this made less than 1% difference.

However, it does mean that in future, if one set of respondents becomes less enthusiastic in taking part than others, we will still be able to produce robust tracking data.

Why are we doing the survey?

During the leadership election ConservativeHome.com became the place where party members met up to discuss the qualities of the candidates.  The site also helped to lead the fight against the outrageous attempts by the party's high-ups to take away the members' vote in that election.  Many journalists and MPs visited on a daily basis to check the party's pulse - including the Tory Chairman, Francis Maude.  Mr Maude described the site as a "goldmine".  It was, he said, the "only way of finding out what’s going on".

We intend for ConservativeHome to stay the place for party members to meet up, share ideas and record their thinking.

Every month we'll track members' views on the issues of the day and on the performance of the people that speak in their name.  Gone are the days when CCO can purport to speak on behalf of members to the press without fear of contradiction.

Over coming months ConservativeHome is planning an explosion of campaigning activity.  We may have very different politics from Howard Dean but his 'you have the power' message to his WebRoots supporters was 'on the money'.  His insurgent campaign failed for all sorts of reasons but the power unleashed by the internet will transform politics and Britain's political leaders have hardly begun to appreciate how.  The ConservativeHome Members' Panel is one small but important part of the looming revolution.

82% of Tory members are satisfied with David Cameron's leadership...

Sometimes you read the comment threads on this blog and you'd think that dissatisfaction with David Cameron's leadership of the Conservative Party was running high.  It isn't.

SATISFACTION WITH CAMERON'S LEADERSHIP

There are concerns about policy direction but 82% of Tory members are either very satisfied or fairly satisfied with his leadership of the Conservative Party.  Only 16% are in some way dissatisfied.  We'll be publishing a tracker poll on the extent to which these satisfaction ratings rise or fall each and every month of David Cameron's leadership.

TORY PARTY IS ON THE RIGHT COURSE

76% of party members currently think that the Conservative Party is on the right course.  Only 17% think it is on the wrong track.

MEMBERS THINK CAMERON SET TO BE NEXT PM

Buoyed by progress in the opinion polls 77% of Tory members expect Mr Cameron to be Prime Minister after the next General Election.  17%, however, think it unlikely that 'David and Samantha' will be the residents of Number Ten Downing Street after polling day.  The overall grassroots optimism represents an enormous turnaround in the hopes of Tory members since Michael Howard passed the crown to his protege.   

EXTENT OF MODERNISATION

Most members think that the process of modernisation in the Conservative Party has some way still to go.  38% think it has a "long way" to go and 28% think it has a "little way" to go.  12% think it is pretty much in the right place.  14% think modernisation has already gone a "little too far".  6% told ConservativeHome that it had gone "much too far".

Most members disagree with Cameron on grammar schools and candidates' A-List

The ConservativeHome Members' Panel's January survey found high satisfaction levels with David Cameron's leadership but it has also revealed that most members disagree with two of his key policy initiatives - on education and parliamentary candidate selection.

ConservativeHome asked 1,351 members what they thought of five key initiatives taken by David Cameron since he became leader at the start of last month.  For each initiative we asked whether they agreed with the initiative and whether they thought they were good or bad politics.  The results for each of the initiatives are set out below - in numbers and in charts.  On the right is an explanatory graphic for the charts.  The policies that score highly in the top right of the charts are rated in doubly positive terms: members agree with them and think that they are good politics.  The policies that register high scores in the bottom left quadrant threaten to cause the Tory leadership problems with grassroots members.  Such bottom left positioning suggests that members neither agree with the issue nor think that it is good politics.

DAVID CAMERON'S STATEMENT THAT "THERE'LL BE NO GOING BACK TO GRAMMAR SCHOOLS" UNDER HIS LEADERSHIP

This statement only enjoys the unequivocal backing of a fifth of Tory members.

More than twice as many - 44% - think it a disagreeable policy that is also bad politics.

Nearly three-quarters of Tory members disagree with this statement.

48% think it bad politics.  David Cameron's embrace of the pledge to wrongfoot Tony Blair's education reforms has persuaded 49% to accept it as good politics, however.

DAVID CAMERON'S COMMITMENT TO PUT TOGETHER A CANDIDATES' 'A LIST' OF 50% MEN AND 50% WOMEN

Only 37% of Tory members agree with David Cameron's 50/50 'Priority List' - more details of which were revealed this week.  60% disagree with this policy and Bernard Jenkin and his team will have to work hard to win more grassroots support for this controversial proposal.

That support may come from the fact that 62% of members agree that the 50/50 list is "good politics" despite the bloc who personally disagree with it.

The hardcore opposition comes from the 33% of members who think it bad politics and contrary to their views. 

DAVID CAMERON'S COMMITMENT TO LEAVE THE EUROPEAN PEOPLES' PARTY

David Cameron's campaign commitment to leave the European Peoples' Party was said to have been crucial to his wooing Cornerstone and other more Eurosceptic MPs to his colours during the leadership race.  The ConservativeHome Members' Panel result suggests that it may also be helping the grassroots to digest his other more controversial initiatives.

76% of members agree with the pledge.

20%, however, worry that the pledge might not be good politics.  This fifth of members are, perhaps, worried about the vocal opposition to the policy of Ken Clarke and leading MEPs. A defection or two of a Tory MEP to the LibDems, for example, would certainly cause a political headache for Mr Cameron.

DAVID CAMERON'S SUGGESTION THAT THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY STAND UP TO BIG BUSINESS

If Tory traditionalists might have been expected to support the EPP pledge there is less predictable good news for Team Cameron in the grassroots' agreement with two of his 'modernising pledges'

The New Year's Day commitment.to stand up to big business is supported by 64% of members surveyed.

Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne must now work to address the concerns of those 30% of members who disagree with the policy.  30% opposition may partly explain an unfamilarity with the policy and a concern that it is anti-business.  The Tory leadership must show that it is about championing freer markets and start-up businesses against the cosy and corporatist links between big business and government that have so poisoned American politics.  If they can achieve this they will have found a 'crunchy conservative' policy that is in tune with the decentralised mood of our age.

69% think the suggestion is good politics.

DAVID CAMERON'S SUGGESTION THAT THE TEST OF EVERY POLICY SHOULD BE ITS IMPACT ON THE POOR

The first act of David Cameron's leadership was to establish the social justice policy group and he was using a speech to the Centre for Social Justice to promise to build 'the nation of the second chance' when this ConservativeHome.com poll went live.

A full 64% of members agree with the test but 33% do not.  This 33% may reflect concern that the impact of Gordon Brown's stealth taxes and public service failures have hurt middle income workers, too, and these should not be forgotten.  A future ConservativeHome poll will attempt to explore the thinking of this 33%.

This 'test' pledge wins a very high 86% rating when members are asked if it is "good politics".  Of all the five pledges put to the Panel this pledge was rated most highly on the "good politics" scale.

THERE WILL BE MORE PANEL RESULTS TOMORROW:

• Which shadow cabinet members are performing best and worst?
• Do Tory supporters think very differently on these issues to members?

VISIT CONSERVATIVEHOME.COM ON MONDAY FOR THE ANSWERS!

Rent boy story forces Mark Oaten's resignation

Mark Oaten - who dropped out of the leadership race just a few days ago - has resigned from the LibDem frontbench after the News of the World was due to report allegations about him using a 23-year-old rent boy.

In a statement the married Mr Oaten said:

"I have stood down as home affairs spokesman for the party. I would like to apologise for errors of judgement in personal behaviour and for the embarrassment caused, firstly to my family but also to my friends, my constituents and my party. I will not be commenting further at this time and would now ask for some space and personal privacy for me and my family."

The leader of the LibDems in the House of Lords, Tom McNally, has admitted to being an alcoholic in the early 1980s. 

Lord McNally told a special Radio 4 programme that he "deeply regretted the wasted years, the wasted time, the wasted money... When I do look back to the 60s and 70s and I think of my drinking companions, a disturbingly large number - from politics, from journalism, from business - are now dead."

Charles Kennedy admitted to his own drink problems three weeks ago.

Canada's conservative netroots

The turnaround in the Canadian Tories has been impressive, despite Stephen Harper's "negative charisma". The election is on Monday and..

"..the Conservatives are within reach of a majority government and the Bloc Quebecois is closing in on the Liberals in the race for the official Opposition" (The Gazette)

The Liberals have been embroiled in scandal of late. The story of the Income Trust Scandal broke online:

"Small Canadian investors have possibly lost billions of dollars over this make-it-up-as-you-go-along policy making, and friends of the Liberals have been the beneficiaries. In the US, there would be insider trading investigations to determine who knew what, and when. But here in Canada, expect it all to be swept under the rug."

Thanks to the netroots it wasn't "swept under the rug" - the Mounties investigated and the Liberals suffered in the polls. The influence that blogs like Angry in the Great White North will have had on the election cannot be underestimated.

Then there was the Abotech affair involving government contracting and a Liberal MP falsely claiming that he was an aboriginal Canadian. There was impressive local work to ensure that he is not going to be re-elected.

In addition, another scandal was recently aired by online Conservative commentator Stephen Taylor.

So, Conservative blogs have both independently investigated wrongdoing and kept the news cycle going on it. The Liberals have arguably been to blame for their own demise, but they might have scraped through in better shape if it weren't for the conservative movement leading the way online.

If you'd like to see some other political blogs from Canada, the BBC has posted excerpts of a few during election time.

Deputy Editor

Ronald Reagan

Twenty-five years ago Ronald Reagan became the United States' 40th President.  A great ally and friend of Margaret Thatcher, their elections marked the beginning of a great era for Conservatism.

Today's Wall Street Journal notes that "more wealth has been created in the U.S. in the last quarter-century than in the previous 200 years."  Part of the reason for that is the Reagan tax cuts and the economically liberal supply-side reforms that he and Mrs T pioneered.

He also helped accelerate the end of communism and helped to build the conservative infrastructure that has sustained the modern Republican Party.

His morning in America optimism was, perhaps, his most endearing quality, however.  His enthusiasm, patriotism, warmth and humour characterised his whole political outlook.  This is what Margaret Thatcher said at his memorial service in 2004:

"In his lifetime, Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend America's wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk, yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit, for Ronald Reagan also embodied another great cause, what Arnold Bennett once called "the great cause of cheering us all up". His policies had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation, and ultimately, from the very heart of the "evil empire.""

Ronald Reagan - a good man and a great conservative.

Cameron urged to cut taxes for the poor

In a leader that welcomes David Cameron's commitment to social justice The Spectator calls on the Tory leader to recognise the damage that Gordon Brown's stealth taxes have done to the poorest Britons:

"When Labour is attacked for its numerous tax rises over the past nine years, it is often taken for granted that it is the well-off who are paying the extra tax. Yet this is not so. The Chancellor has tended to raise money from spending taxes, which fall disproportionately upon the poor: fuel, alcohol and tobacco duties. At the same time he has failed to raise the thresholds for income tax in line with average earnings, with the result that many more low-earners have been brought into the tax system. True, Mr Brown has tried to compensate for this by handing money back to the poor in the form of ‘tax credits’: i.e., handouts. Yet these benefits have been poorly taken up for the simple reason that in order to claim them, it is invariably necessary to fill in very complicated forms. This is an especially difficult task for the poorly educated, and so Gordon Brown’s model of wealth redistribution discriminates against them."

The leader also goes on to say that hi-regulation also imposes an unfair ceiling on the would-be upwardly mobile:

"If we want to help the poor to help themselves, it must be easy for them to start their own microbusinesses. Yet those who do so often find themselves embroiled in regulation designed with huge companies in mind."

It's not just regulation designed with huge companies in mind - huge companies and their lobbyists help create those regulations as barriers to entry.  Adam Smith's warning that "people of the same trade seldom meet together [without concocting] a conspiracy against the public" is a principal reason why David Cameron is right to say that Conservatives should stand up to big business.

If David Cameron is right about big business it is disappointing that he is silent about tax.  It is not just low income families that need to be rescued from Gordon Brown's tax bombshell - the whole British economy needs tax relief.  This week's most important fact came from last Sunday's Business (see graph on right):

BRITISH TAX LEVELS ARE ABOUT TO EXCEED GERMAN TAX LEVELS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A GENERATION.

It is the duty of the Conservative Party to lead public debate on this issue.  The excellent Taxpayers' Alliance can't do all of the campaigning.  Gordon Brown's tax burden has deadly consequences for wealth creation and social justice.  Without tax relief and tax simplification the British economy will become uncompetitive and the progress of the Thatcher years will be slowly undone. 

One of the key insights of David Davis' leadership bid was that we needed to use a whole parliament to make the public case for difficult policy priorities.  The public are not yet persuaded of the need for economy-boosting tax relief.  The Conservatives need to start persuading soon...

John Major attacks the 'Larceny of the Lottery'

As Prime Minister, John Major oversaw the introduction of Britain's National Lottery.  At the time he faced Labour suggestions that it was a regressive way of getting the poor to fund the public services.  Public services should only be paid for by progressive taxation, Labour then insisted.  PM Major denied the charges and his administration only permitted Lottery proceeds to be used for sport, national heritage, good causes and the, er, um, early preparations for Michael Heseltine's Millennium Dome.

Writing a foreword for a new Centre for Policy Studies pamphlet on the Lottery - 'Larceny of the Lottery' - Mr Major attacks Labour's failure to live by the standards it demanded of him:

“From the outset, I insisted that Lottery money should be used for additional spending on causes or activities that the taxpayer should not be expected to cover... When the Lottery Bill was going through Parliament, the Labour Opposition was at pains to stress the importance of government keeping an arms-length relationship from the Lottery and, in particular, grant distribution. But, since it took power, Labour has diverted Lottery funding into areas that have historically been funded by the Exchequer. Indeed, the “Big Lottery Fund” has a specific remit to fund health, education and environment projects when taxpayers would rightly expect many of these projects to be funded directly by Government. The Labour Government’s deliberate muddying of the waters between Exchequer and Lottery revenues is an unwelcome development and one which, as its creator, dismays me greatly.”

The Conservative Party's 2003 Green Paper on the voluntary sector - Sixty Million Citizens - promoted a radical solution to this problem.  It noted the growing politicisation of Lottery funding decisions and a large number of controversial awards.  It suggested that these controversies partly explained the Lottery's falling popularity.  It proposed that Lotto players should be able to ensure that local charities could benefit from the charitable portion of the £1 bet.  One suggestion was turning the Lotto ticket into some sort of gift token that could be given to local charities for them to redeem.  It's still an idea worthy of consideration...

Oaten quits leadership race

Mark Oaten's LibDem leadership bid is over.  He was unable to win support from any MP other than Lembit Opik (and perhaps (secretly) Charles Kennedy).  Under the LibDems' bizarre election rules MPs can nominate more than one candidate.  This morning's Independent revealed that only one of the seven MPs who signed his nomination papers was prepared to publicly back him - three of them had declared for other candidates.

I've always doubted that a LibDem MP would defect to the Tories but this event - which must be very disappointing on a personal level - may be interpreted by Mr Oaten as a rejection of his "tough liberalism".  This might be an opportune time for the Tory whips to be offering the LibDems' home affairs spokesman a new home...

"The nation of the second chance"

"Dave" dived straight in. His serious tone made me listen up more than a flamboyant start would have:

"Today I want to talk about how we eradicate poverty in Britain".

He focused on how he would go about tackling the root causes in a distinctly different way to Gordon Brown's failed top-down approach. He acknowledged that Brown also had the objective of tackling poverty, and was sincere in it, but tore up the recieved wisdom of the Chancellor's methods, shred by shred:

"He sees limits on what the voluntary sector, social enterprises and community groups can do... Gordon Brown looks at area where the state has failed and thinks the answer is more state intervention, more of the same. I look at state failure and say: let's try something different."

The speech was marking the launch of the Social Justice policy group, based at the Centre for Social Justice. When talking about the Centre's effective giving programme, Phillippa Stroud pointed out at the start that the left-leaning IPPR think-tank had more new employees last year than all of the conservative-leaning think-tanks put together.

Iain Duncan Smith, the chair of the new policy group, followed with an engaging introduction on the role of the group and the challenges that need to be met. He challenged those who don't believe in government seeking social justice by pointing out that the very building they were in, Hawkstone Hall, had hosted launches of Wilberforce's anti-slavery drive, the ragged school movement of Shaftyesbury (pictured) and that the spire was donated by the family of Abraham Lincoln who had drawn his inspiration from the conservative moments that had started there. The packed audience of party activists, charity workers, MP's and opinion formers were amused by IDS' self-deprecating jokes such as, in reference to Cameron's leadership: "I had the job once actually, in case you missed it!".

Similarly to the leadership race, the Chancellor was in Cameron's crosshairs. Attacking him on his home turf he talked of "Third Scotland" where male life expectancy is lower than in Bosnia, Gaza strip, Iran and North Korea. He cited Calton where 57% of adults don't work at all as two in five of them claim incapacity benefit. As Scotland has the same tax and benefits system as the rest of the UK but with disproportionately more funding, the fact that it is also the place where problems with the welfare state are at their starkest shows that there is a problem with the method:

"Only this week in my constituency surgery, a working single mum told me that she would have a higher income and a better house if she gave up her job. She'd done the maths. She'd be better off on benefits. But she chose to stay working. It was a small victory of the human spirit against the vast scale of Gordon Brown's state machine."

The policy group will be comprised of seperate working groups: Home and Family, Education, Economic Security, and Drugs, Alcohol and Debt. Detailing the role of each, he stressed the importance of strong families and decent education, Brown's not-so-good record on job creation, and the need for more drug rehabilitation places.

Cameron then moved on to elaborating on a great phrase that I hadn't heard before, "the nation of the second chance". He wanted the fifth working group to focus on making this a reality, particularly by developing plans for 'Social Enterprise Zones':

"We will never fulfil our potential as a nation by giving up on our fellow citizens, abandoning them to long-term unemployment, educational failure or addiction."

How are we going to achieve that?

"Here, I don't think the voluntary sector has an important role to play. I believe that the voluntary sector has the crucial role to play."

In concluding, Cameron said that the ambition of smaller government alone is not enough:

"You cannot have a smaller state unless you have bigger, more responsible people. Growing levels of social breakdown are creating growing demands for welfare and other forms of government intervention. Limited government is impossible without renewing the forms of behaviour and social structure that prevent poverty and create community. Communities are not created from the top down, but built from the bottom up."

The 45 minute speech was laced with personal experiences, which combined with the statistics to make his argument very compelling. There was a positive atmosphere in the hall to match the positive undertones of the speech. The endemic failures of the Labour party on helping the vulnerable contrasted with the reinvigorated feeling about the Conservative party, and its evident care about the issues that matter to people.

Some questions from the audience followed, they were all pertinent and from people in relevant organisations and experiences. Key points made during the Q&A's include:

• The good thing about National Service is that it brought everyone together
• Charities need financial security, annual contracts stop them working for the long-term
• A single, ethnic minority mother stood up confidently.. she praised the speech and pledged herself as a 'guinea pig'
• We have to be careful about how we let the term Social Justice be defined
• We should judge faith-based projects on what they do rather than on the fact that they have religious beliefs

Personal comment: "I joined the party as an idealistic Scouse teenager completely on my own accord, wanting a new approach to how people interact with the state. A few years of party politics inevitably dulled the passion somewhat, but I'm not ashamed to say that I feel there is something happening now which is truly exciting. For many people there was a sense of change and hope in the air when Blair swept to power, feelings towards him couldn't be more different now and it's eminently faesible that the same goodwill is about to be channelled towards Cameron's "modern, compassionate conservatism". The best thing about this social justice driven agenda is that it anchors some of the 'vacuous platitudes' of late to distinctly conservative principles. There was more detail in the speech than I could recount above, but the real detail will come in 18 months time from the policy groups - we must give the talented Shadow Cabinet the benefit of the doubt until then.  This politics of trusting people will reciprocate into people having more trust in the politicians that advocate it. This is the kind of government our country desperately needs. We need Reagan-esque optimism now more than ever, not the cynicism British Conservatives can be prone to. For me, Cameron's speech marks a milestone on the right path for our party, and I believe he was sincere in what he was saying. I'll be sure to hold him to it."

Report by Sam Coates, Deputy Editor.

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Commenting guidelines

We're not all experts on using HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language, a type of programming code), so here's an idiot's guide to enhancing your comments in three simple ways.

1) Take a relevant quote, put it on the commenting plate and garnish with a "<i>" before it and a "</i>" afterwards - italicising in this way helps the reader distinguish which words are yours and which are not.

E.g. <i>Sir, you are mistaken</i> Forsooth, so I am.

2) If you want a word to have a particularly strong flavour, simply sprinkle it with "<b>" followed by some "</b>" - emboldening shouldn't be overdone, but it is useful for general emphasis.

E.g. Sorry for the confusion everybody, my last post should have said "I <b>didn't</b> shoot JR!"

3) A long URL (Uniform Resource Locator, i.e. website address) sometimes rolls off the blog table. You can keep it together nicely with a dollop of "<a href=", followed by your desired URL (must have "http://") and a hint of ">", then adding your new topping, and a last dash of "</a>" - taking the time do this will also make it a proper hyperlink rather than normal text.

E.g. I do have a credible source actually, it is the <a href=http://www.omrlp.com/>Monster Raving Loony Party</a>

Please feel free to use this post's comment section to practice.

I would also like to remind you of ConHome's comment policy:

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The decision of the Editors is final with regard to any bans.

This is all to safeguard the constructiveness and high quality of our discussions. Note that asterisked swear words still read as swear words, and that some young people are being introduced to conservatism by this site. Also, nobody wants to trawl through an ongoing spat between regular contributors!

If you come across any distasteful comments breaching the site policy please notify us by emailing both [email protected] and [email protected]

Thanks.

Deputy Editor

PMQ's

Party leaders' topics:  Cameron on the cost of ID cards and whether Brown supported them, and then on renewable energy trusts and carbon emissions. Campbell on the post-Soham report and the delay in a police computer system.

Best joke: Cameron berating Blair, he said that he should be the one "asking questions on behalf of the public and him answering on behalf of the government. If he wants to switch it around he can call a general election."

Best line: ID cards would become "a monument to the death of big government" - Cameron.

Best behaved person of the day: The House towards Ming - his questions were too serious to mock.

Biggest cheer of the day: Dennis Skinner, who didn't look like he was expecting to be called, going on about coal mines. Tony Blair thanked him for reminding him that "whatever the problem, the origins lie with the Conservative Party".

Best putdown of the day: Speaker on Norman Baker, who was repeatedly interrupting Blair's 'answer' to his question about ID cards.

Missed topic of the day: Ruth Kelly's job.

CH social

FAO: Anyone going to hear David Cameron's speech to the Centre for Social Justice tonight (sold-out last week).

As there aren't going to be any refreshments at the event, Mark Fulford suggested us ConHomers should all go for a drink or two afterwards.

So if you are around, we will colonise a corner of the Horse Bar (within easy walking distance of the venue) after Cameron's speech. If you are in the area anyway pop in at 8.00pm or so.

Hope to see some of you there. Look for me if you don't know anybody, you won't be the only one!

There will be a report on the event on Thursday morning for those of you who can't make it.

Deputy Editor

True Blue Shireen Ritchie to front Priority List

Today's Times notes that Shireen Ritchie is to replace Simon Mort as Chairman of the Candidates' Committee.  The Times suggests that she will "set up" what will be called the Priority List but she'll undoubtedly be doing so in conjunction with Bernard Jenkin, Theresa May and others.

Famous for being Madonna's mother-in-law Mrs Ritchie will help to draw up a list of 200 candidates (much more than originally expected).  Half will be men and half women.  The aim - also different and more modest than first suggested - is to put at least 40 women in the 140 target seats which David Cameron must win to get into Number Ten.

This site's GoldList has not got off the ground this year but will be firing into action from Monday...

Portillo's regress

I enjoyed my Newsnight outing yesterday and it was good to see the BBC giving airtime for the Tory Party to be scrutinised from the right (or should I say from a conservative perspective?).  The Today programme could take some notes from the team behind Mr Paxman and Ms Wark...

There are all sorts of things that could be mentioned from last night's discussion but I was struck by the extent to which Michael Portillo seems to almost despise the right.  Clipped for the programme the 'who dares wins ideologue' - who, in the 1990s, ignored those of us seeking a more one nation Conservatism - encouraged David Cameron to pick a (Blairite) fight with the forces of conservatism.  He sees Mr Blair's abolition of Clause IV as a model for the new Tory leadership with right-wing (and undoubtedly pin-striped) MPs taking the place of nationalisation.  Never mind that traditional Tory positions on Europe, crime and immigration etc resonate with the electorate in a way that Michael Footisms never did...

Mr Portillo's dislike of the right has been evident in previous of his columns (see here for example) and was on show again in the most recent Sunday Times.  Here are three quotes from his 15 January op-ed:

"Michael Howard displayed the memory of a goldfish when in 2005 he campaigned with the same attitudes that had brought the party crushing defeat in 2001."  Memory of a goldfish?  Is this a way to speak of a former cabinet colleague?

"The Conservatives’ mean-spirited stupidity in the last two elections has denied the public an alternative to Labour."  Wasn't he Shadow Chancellor for the first of those mean-spirited campaigns?

"I was worried that Cameron had populated his shadow cabinet with reactionaries such as David Davis and William Hague."  Didn't MP almost endorse DD in one of his many endorsements of the leadership election?

And my biggest question of all... Why does The Sunday Times continue to employ this man?  He's reinvented himself more times than any politician worthy of serious respect.  Let's all hope and pray that MP's chum Andrew Neil doesn't make him editor of The Spectator.

Save the planet whilst eating your lunch...

David Cameron is playing Gandhi again:

“In my New Year message, I said we should remember Mahatma Gandhi’s words and “be the change we want to see in the world.”  I think it’s incredibly important for us to show that politics isn’t just about policies and elections, it’s about personal commitment and making change happen – today. This event with Climate Change Now is the first of many ways in which I want the Conservative Party to make a difference – not just through our policies but through our personal commitment and passion for change.  Today, I'm emailing our members and writing to every Conservative Association Chairman to encourage our membership to visit the Climate Change Now website and switch their electricity supplier to a renewable source."

Clicking on this website - as David Cameron and Zac Goldsmith are doing this lunchtime in a photo opportunity - seems a perfectly worthy thing to do.  Mr Cameron encourages us to do the same as we eat a sandwich in our lunchbreak.  To do so is, as the site advertises, "quick, easy and free".   Yes, free.

The real test of the green credentials of consumers will be when they do something a little more sacrificial, however.  I think Gandhi would agree with a more sacrificial understanding of what "personal commitment and passion for change" should mean.  What about cancelling the foreign holiday and that polluting plane trip, for example?  I wonder when CCHQ will launch a 'cancel your Mediterranean holiday' campaign?

Tell Newsnight what you think of David Cameron...

Tonight (Tuesday) at 10:30pm, Newsnight will be taking an interactive look at David Cameron's Conservative Party. You can watch the show online.

My understanding is they will be discussing what all the recent changes mean with Oliver Letwin and a panel (including me  - I'll be speaking from the Beeb's Washington DC studio (I'm currently in DC studying how conservatives/ Republicans are utilising the internet)).

Newsnight plan to broadcast the best arguments made on this site, so all you WebRoots out there should please get blogging. While the programme is on air they'll be watching the blog and may include reaction to the TV debate, live on air. They also want to include arguments made via mobile phone video clips. You can text them to: MMS: +44 7725 100100 marking it for the attention of NEWSNIGHT or email it via their website.

I'll obviously be on the programme but Sam Coates (my deputy) will be moderating. Once the website is mentioned on the show, comments may have to be approved as constructive before being published.

Cameron delights Right with police reforms

"Cameron In Clash With Right-Wing Over Police Reforms."

That mischievous headline appears in this morning's Independent but it could hardly be further from the truth.

David Cameron's consensual approach to education and NHS reform has disappointed reformist conservatives but the Tory leader's bold approach to the police service - largely untouched by Margaret Thatcher or Michael Howard - should be welcomed by the same people.   Those unthinking conservatives who don't like the way that David Cameron is standing up to big business probably won't like his police reforms either.  Such conservatives think that the Tory Party should always be on the side of big business, the police service, the army and other traditional sources of Tory support.  But conservatives should be the reliable champions of consumer interests - not producer interests...

David Cameron is standing up for the consumer and small businesses when he worries that big business can conspire against the public interest.  Conservatives shouldn't be the party of big business (remember how the CBI attacked Thatcher's reforms of the early 1980s?) but should be the champion of the little guy and of greater competition.  Many big businesses use regulation and other restrictive measures to frustrate emerging competitors.  Similarly conservatives shouldn't defend the police and its increasingly close relationship with the political establishment.  Conservatives should be the champion of the communities who aren't getting proper policing whilst officers' time is wasted on bureaucracy and political correctness.

A leader in this morning's Telegraph is suitably enthusiastic about Mr Cameron's police reforms - describing them as exhibiting a "welcome boldness".

Also enthusiastic is the think tank Reform.  Reform's former director is Nick Herbert MP - the new shadow minister for police reform.  Reform's verdict on their co-founder's new work?  Very positive:

"Today’s Conservative Party proposals for police reform are the basis of a radical agenda that would transform criminal justice in Britain.  The focus on accountability – as Reform has argued – is the key structural change required to trigger the development of beat-based and zero tolerance policing models that the public have long desired.  The effects of accountability on crime levels in England and Wales could be dramatic, as the record of American cities such as Boston and New York shows.  The Party’s 2005 Manifesto pledge to recruit an extra 40,000 police officers was not repeated, and may have been shelved.  If so, this new position – focusing on structures rather than more manpower – may represent a new focus on raising police productivity.  Today’s radical agenda contrasts starkly with the Party’s policies in the areas of health, education and the economy, where several recent announcements have left Conservative policy “almost indistinguishable” to that of the Government (see Reform bulletin, 13 January 2006)."

The same link provides an excellent summary of the party's police reform proposals.

A liberal future

What can Liberal Democrat Youth and Students tell us about the future of their party?

As reported recently, the Conservatives have made swift gains in the student vote under Cameron at the expense of the Lib Dems, but the latter still retain a substantial dominance amongst students. There is a substantial difference however, between students inclined to protest-vote Lib Dem because of top-up fees and Iraq, and those willing to be affiliated to the party and be active within it - the soup-strainers still outnumber the trainers, if you will. There is also the factor of harder left wing parties such as Respect which has blitzed campuses this year, siphoning off the more immoderate activists.

To some extent LDYS reflects the ideological split in the party. There are still members who would be happy under Old Labour or seem themselves more in the Social Democrat tradition, but several of their leading lights are clearly in the Orange book ‘tradition’, more economically ‘blue’ than ‘red’. They resent being categorised as left or right, but rather see themselves as the inheritors of Britain’s liberal tradition – supporting localism, libertarianism and liberal social policies. Indeed, there is a surprising amount of overlapping with Conservative Future on domestic ideology and economic policy.

Add to this the fact that the younger MP’s are generally more libertarian and economically liberal than their elder counterparts, and you get an idea of the likely future direction of the party.

With regards to the leadership contest, the general feeling on the active LDYS forum is in support of Ming.

Deputy Editor

Update: CF National Chairman responds to concerns in the comments section

'New politics' in evidence in sex offenders controversy

If Michael Howard had still been Tory leader he would have called for Ruth Kelly's resignation by now.  Not being leader hasn't actually stopped Mr Howard from making the resignation demand but his successor has wisely chosen a less politically confrontational path.

In a pitch perfect performance on yesterday's Sunday AM (the kind of performance that first attracted ConservativeHome's admiration last July) David Cameron said that it was "untenable for the inquiry to be led by ministers" but he didn't seek a political scalp.  In doing so he appeared to be more interested in putting a terrible sequence of events right - and not in politicising the affair.

The failure of the Department for Education to ensure adequate protection of schoolchildren has been scrutinised expertly by the Tory team.  A clearly concerned David Willetts has been all over the media but always measured in tone.  Schools minister Nick Gibb has also been practising the 'new politics' - less adversarial, more constructive - that he has long recommended to the Conservative Party.

The only misstep, in my opinion, from the Tory team has been the suggestion that these decisions about sex offenders be taken out of the hands of politicians like Ruth Kelly.  I would always prefer a publicly elected and accountable politician to make these sorts of decisions than a backroom 'expert'. 

Cameron woos 'Curtisland'

Shortly after last May's General Election John O'Sullivan encouraged the Tory Party to recognise that it would struggle to keep its vote amongst the professional chattering classes and that it should woo strivers and the blue collar vote (as George Bush and John Howard have successfully done).  At the time this blog noted that The Times' Daniel Finkelstein was recommending a very different approach (and one since largely adopted by the Cameron leadership).  Mr Finkelstein wrote:

"Conservatives have been trying to replace [professionals] with other people, people with less “advanced” social views. It’s not been a core vote strategy, it’s been a transfusion strategy. It has not worked. It will not work. And not just because the number of AB voters is growing and turns out in higher proportions. It’s also because AB views rub off on everyone else. The Tory party can try to change the opinions of AB voters. Or it can accept those opinions and adapt to them. What it cannot do is ignore them. The thing about the chattering classes, you see, is that they chatter."

Mr O'Sullivan, who advised Mrs Thatcher in Downing Street, hasn't given up, however, on his thesis.  Writing for today's FT he finds it odd that David Cameron is going in a different direction from Bush and Howard.  He thinks the Tories have been hypnotised by Mr Cameron:

"The Tories think they have elected Hugh Grant. In doing so, they believe, they have solved a nagging existential problem. Until the mid-1980s, the Tory faithful felt themselves the natural party of the middle class. But since then they have drifted apart as the Tories became Thatcherised and the middle class changed its self-image, political opinions and sensibility – became, in a word, “Curtisland” after Richard Curtis of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love, Actually, in which a multi-faith, multi-ethnic London middle class swears terribly but is otherwise awfully nice and holds excruciatingly nice opinions. This is a global phenomenon as parties across the English-speaking world change composition with blue-collar workers moving right and others left. But the Tories don’t know that and would like to be accepted in Curtisland once again."

The success of 'the Curtisland strategy' will depend upon whether the number of chatterers attracted by Cameron's eco-friendly and civil libertarian Conservatives are greater than the 'striving voters' made homeless by the absence of a party championing their concerns.  Those concerns include homeland security, Gordon Brown's European-level taxes, uncontrolled immigration and unreformed public services.

It isn't too late for the 'politics of and' but the possibility diminishes with every retreat on such issues as grammar schools and patient choice.