Tory MPs hear that change must be faster, deeper and wider

Tory MPs are at Latimer House Conference Centre in Buckinghamshire today and tomorrow for discussion on the party's progress.  It's a beautiful venue and one night's accommodation and food is costing each Tory MP £140 (they are paying for it themselves).  My three reporters from inside the retreat (all MPs from different parts of the Tory coalition) report a very good turnout from the parliamentary party.  Much better, apparently, than any previous of these "bonding retreats".

This morning the MPs were given presentations on polling and focus group research from David Cameron, Michael Ashcroft, Oliver Letwin and George Bridges.  The overall message is that the party is changing so that it earns permission to speak to the electorate about Britain's long-term challenges.  The presenters made it clear that Project Cameron was still a 'work in progress'.  The fact that voters are "confused" was repeated again and again.  Voters like David Cameron, the negative attitudes to the party are melting and most believe that the party is in a process of change.  The public remains to be convinced, however, that the party has genuinely changed and the Tory leadership's mantra of "deeper, wider and faster" change was commended to the MPs as the appropriate response to these findings.

The one significant area of controversy was tax.  John Redwood and Edward Leigh tackled George Osborne on opinion poll findings that the public only had a very limited appetite for tax relief.  'Shouldn't we be attempting to mould public opinion and not just follow it?' was the challenge to the Shadow Chancellor and noisy murmurings of support were heard from the assembled parliamentarians.  George Osborne responded by inviting ideas on how to capitalise on public anger at government wastefulness.

For the rest of the day the MPs are attending workshops on campaigning and will later be addressed by a panel of journalists including Spectator editor Matthew d'Ancona.  Sadly the bloggers were not invited!

William Hague will address MPs tomorrow morning.

Comments

[malcolm]

The key question is 'change to what?'.I'm a bit of a political anorak and follow all the debates on CH and elsewhere closely but to coin a phrase 'I haven't the faintest idea' what I'm supposed to change into.

[Michael McGowan]

Precisely, Malcolm. It's all a bit Maoist isn't it: permanent revolution as an end in itself not a means to an end.

[Jonathan Mackie]

It's the change for changes sake agenda that I mentioned in another thread.

The cosying up to vested interests and one minority lobby after another is in my view not only wrong but is likely to lead to a hitting of the buffers sooner or later, when the interests of one groups collides with another.

Anyone who markets a brand, which the Conservative Party is knows that sometimes you have to work to shape the market to where your product or service is strongest. We are not even trying to shape the market just simply following ephemeral trends.

[sjm]

Amongst other things, we the voluntary Party have to change - to recognise that there are different and modern ways of campaigning, that there are no longer thousands of middle-class women available to raise funds and deliver leaflets, that we need to raise serious money, that serving up the same model Tory candidate as we've done for decades won't work well.

We also have to recognise that the voters don't see politics the way we do, that they are easily swayed by sentiment and illogical hypotheses rather than demonstrable facts.

And all too many Councillors and MPs have to learn to keep their disagreements with the leadership within 'the family' rather than broadcasting to local and national media.

[James Maskell]

"faster, deeper, broader"...does that mean we are going to have some policies anytime before 2050? If the changes already put in place are any indication of what is to come, I think we are going to have a seriously hard time getting votes come 2009/10.

When I hear fluffy phrases like the stuff thats coming out at the moment, I shudder because I know thats another few thousand votes weve thrown away. I have no faith in these changes.

[Sean Fear]

I don't think the "Change" message is one that resonates with very many people outside of the world of PR.

[Donal Blaney]

Sean raising an interesting psychological point. I wonder whether humans actually naturally RESIST all concepts of change and therefore announcing that the Party is changing may run contrary to people's wishes? No doubt someone has written a PhD on this but it would make interesting reading (ok, by a sad political anorak with too much time on his hands but you know what I mean)!

[Chris Ryder]

Dead right it doesn't Sean politicans need to start seriously pinning there ears back and listening up good and hard to voters concerns rather than worry about party style, image & presentation gimmicks as its the people who want change here out in the country!

[Chad]

Also Donal, is it possible to support both a message of perpetual change (with no defined destination) and be conservative anyway?

Isn't that too confusing in itself?

[Burkean]

It is a basic conservative belief that change without a very good reason is to be avoided. Now it may be that the reason here - the public won't listen to us - is a good one, but conservatives *should* question any proclaimed need for change closely.

[James Maskell]

Its an interesting point there Chad. I guess it depends what the change is really. If you are changing to small c conservative values and beliefs then its acceptable. You can be a radical conservative in a Communist country, theoretically, though its a tearing apart of the English language on a John Prescottesque level...

[Patsy Sergeant]

I think there is another dimension that has to be addressed as well.

This government has f....d up so many areas of government and management in this country in the last ten years, and in quite a different way to whatever 'damage' that the conservatives did in the past, and more and more people are becoming aware of this; Frank Field addressed this area the other day, obviously it only concerned one particular aspect, but an aspect that affects every walk of life. I suppose it doesn't exactly affect 'the City' yet, but it will.

So when the conservatives get back into power again, as they will, they will have all this mess and probably a lot more (if they don't get in next time), to try to sort out.

Although the conventional attitude to party policies is that new ideas must be dreamed up to deal with ----- poverty (in this country), unemployment, schools, the NHS and the police, considering what I have just said in the previous paragraph, if those 'usual' categories are going to be regarded as the priority, then it is not going to be enough, not nearly.

As Frank Field too much immigration and its consequences has got to be addressed, people are aware, even if the media and others cry 'racism', they will be the first ones to 'run to mummy' when they themselves begin to be affected!, especially if they work at the BBC!!

[Richard]

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!

[Editor]

The above post is only a very partial account of what is happening at Latimer House. It may be that the destination for the change was explained to Tory MPs. I will try and find out. My guess is that the destination has something to do with...

* economic stability, before tax cuts
* a big emphasis on the environment
* a more representative parliamentary party
* help for the poorest Britons.

All this to balance the familar Tory emphases on prisons, longer sentences, more police, deregulation and Euroscepticism.

I'm returning to the footy now...

[James Maskell]

Part time editor!

[Sean Fear]

Were the MPs encouraged/allowed to criticise the strategy being put forward by the party leadership?

If this were done in the right way, I think it would be beneficial all round.

[Sean Dunne]

To anyone who’s read ‘Should Britain leave the EU?’ by Patrick Minford and others - the economic case for leaving the EU is indisputable and conclusive. The cost of membership will soon cost the UK 20% of GDP. The late historian Barbara Tuchman wrote a book - The March of Folly, detailing how throughout the ages certain countries have followed unwise policies that they knew were damaging their societies - yet unbelievably, persisted with them up to the final and inevitable calamity. She could add the UK to that list were she writing today.

[Patsy Sergeant]

Sean @ 18.55. I think one has to be careful about encouraging even what one hopes would be constructive criticism, because there always seem to be people around who like Mr. K. Clarke appear to enjoy 'putting the cat among the pigeons', as they might see it, their excuse would probably be that, that technique might bring out some useful ideas, forgetting in a careless way, that there is always a media wolf waiting to pounce and demolish.

[Annabel Herriott]

Agree with Patsy. Never ever forget that Ken C is a dissapointed man. Nothing to lose, nice pension to look forward to. As shakespeare said, such men are dangerous!

[John Moss]

We must be very careful not to give the left and their friends in the media the ammunition with which to shoot us down.

Endless polling/focus groups etc have pointed out that the public actually like our policies - why do you think Blair keeps nicking them? - they just don't like us.

As I see it, we are about a third of the way through Conservative equivalent of the the "skoda" project. The VW take over has happened and the old products are being screwed together a bit better, people like this, hence the polling improvement. There are some new products in development and the marketing is making a difference because it is dispelling the idea that we are a joke.

What we have to do, and btw I think the policy commissions are doing it, is to ensure that the new products retain the core of the ideas which the electorate liked, but that they get endorsement from independent individuals not necessarily from the right of politics.

The final phase is almost impossible to manage, it just happens - or not - which is that people accept that we are a credible choice again. That's where the papers are crucial, even if we cannot influence them, other than by making sure we do the first and second phases properly.

[Richard Carey]

Also Donal, is it possible to support both a message of perpetual change (with no defined destination) and be conservative anyway? Isn't that too confusing in itself?

I have wondered in the past, that if "doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity", then have some brands of traditional conservatism by definition bred insanity in the past decade? (NOTE to those without a sense of humour - halfway light-hearted comment!).

I do think Chad's comment above has probably unwillingly epitomised this!

Thank goodness David Cameron has outlined a different strand of Conservatism, one that I have long waited and worked for in the Party.

[Richard Carey]

Amongst other things, we the voluntary Party have to change - to recognise that there are different and modern ways of campaigning, that there are no longer thousands of middle-class women available to raise funds and deliver leaflets, that we need to raise serious money,

sjm, I couldn't agree with your point above more. When DC said around his election that the Party had to think, feel and act like a completely new organisation, he meant us in the voluntary Party.

As I commented on another thread, I have been to far too many association meetings where there is a constant tone of criticism of CCHQ, the Leadership, the Shadow Cabinet etc, that overwhelms any discussion of "how can we on the ground reform our own operation".

How can we, the point of contact with most electors, the sharp end of the Party, work better and smarter? However good we are, whether we are a target seat, or a Tory-held seat looking to be able to offer campaign support, we should always be striving to do better.

This doesn't apply in a lot of places - but we need to give very serious thought without parochialism at all levels (local, area, regional and national) about how we pull local camapaigning skills in every area up to that of the very best.

[Sean Fear]

"The late historian Barbara Tuchman wrote a book - The March of Folly, detailing how throughout the ages certain countries have followed unwise policies that they knew were damaging their societies - yet unbelievably, persisted with them up to the final and inevitable calamity"

A very interesting book, although some of the examples she chooses don't illustrate her point as well as she thinks they do.

The main point is a good one. Why is that governments so often persist with policies which are so obviously damaging to those governments' interests?