Tory membership down to 247,394*

David Cameron, Spring Forum 2006: "We’ve signed up 20,000 new members – at a time when other parties are losing support."

According to the BBC at the time of David Cameron's election there were 253,600 Tory members.

For the 2000 ballot - during William Hague's leadership - membership equalled 302,443.

* Based on participation in the Built to Last referendum.

4pm update: CCHQ has just issued this statement: “There is a three month eligibility rule to vote in ballots, so the large number of new members who have joined since our local election success in May will not have had the opportunity to vote.  In addition, the Conservative Party has a decentralised membership system, and we rely on constituency associations to provide updated membership data to the centre.  Associations are most active at updating their membership records in September to ensure that their membership data is able to be transferred on to the new register of electors which is published at the end of the year. Registered Party membership is therefore higher in the autumn than it is during the summer.  Conservatives continue to have more members than the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats combined.” 

Comments

[Gareth]

Now we see you in your true colours Christina.

YOU are the only arbiter of patriotism, it would seem. Those of us whom remained in the Conservative Party in the 1990's 'betrayed our country'.

Your refusal to accept that you got carried away in describing John Major as 'evil' is really rather pathetic. Citing his 'language' in support of that absurdity is, at the very least, quixotic.

Bandying the word 'traitor' around quite as freely as you do shows a similar lack of judgment. Some of the people you so describe, have fought for their country. To describe them as 'traitors' is not, in my view, in good taste.

[Wallenstein]

Major was not only a traitorous and evil politician but also a two-timing love rat.

Until the recent disclosures concerning Heath's sinister past record I put the foul creature Major even lower in the food chain than "The Sulk"

One of my happiest memories of Major concerns his official visit to the Young Conservative ball at the Bournemouth Pavilion in 1899 or thereabouts.

Everybody was drunk by the time he arrived. As Major and his entourage passed down a corridor to the ballroom a high-spirited YC in a Union Jack waistcoat yelled "Major you're a f***ing traitor"

Too true.

Some old-timers may remember that ball. It was the one at which another YC by the name of Small (!) lifted his kilt and bared all for the benefit of the eagerly waiting press.

How often do the CF brigade scoop the front pages as he did?

Happy days!

Pip!Pip!

[Sean Fear]

You're memory is at fault, Wallenstein. The precise words uttered by the YC in question were "Major is a c***."

[Wallenstein]

Thank you Sean. I stand corrected.

I heard afterwards that the YC in question was (disgracefully)threatened with expulsion by his association Chairman.

He simply procrastinated, let his sub expire, and then signed up with a friendly neighbouring association.

We need to restore that kind of local independence.

[Jack Stone]

Ex Prime Miniters like John Major should be treated with respect even if you disagree with them not talked about as being evil which is quite ridiculous.
The right-wingers intolerance of anyone who disagrees with them on this site is outrageous and doesn`t do the reputaton of the Conservative Party any good whatsoever.

[Wallenstein]

Are you actually a member of the party, Jack?

The Conservative Party, that is.

[Hoots]

"Let's not trash the Major years"

Justin Hinchcliffe aka Toryboy. What was your attack on pensioners which got you suspended from the party. Can I read it somewhere.

Sounds very extreme right wing to me

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

"The right-wingers intolerance of anyone who disagrees with them on this site is outrageous and doesn`t do the reputaton of the Conservative Party any good whatsoever."

I agree with you Jack, but you should heed that advice yourself as well sometimes.

[Wallenstein]

That's right Dan. You tell him

The sad old buffer could probably do with a warm cup of cocoa, or maybe a nice spliff would cheer him up.

[Jamie Douglas]

I wonder if the people who are so busy trashing the party as it was during the Major years would have prefered a Labour government instead?

[Wallenstein]

No actually Jamie we would have preferred a Thatcher governement.

Which is what we had before the Wets and the rest of the traitorous raffle-taggle stabbed our great leader in the back.

I see Cameron as Major Mk II.

And just as useless.

[Editor]

Your personal attacks Wallenstein are very unattractive. If you cannot make constructive contributions to this site I will start deleting your entries and I will ban your IP address.

[James Maskell]

Having read Majors autobiography I have some sympathy with some of the positions he took (and before reading it I had a completely different view on Major). Im also pretty sure that Major isnt like Cameron politically speaking. They are completely different.

[Jamie Douglas]

Had Thatcher continued, Wallenstein, we would have lost the 1992 election.

Thatcher did a lot of things that needed to be done, but seriously lost direction at the end of her reign.

The poll tax, for instance, was a disaster for the party in Scotland, and its legacy still haunts the party north of the border even now, over 16 years on.

I really really REALLY wish that half the party would stop viewing Thatcher as a demi-god, stop harking back to the 80's, and realise that the country, it's people, and politics in general are all completely different now and as such require a new and revised slant on our shared values.

[Chad]

It's interesting, that in Cameron's Heir-To-Blair strategy, B2L and it's 92% approval spookily echoes exactly 10 years ago with Blair's 95% vote approval for his "New Labour, New Life" agenda.

However, there was a big difference though; the number of people who returned the 1996 ballot was very close to the current total number of members of the Tory Party, around 230,000

Turn out was 60%+ compared to just 25% for B2L. Blair certainly had the backing of his party, whereas just 10 months after coming to office, barely a quarter of the party could be arsed to endorse their new leader's agenda.

I'd say that doesn't bode well.

In fact I wonder what odds there are for Davis to be the next Tory PM (not next time, but the time after)

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Editor, you have to decide what this site is for and what you hope to achieve from it. At the moment, you’re just entertaining a number of 'trolls' from other parties and nutty members. All the attacks are on the Cameron Leadership; this site has to potential to be very damaging for the Party.

[Editor]

There are, of course, some trolls etc visiting this site, Justin, but I know a lot of the people who make critical comments and they are fully-paid up Tories.

I know that uber-loyalists to Team Cameron would like to believe that noone could possibly question the wisdom of The Project but my experience of the grassroots is that many increasingly do.

[Andrew Woodman]

Justin, what do you object to in this report? All Tim has done is report the numbers. Yes trolls will come on, but it's up to members to see them off with their arguments. This site and blogs like it are one of the party's best assets. If free speech wasn't allowed, then it would be seen as a spinning tool. Do we really want to follow the authoritian route of the Labour party and ban free speech within the party?

[Ben Redsell]

I don't understand why anyone is surprised by the slight fall in membership. I have attended three funerals in the last month for good active Conservative members of my branch alone. A drop in numbers of this size is statistically insignificant, indeed it probably shows the health of the party that nine months on from the Leadership ballot the membership has only just shrunk, and will again climb when the main membership campaigns are run in January and February...

[Monday Clubber]

"I don't understand why anyone is surprised by the slight fall in membership. I have attended three funerals in the last month for good active Conservative members of my branch alone."

I agree Ben, but the reason for the interest is that it has been repeatedly and excitedly suggested that the election of David Cameron brought a huge influx of new members. In fact this doesn't appear to be the case, so part of the "Cameron myth" has taken a dent.

In my fairly long experience every new leader has brought some new members, although most are probably rejoining after disillusionment with the previous regime.

To suppose that Cameron or anybody else could have some "super" effect is, to my mind, to misunderstand the extent to which the general public have now totally lost interest in party politics.

I see that The Times has covered the membership drop. Apologies if this item has been posted elsewhere.

Cameron party members blow
By Anthony Browne

David Cameron’s leadership of the Conservative Party suffered a setback after it emerged that membership has dropped by more than 6,000 since he took over.

A ballot on a new mission statement, called Built to Last, suggested that there were 247,394 party activists eligible to vote — 6,295 fewer than when Mr Cameron took over in December. He had claimed to have boosted membership.

[James Hellyer]

At the moment, you’re just entertaining a number of 'trolls' from other parties and nutty members.

Justin, I'd like to introduce you to Irony.

[James Maskell]

Ben, I seriously doubt that the membership will rise in January and February due to increased membership rates. 25 quid is a lot of money. The membership survey was extremely biased to the point of telling you which option to go for.

[Geoff]

At the moment, you’re just entertaining a number of 'trolls' from other parties and nutty members.

Justin, I'd like to introduce you to Irony.

Yes, my shirt is creased today too. I must hit the maid more often.

[Chad]

Ben wrote:
"I don't understand why anyone is surprised by the slight fall in membership"

Cameron said:
"We’ve signed up 20,000 new members – at a time when other parties are losing support."

Ben, do you mean we should not be surprised that Cameron's statement was misleading?

I challenge anyone to show that statement from Cameron to the man in the street and ask them whether that suggests Tory Party membership is increasing or decreasing.

It is clearly a deliberately misleading statement. Not a lie, as it takes into account the new signups whilst ignoring the non-renewals etc, but clearly, very, very, misleading.

[Monday Clubber]

Chad I'm a bit semi-detached from my old association now but I saw a continuing decline in membership even during the Thatcher years when the party had a "strong" image.

When I was an officer of the association I always did my best to help new members to fit in but the membership profile is now so advanced in age that it must be very difficult to achieve this nowadays, particularly if new members have unrealistic expectations of the party which, I'm afraid, has been increasingly encouraged lately.

I've noticed at election counts that extremist parties like the BNP who have a glib, simple answer to everything seem to attract younger people. In today's violent, selfish society that's hardly surprising.

The death of the Young Conservatives is probably one of the greatest blows the party has suffered in recent years.