Year 2(10): Establish a northern HQ

Recommendation 10: The Conservative Party needs a powerful campaigns and policy centre in the north of England - perhaps Leeds.  Functions from CCHQ that do not need to be in London should migrate there.  The northern HQ should coordinate regional media and be headed up by a charismatic, political figure.  It should have the special task of recruiting talented new candidates and developing policies for urban Britain.  It mustn't be just a campaigns centre but a genuine home for thinking about the challenges of England's northern cities and local governments.

The final two recommendations will be posted tomorrow.

Comments

[HF]

Exactly what is needed.

[UK Daily Pundit]

Leeds!

[Geoffrey G Brooking]

Good idea.

[TomTom]

"Conservative Party - North"

[Cllr Iain Lindley]

I think Manchester would be a more appropriate base, to be honest.

[Editor]

Why, Iain?

[Richard Carey]

I think there's a lot of mileage in this, and not just in a single northern England campaign centre.

The campaign centres that have been established by groupings or federations to service a particular area might provide a guide. However, I wonder about using "area campaign centres" to devolve services down from CCHQ, rather than up from Associations (sounds familiar in policy terms, doesn't it?).

I'm interested by the arguments for and against this - there must be an optimal balance between pushing services and professionals into easy reach of field campaigns, and duplicating services previously located centrally.

We obviously need a Westminster base, but, similarly to my views on Party funding where I'd like to see us able to raise and spend a greater proportion of money locally, I think we are going to see an increasing need to support more local campaigning to a higher level.

[Cllr Iain Lindley]

Richard - there are already regional campaign centres in place. The North-West Campaign Centre is in Salford.

Tim - I think Manchester would send out a positive message about reconnecting the Conservative Party with areas in the north that we have deserted. It's the principle city in the north of England and is more central and has better transport links than Liverpool and Newcastle.

[Richard Carey]

The North-West Campaign Centre is in Salford.

Indeed, Iain, I think that might have been the example that originally set me thinking about this when I went to a presentation we were given by Jeremy Middleton at our Area Conference. It strikes me as the level to which we should be pushing as much resource as we can manage.

[matt wright]

Support this idea,

Matt

[TomTom]

It's the principle city in the north of England

Apart from mis-spelling principal I do not think Manchester is the city in the North - very few people in Leeds or Newcastle think so. It is further not at all central being an adjunct of Merseyside.

The Conservatives have many more seats around Manchester than they do around Leeds.............

[Tory Loyalist]

It's the principle city in the north of England and is more central and has better transport links than Liverpool and Newcastle.
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Better put Councillor Lindley in charge of this project. With forward-looking attitudes like these the party will get off to a cracking start in its exciting bid to woo the racist riff-raff north of Watford.

As all Londoners know, Scousers, Geordies and of course the denizens of cities unfortunate enough to be located in the benighted county of Yorkshire look up with awe and wonder to Manchester as a shining centre of fashion and enlightenment.

Mr Lindley also provides a valuable insight on the curiously asymmetrical Cameroon concept of "centre"

[ToMTom]

f to a cracking start in its exciting bid to woo the racist riff-raff north of Watford.

Good to know how Tory Loyalist views the bulk of Britain's population

[Tory Loyalist]

Clearly irony is not your strong suit TomTom

[ToMTom]

Clearly irony is not your strong suit TomTom

Seen it done much better.............but at least now I know

[Derek Buxton]

Interesting idea, just one problem "Dave" only knows Central Office, he'll be lost outside the North Circular Road. Anyway all decisions are taken by Central Office so why worry about anywhere else. Why did someone mention a regional office? "Dave" banned all EU talk didn't he.

[TomTom]

Why did someone mention a regional office? "Dave" banned all EU talk didn't he.

Not "regional" - Co-Equal.

The Church of England has an Archbisop in Canterbury and one in York..........they each have their own Archdiocese.

[Iain Murray]

Leeds? Manchester? Bloody Southerners.

South Shields. Let Miliband tremble.

[TomTom]

South Shields

Too near Scotland - they'd be kidnapped

[Editor]

Very funny, TomTom!

[Tory Loyalist]

Seen it done much better.............but at least now I know
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Given the metrocentric ravings regularly posted here by the Cameroon clique, your confusion is understandable.

[Goldie]

Excellent idea.

[John Moss]

I've long thought that regional campaign centres could offer a great service to constituencies where, say a dozen or more, club together to fund a full-on printing centre, (retiring all those wheezy Risographs), 5-10 desk call centre and a training suite.

We probably need one for each region the party currently has RCDs for and they could provide a base for the constituencies to come together and work together for the greater good of the party....... Ah. Now I see why it would never work.

[Richard Carey]

Agreed, John - I would see this as a good structure too, and we should have it, but while it delivers extremely good results in many e.g. metropolitan areas with a high density of constituencies it is a tough sell in sparser, more rural areas such as mine in Lincolnshire to get Associations to sign up to that.

Part of the reason is actually pretty practical - geography and less adequate transport links make such a centre, rightly or wrongly seem remote to many.

Another option to support this, raised by a colleague of mine a while ago, was to employ additional, "flying" professionals in such areas who could both support Campaign Directors in target seats and work on specific campaigning projects and local by-elections in other seats, mainly out of the existing network of Association offices. The post(s) could be answerable to Area and would have to be jointly funded by constituencies.

It's surely an idea worth revisiting in light of this thread.

[John Irvine]

We had an area Conservative Office for years with a paid agent deputy and lots of staff.

One of the Central Office Agents was a great personal friend of mine and he worked very hard,

A few years ago the Party closed down the office and sacked the staff.

[Richard Carey]

John Irvine:A few years ago the Party closed down the office and sacked the staff.

I quite agree with you on this, John.

I think the way in which the Party has treated it's professional staff in this regard in the past has been pretty poor in places and it has been to the detriment of us all.

I was pleased to hear Francis Maude on his latest Tory Radio interview say that as part of reforming CCHQ they have taken on staff with real HR experience to ensure that the Party is a better employer.

I undertstand the need to take difficult choices to control costs in leaner times, but I do think it's a genuinely false economy for the Party to lose field professionals who support campaigning. This has to be taken as an action of absolute last resort. It's a case of the short-term being the enemy of the long-term.

[Tory Loyalist]

Francis Maude...as part of reforming CCHQ ...taken on staff with real HR experience to ensure that the Party is a better employer.
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Something of a contradiction in terms, I would say.

Incomprehensible to most of us when it first appeared, the warning contained in the 1960s TV series "The Prisoner" has become ever more relevant as we continue to become numbers rather than names in our tightly controlled, unfree, society.

A milestone along that route was the conversion of personnel departments into businessspeak infested "Human Resources Departments".

It's a title which calls to mind those fabled German body factories of WW1, which supposedly converted war dead into axle grease.

HR "practitioners" justify adding a zero to their salaries by inventing 1001 new ways of saying "You're fired!"

Should appeal to Ole Snake Eyes.

[Richard Carey]

Thanks for that helpful contribution, TL!

With all the experience you say you have in the Party, do you have any constructive suggestions on providing better campaign support to constituencies and realistic solutions to getting more professional staff in the field?

It might belp apply a little "axle-grease" to the workings of the Party, so to speak...