ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

CPS to rule tomorrow on the Damian Green case

Sky News are reporting that tomorrow the Crown Prosecution Service is to announce its decision on whether to proceed with a case following the arrest of shadow immigration minister Damian Green last November.

A decision is expected to be made public at 11am.

Mr Green was arrested and his house and Commons office searched (without a warrant, lest we forget) as the police investigated leaks from the Home Office, reportedly coming from a civil servant, Christopher Galley, who had met with Damian Green on various occasions and passed on information which he felt was in the public interest.

As long ago as mid-December it was being reported that the case was set to be dropped, but there is at present no indication of what the CPS decision tomorrow will be.

The ConservativeHome view remains that Mr Green was acting in the public interest and the sooner this cloud no longer hangs over him, the better.

Jonathan Isaby

George Osborne: Brown should say sorry

Nadine Dorries has made clear her views about being a subject of the planned Labour smear operation and Gordon Brown's reaction to it over the last few days, as did David Cameron yesterday.

The other named Conservative who was a subject of the McBride emails, George Osborne, has now broken his silence.

He has seen a copy of Gordon Brown's letter of regret but has told one of his local papers, the Northwich Guardian that the Prime Minister should say sorry:  

“It’s up to him what he does. I think he should say sorry.”

Mr Osborne explained that he had been spending the Easter break with his family in his Tatton constituency.

“You have to try and learn to ignore these things. We were enjoying an Easter break with our kids... I hope people can see this for what it is... I want to show that politics isn’t like this.”

Jonathan Isaby

The Cabinet Secretary replies to Francis Maude's letter on "Smear-gate"

Yesterday, shadow Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude wrote this letter to Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell asking a number of questions raised by the Damian McBride "Smear-gate" affair.

I am seeking a full text of the letter. The full text of the scanned letter is at the bottom of this post, but fails to give direct answers to a number of the questions posed by Francis Maude. I imagine there is still mileage in pursuing answers through parliamentary questions and FoI requests.

The BBC has reported some excerpts:

Has the the "Tory toff" attack line now been removed from Labour's arsenal for good?

Labour's painting of the Conservatives as "Tory Toffs" spectacularly backfired at the Crewe and Nantwich by-election last year.

Yet just last week - pre-"Smeargate" - there was speculation that Labour was planning a series of attacks for the general election campaign which would depict David Cameron and George Osborne as "rich toffs who haven’t a clue how ordinary voters live".

Such a strategy was questioned by The Spectator's Peter Hoskin on the grounds Labour ministers claiming tens of thousands of pounds in second home allowances (in some cases when they already enjoyed a third grace-and-favour home courtesy of the taxpayer) could just as easily be shown to be out of touch with "ordinary voters".

But in the light of the events of the last five days, Iain Martin at the Daily Telegraph reckons that such a line of attack on well-heeled Conservative politicians is "at least blunted, and possibly decommissioned" because the Tories (and the media for that matter) could claim that it was a return to the discredited McBride school of political strategy:

"Carefully handled, the 'aloof out of touch Tories' tag had serious potential and the Cameroons know it. Now every time a Labour person steers in that direction, the Conservatives can shake their heads and say to the public: 'look, same old Labour dirty tricks and personal attacks'."

He adds that, in his view, there is an irony, since claiming that the Conservatives don't understand voters' concerns could be "very powerful" if a Cameron Government were forced to make unpopular spending cuts.

Do you think that the public or the media would let Labour get away with deploying the "Tory Toff" attack in the future - and would they take notice even if they did?

Or will it just be Kevin Maguire and the class warriors at the Daily Mirror who desperately continue to pursue that line?

Jonathan Isaby

Francis Maude asks eight questions of the Cabinet Secretary

Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude MP, has written a letter to the Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell asking eight questions relating to the Damian McBride revelations.  The letter is published in full below:

Another Labour scandal is the persistence of NHS superbugs

Tory MP Nigel Evans has written an article - at the same time moving and disturbing -  for The Daily Mail about the death of his mother in an NHS hospital:

"The last, harrowing moments of my mother's life will live for ever in the collective memory of my family. An 86-year-old lady of infinite grace and dignity, she had the most agonising of deaths.  Lying bewildered and distressed in an NHS hospital bed, her body racked with pain, she kept desperately grabbing at the air with her hands as if she was drowning, while all the time being violently ill...

The reasons for her ordeal can, I believe, be found in a mixture of neglect, incompetence and indifference shown by the NHS. For my mother died of the notorious superbug Clostridium difficile, known as C.diff, which she must have contracted while undergoing hospital treatment in Swansea. If she had been cared for properly, if the ward had been cleaner or greater urgency had been shown in handling her case, then this tragedy might never have happened.  The NHS is often a saviour, but it can also be a killer. What happened to my mother is all too common in the health service. There were 8,324 deaths from C.diff in 2007, with most of the victims elderly people.

That statistic is too high for a 21stcentury healthcare system in an advanced industrialised country. Moreover, an estimated 59,000 people in this country are disabled or die because of poor hygiene or care in our hospitals.  Even the essentials, such as providing patients with sufficient fluids or cleaning bathrooms properly, are neglected. That is why I am campaigning for drastic improvements in the basics of healthcare in the NHS, so deaths from C.diff and other superbugs can be eliminated."

Read the full piece here.

Tim Montgomerie

And 'smeargate' still has legs on its fourth day...

Downing Street will be furious that Guido Fawkes' huge scoop - that started to emerge on Saturday - has still not been closed down.  It is still leading this morning's broadcast bulletins and newspapers.  Any advantage that Brown may have hoped to gain from the G20 summit has been sunk in Damian McBride's sludge of smears.

There are still legs in the story, too.  Here are the unresolved issues:

1. The inadequacy of Gordon Brown's letters: Yesterday, just before 5pm, the news broke that Brown was to issue letters of apology but it now seems that the content of the letters fell short of what was spun.  The Prime Minister's letters described the whole affair as a "matter of deep regret" but they haven't gone far enough according to Tory sources.  As Iain Dale told Sky News: "Tony Blair would have held his hands up, said sorry, and we would all have thought better of him for doing it."
2. The position of Derek Draper: The editor of LabourList is still in place. Over the weekend he was defending Damian McBride. John Prescott has called for him to go and today's FT reports that senior Labour figures now intend to give the website a very wide berth: "“You won’t be seeing any of them going near it again,” said a Labour figure."
3. The position of Tom Watson: The Sun urges the Prime Minister to sack the "poisonous" Tom Watson MP - currently a Cabinet Offioce minister - who plotted against Tony Blair and who has a reputation as a "ruthless political hardman".  Watson, The Sun Says, "is a stain on the Prime Minister’s judgment and his government’s credibility."
4. A new line of complaint from Frances Osborne: The Shadow Chancellor's wife - one of Mr McBride's targets - has, reports The Telegraph, complained to the Press Complaints Commission about the ways in which certain newspapers repeated the fabricated stories against her.

Tim Montgomerie

Boris says Labour has lost the moral authority to govern

Boris Johnson on McBride:

"This McBride has been in charge, since September, of government strategy. He is meant to be coming up with ways of helping people through the recession. And what do we have? A load of pathetic and invented smears, with McBride egging on the blogs to mount false attacks not just on MPs but on their wives. It is contemptible, and it is a function of the bunker-like desperation in which the Prime Minister and his allies now find themselves. In their relentless, brutal, tribal viciousness they are no longer interested in doing good for the country, but only in doing down their opponents. They have lost their moral case to govern the country. They must go."

Brown to write letters of personal apology to the targets of McBride's smears

The BBC also reports that the Prime Minister has requested that the code of conduct for advisers be tightened up to prevent any similar incident.

Nadine Dorries MP, one of the Tories targeted by Damian McBride's smear operation, told the Radio 4 PM programme that she would be pleased to receive a letter of apology from Gordon Brown but talk of revising the code of conduct governing advisers was just more spin.  What most needed to be done was implementation of the existing code.

Nadine Dorries - who, with Chris Grayling, has been leading on 'smeargate' in the media for the Conservatives - is right.  It's not the letter of the code that is the key problem.  It's the culture of New Labour.  The personal attacks began in opposition when John Major's government was subject to a massive onslaught... continued throughout the Blair years against all critics... characterised the briefings by Brownites against Blair... and culminated in this latest episode.  One gets the feeling that Mr Brown is sorry but sorry for being found out rather than for any hurt his operation has caused.

Tim Montgomerie

The winners and losers from Fawkes v McBride

LOSER: GORDON BROWN
The Prime Minister cannot escape responsibility for the McBride emails.  As Jonathan blogged yesterday, the politics of spin and smear aren't a bolt on extra to the Brown-Blair years but have been in their DNA.  In The Sun Trevor Kavanagh blames McBride's master for his behaviour: "There's no such thing as a badly behaved dog — only a badly trained dog.  Damian “Mad Dog” McBride was bred to kill. And he was obedient to one master — Gordon Brown. McBride, alias “McPoison”, was recruited from the Treasury by the then Chancellor, who was impressed by his natural aggression. The PM likes to be seen as a bookish intellectual, a Son of the Manse devoted to “the right thing”. In fact he spends more of his remorseless energy plotting against perceived enemies — Labour and Tory — than on making Britain great again."

WINNER: GUIDO FAWKES
He's not everyone's cup of tea and Ridley Grove warns the Right against getting too close to him but Guido has undoubtedly masterminded Britain's biggest new media coup.  We may never know how he got hold of the incriminating emails but he cleverly maximised their impact.  He sat on them for a period and then with all the cunning of a great military strategist released them over the usually quiet Easter weekend, after teasing the world about their content and then using the biggest Sunday newspapers to expose the dark heart of Brown's Downing Street.

LOSER: POLITICS
The events of the weekend have, of course, caused most damage to Labour but coming on top of public fury at MPs' use of expenses they will have contributed to the sense that politics in Britain is fundamentally broken.

WINNER: TOM HARRIS MP AND LABOURHOME
There were a number of Labour bloggers who quickly distanced themselves from Derek Draper and Damian McBride but two stand out.  Tom Harris MP and LabourHome's Alex Hilton.  Tom Harris wrote: "We screwed up, big time. We have no-one — absolutely no-one at all — to blame for this but ourselves. The damage the Labour Party and the government have sustained this last 24 hours has been entirely self-inflicted. And the people behind this sordid little mess owe everyone named in these emails a very public apology."  LabourHome also quickly called on Downing Street to fire its attack dogs. 

LOSER: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH'S POLITICAL TEAM
Cheekily using The Telegraph's own website Guido has accused The Telegraph of betraying sources, breaking confidences and even breaching a signed non-disclosure agreement.  Its Saturday front page story seemed to be an exercise in damage limitation by Downing Street and Damian McBride.

AND WAS THE BLOGOSPHERE AN OVERALL WINNER OR LOSER?
As well as proving that the blogosphere is now a force in UK politics there's a danger that the weekend also confirms the view of many that the blogosphere is a place of gossip and tittle-tattle.  Believing that all blogs are the same is like saying all magazines or newspapers or television programmes are the same.  Blogs are as different from each other as Nuts is different from The Economist.  As well as gossip the blogosphere is also home to intelligence that shames the old media.  UK Polling Report, for example, provides a Rolls Royce guide to opinion polls.  Slugger O'Toole offers indispensable commentary on Northern Ireland.  And for military strategy Defence of the Realm is unmissable.

Tim Montgomerie

Pressure builds on Brown to apologise for the McBride affair - and just what did Tom Watson know about it?

It has now been 24 hours since shadow home secretary Chris Grayling first demanded an explanation from Gordon Brown about the McBride affair, which became a fully-blown demand for an apology once the extent of the content of the emails was known.

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague has now weighed in, reiterating the call for an apology from Brown an a full inquiry, and wanting a promise that Damian McBride will not be allowed to return in a similar post in the future..

He told Sky News:

"We need a thorough investigation into exactly who knew what and whether there was a systematic attempt to smear the opposition."

Through his spokesman, David Cameron - said to be "absolutely furious" - has also echoed those sentiments.

And yet there is still silence from Downing Street.

How long before Gordon Brown is forced to issue a statement and/or face a camera to apologise and give that explanation?

Meanwhile, Harwich MP Douglas Carswell is on the case of Tom Watson, the Cabinet Office minister who was said to have been copied in on some of the emails. Mr Carswell wants to know from Watson the extent of his knowledge of the project McBride was working on and whether he at any stage sought to discourage him from pursuing it.

Mr Watson is, of course, Minister for the Civil Service and ought to have been well-versed in precisely what Mr McBride should and shouldn't have been doing.

Update:

According to the BBC:

Mr Watson said he had known nothing of the "completely inappropriate" messages and had no involvement in discussions to create the Red Rag site.

"The first I was aware of the e-mail conversation that led to Damian McBride's resignation was when these were made known to Downing Street by national newspapers who had been given them by Paul Staines," he said.

Jonathan Isaby

Damian McBride's emails are symptomatic of this Labour administration's history of character assassination

No surprise that one political story dominates today's newspapers and that is the resignation of Damian McBride as political and communications adviser to Gordon Brown.

After some impressive groundwork from Guido Fawkes, who brought the story to the attention of the mainstream media, it  became apparent that civil servant Mr McBride had written emails from his Downing Street office, during working hours, paid for by the taxpayer, using his government email address, which made a series of shameful smears against various Opposition politicians.

A statement issued yesterday indicated that Gordon Brown took the view that there was "no place in politics" for the dissemination of the kind of material with which Mr McBride was involved.

If only it were that simple for the Prime Minister to draw a line under the activities of one individual and claim that it was an isolated incident.

Labour came to office in 1997 on the back of crying sleaze against John Major's Government at every opportunity. Yet what we have seen from them in power amounts to a culture of spin and obsession with trampling its opponents which amounts to sleaze of the very worst kind.

The truth is that the McBride emails are by no means the first time that we have seen poisonous character assassination of those who were not signed up to the Labour agenda - be they people who exposed government shortcomings, political opponents, or even fellow Labour figures who fell out of favour.

Chris Grayling says Gordon Brown has questions to answer over McBride as the News of the World prepares to publish McBride's emails

Following Damian McBride's resignation late this afternoon, a Downing Street spokesman made the following statement:

"The Prime Minister has accepted Mr McBride's resignation. Neither the Prime Minister, nor anybody else in Downing St, had knowledge of these emails. It is the Prime Minister's view that there is no place in politics for the dissemination or publication of material of this kind, which is why it is right that Mr McBride and Mr Draper took the decision not to publish this material and regrettable that others are choosing to do so."

But as far as Chris Grayling - shadow home secretary and the senior Conservative attack dog - is concerned, the matter is far from over. He immediately issued a statement in which he demanded an explanation of events from Gordon Brown:

"This whole episode has been quite disgraceful. This resignation is a clear admission that Gordon Brown's team at Number 10 were involved in a deliberate attempt to spread unpleasant false rumours about opposition politicians. Gordon Brown needs to provide a clear explanation about what happened and who else was involved."

Appearing on Sky News a short while ago, Mr Grayling reiterated these points, demanding a "proper investigation" and a "full and proper explanation" from the Prime Minister as to who else in Downing Street was involved and who else knew about the emails.

He added that he regarded the above Downing Street statement as "dismissive" and that the affair was more serious than a storm in a teacup, involving as it did a "structured attempt" to put out scurrilous rumours about Opposition politicians coming from "the heart of Gordon Brown's communications centre".

Meanwhile, the News of the World has confirmed that it will tomorrow reveal the "sensational" details contained in Damian McBride's emails and show that the plan to smear a number of senior Tories was "far more sophisticated than McBride or Draper have claimed and was close to completion."

According to the News of the World, the emails "show McBride and Draper schemed to spread false malicious stories that:

• Opposition leader David Cameron had an embarrassing illness
• Shadow Chancellor George Osborne's wife was "emotionally fragile" just because she appeared upset at parties
• A Tory MP used his position to get publicity for lover’s business
• Involved allegations about female Tory MP Nadine Dorries and another named MP."

Jonathan Isaby 

Damian McBride has resigned

Many congratulations to Guido Fawkes.

The Prime Minister has apparently said that there is no place in politics for dissemination or publication of material of this kind but he has presided over a staff team long associated with these smear tactics.  We'll get the grisly details in the Sunday newspapers and they will be grisly.

Derek Draper was just on Sky News trying to suggest that (alleged) hacking into his email system is the real issue.  He is defending McBride as a good servant of the Labour Party.  Extraordinary.

Tim Montgomerie

6.30pm update: Damian McBride has released the following resignation statement:

"I am shocked and appalled that, however they were obtained, these e-mails have been put into the public domain by Paul Staines. When Derek Draper originally suggested using a website to compete with the kind of material seen regularly on the Guido Fawkes blog, he asked me in a personal capacity to write up some of the stories doing the rounds in Westminster.

"Derek and I decided in the end that this website was the wrong thing to do, and that Derek should not take his online efforts down to the level of Guido Fawkes and his Tory backers. I have already apologised for the inappropriate and juvenile content of my e-mails, and the offence they have caused, but I did not want these stories in the public domain - it is because Paul Staines has put them there, and I am sickened that he has done so.

"However, we all know that when a backroom adviser becomes the story, their position becomes untenable, so I have willingly offered my resignation. It has been an absolute privilege to work for Gordon Brown and the Labour government in the Treasury and in Downing Street, they will always have my full support, and I regret any embarrassment I have caused them."

What is remarkable is that his prime concern appears to be that the emails reached the public domain, rather than concentrating on a showing a little contrition for the fact that they were written in the first place.

Jonathan Isaby

How the Conservative machine plans to win power for David Cameron

Peter Oborne writes today that a Tory victory is far from certain.  He does not believe that there is yet a groundswell of support for David Cameron in the way there was for Tony Blair in the mid-1990s.  He also thinks that the views of many Tories on, for example, fox hunting and the NHS - as expounded this week by Edward Garnier MP and Dan Hannan MEP - could yet frighten voters.

But The Telegraph suggests that current polling in marginal seats - where the party leads by 14% - points to a big Conservative victory.  The marginal seats data is part of a major Telegraph feature that profiles key elements of the Tory plan to ensure that victory IS delivered:

Framing the election as a choice between David Cameron and Gordon Brown: CCHQ is very confident that David Cameron is a huge political asset for the party.  "The election will be all about David v Gordon [Brown], Cameron will be plastered over everything we do," a source tells The Telegraph: "Not since the focus on Margaret Thatcher will you see a Conservative campaign so focused on one person."

A focus on middle-of-the-road swing voters: Citing the decision to return Ken Clarke to the frontbench and to accept Labour's 45p tax band The Telegraph quotes a strategist as saying "there is no point in focussing on immigration, Europe and other traditional right-wing areas as it will no longer attract voters as they are already on side. But it might put some voters off."

A focus on the three big issues of healthcare, education and the economy.

Different campaigns for different seats: As already revealed by ConservativeHome the party is not just focusing on geographical clusters of marginal seats but also on "seaside towns" and "new towns", for example.  Each cluster receives a different style of literature and a different messages are emphasised.

A capacity for immediate rebuttal: "In Coleshill in the West Midlands, a rapid response unit has been established with its own printing facility. It is able to immediately print "rebuttal" leaflets which can be delivered within hours. This was trialled with devastating effect when the Lib Dems attempted a dirty trick in last year's Henley by-election. If Labour airs a damaging political broadcast, the Conservatives should be able to have a leaflet rebutting the claims on doormats before breakfast the following morning."

The Conservative's "electoral board" meets once a week to discuss tactics. Chaired by George Osborne, the board also includes Andy Coulson; Stephen Gilbert, the chief of Lord Ashcroft's polling and seats operation; and Ed Llewellyn, David Cameron's chief-of-staff.

Tim Montgomerie

Downing Street's smear operation against senior Tories set to be exposed

I suggest you keep a close eye on Guido Fawkes' blog this weekend.  Guido alleges that a Downing Street operation, co-ordinated by Damian McBride - the Prime Minister's political and press adviser - has attempted to smear Conservative MPs, including George Osborne (and possibly David Cameron himself).  Iain Dale describes the operation as "Nixonian".  In a pre-emptive rebuttal Downing Street is trying to suggest that only McBride was involved.  A spokesman for Number 10 told the BBC:

"Neither the prime minister nor anybody else in Downing Street, except the author, knew anything about any of these private emails. The author of these emails has apologised for their juvenile and inappropriate nature and for the embarrassment caused. All staff will be reminded of the appropriate use of Number 10 resources."

Not so says Guido.  He blogs that a "government minister" was also involved and, of course, LabourList's Derek Draper.  It is all completely believable.  For years the team around Gordon Brown briefed heavily against Tony Blair.  That Downing Street is still pursuing the politics of character assassination is all too plausible.  If the Sunday newspapers reveal the full nature of the "juvenile and inappropriate" emails from within Downing Street it is difficult to see the key players keeping their jobs.

Tim Montgomerie

The medicine manifesto

Last Wednesday I asked for ideas for unpopular policies that (a) Britain needed and (b) might, through their authenticity, cause a paradoxical increase in popularity.  I've repeated my three unpopular policy suggestions in the list below and have added seven ideas from the comments threads to produce what I've dubbed 'The medicine manifesto'.  Swallow the manifesto for five years and it should make Britain healthier...

Illness 1: Britain’s worst debt crisis.
Medicine: Years of public spending restraint including a few years of real cuts in the size of the state.

Illness 2: Hostility towards wealth creation.
Medicine: Opposition to populist measures like higher taxation of the rich that will ultimately damage the economy’s potential to create jobs.

Illness 3: Global terrorism.
Medicine: An increased commitment to Afghanistan so that the Taliban do not have the opportunity to harbour a new generation of al-Qaeda terrorist camps.

Illness 4: A human rights culture that defies common sense.
Medicine: Withdrawal from the ECHR.

Illness 5: A lack of economically-useful skills amongst the British population.
Medicine: Ending the 50% target for the proportion of the population going to university and pouring the savings into high quality apprenticeships and other forms of vocational education.

Illness 6: A police service that has lost the respect of middle England.
Medicine: Wholescale police reform and the direct election of police chiefs.

Illness 7: The lights are about to go out.
Medicine: The construction of twenty new nuclear power stations, in co-operation with France if necessary.

Illness 8: An expensive benefits and tax credit system that has introduced complexity but reduced incentives to work.
Medicine: Abolition of the tax credit system and all savings ploughed into higher income tax thresholds.

Illness 9: The growth of lifestyle illnesses including obesity.
Medicine: The NHS should charge people who call on medical help because of lifestyle choices.  The charge does not need to represent 100% of the cost of treatment.  In some cases the charge would be token.

Illness 10: A generation that doesn’t know anything about British history, can’t cook and doesn’t know what an APR is.
Medicine: Compulsory home economics, history and financial literacy education for all schoolchildren.

Tim Montgomerie

Chris Grayling has not sounded the death knell of "hug-a-hoodie"

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling gave this speech in Doncaster yesterday in which he called for a "war on antisocial behaviour", to be based on five central principles:

1. There have to be consequences for every act of antisocial behaviour;
2. Parents must not be allowed to abdicate responsibility for their children's behaviour;
3. A tougher approach to bad behaviour in schools must teach children the difference between right and wrong;
4. Adults encouraging children to be irresponsible - by selling them drugs or alcohol for example - must be dealt with effectively; and
5. Youth engagement in society must be ensured, not least through support for the voluntary sector groups delivering that process of engagement.

Mr Grayling spoke about his desire to see "an effective punishment every time young people do step out of line" and he added that he wanted "instant community punishments for serious acts of antisocial behaviour".

The speech has been written up by the Times's Sam Coates as a repudiation of David Cameron's so-called "hug-a-hoodie" speech of three years ago:

"The speech marked a final break for the Conservatives from Mr Cameron's initial youth crime strategy, which called for greater understanding of hoodie-wearing teenagers. In July 2006, the Tory leader told the Centre for Social Justice that young people needed 'a lot more love'. Mr Cameron added: 'So, when you see a child walking down the road, hoodie up, head down, moody, swaggering, dominating the pavement - think what has brought that child to that moment'."

But I would contest that Sam Coates' analysis is entirely wrong: "hug-a-hoodie" was never about letting youth crime go unchecked, but rather seeking to address the social problems such as family breakdown, illiteracy and unemployment which are the context for such crime taking place.

Indeed, as Chris Grayling said himself in the same speech yesterday:

"Family breakdown, addiction, benefit dependency, educational failure all play a part. Changing what we have called the broken society will be a long and difficult process."

Jonathan Isaby

The Conservative Party will not walk by on the other side

Lots of commenters were unhappy at yesterday's remarks by George Osborne about libertarianism.  Over at CentreRight Iain Murray posted an eloquent defence of libertarianism.  It was probably unfortunate that Mr Osborne chose to use the term libertarianism but he was trying to do something important.  There is a long-standing impression out there that the Conservative Party is the party that leaves people alone when they fall behind.  It's an unfair characterisation of the Conservative Party (and, for that matter, libertarianism) and David Cameron (at last year's Party Conference) and George Osborne are determined to counter it.

People need to know that the Conservative Party is not a party that walks by on the other side when people are hurting.  That's a particularly important task during tough economic times.  The Tory leadership is determined to say that the party of Wilberforce, Shaftesbury and Disraeli will rally the so-called armies of compassion to help the vulnerable.  The compassionate carers of first resort should be families and charities and friendly societies (at which most libertarians would vigorously nod) but the state where necessary (less nodding).  One of my favourite (and under-used) David Cameron expressions is a commitment to build a nation of the second chance.

Fraser Nelson addresses this issue at Coffee House, reminding us that Margaret Thatcher also took great care to distance her policies from the more extreme laissez-faire ideas.

Tim Montgomerie

What is Thatcherism?

This morning's Today programme attempted a definition.

How would you define Thatcherism?

Try and keep it to no more than 100 words.

Will Sinn Féin sell its 'principles' for £500,000?

Yesterday I urged David Cameron to clear his diary and write his own solution to the crisis that threatens to destroy MPs' standing.  Mr Cameron's Northern Ireland spokesman Owen Paterson has given him one component of that solution: Sinn Féin MPs should end their boycott of Westminster and represent their constituents OR lose their taxpayer-funded allowances. They must be forced to abandon their 'principled' opposition to sitting in the House of Commons or they must abandon the UK taxpayers' allowances.

This morning's Daily Mail reported that "Sinn Fein MPs claim £500,000 of your money to pay for London flats (even though they never go to Parliament)."

Tim Montgomerie

Owen Paterson provides this information by way of background: "The issue of paying allowances to elected Members of Parliament who do not take their seats is not part of the Good Friday and St Andrews Agreements.  The issue was raised by Sinn Féin in 1997 with the then Speaker Betty Boothroyd, who refused permission on grounds that the House of Commons did not permit what she described as “associate membership”.  The Labour Government returned to this issue in 2001 and whilst the then leader of the House, Robin Cook, confirmed that this was a House of Commons matter, through the mechanism of a motion in Parliament, certain allowances were voted through by the Labour majority.  The then Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Quentin Davies, bitterly opposed this.  His successor, David Lidington, consistently stated his opposition saying that “Sinn Féin MPs should not be paid parliamentary salaries or be allowed to claim expenses while they refuse to take their seats in parliament.” The referendums in 1998 legitimised the current political arrangements. Meanwhile, Sinn Féin have dropped their policy of abstentionism in the Dáil and at Stormont."

Boris clamps down on fat cat pay and sets up his Mayor's Fund

Good juxtaposition of Boris stories on the London Evening Standard's website:

1. A clampdown on fat cat public sector pay that will see the pay of Transport for London chiefs frozen and their bonuses cut back:

2. The establishment of his Mayor's Fund that should see £20m going to good causes by 2013:

Tim Montgomerie

Osborne salutes "awe inspiring" achievements of capitalism

In another sign that the Conservative leadership is preparing itself (the public are already ready) for a change of policy on public spending George Osborne has just told a meeting of the Royal Society of Arts that "the politics of prosperity is giving way to the politics of austerity."  Expect to hear that "austerity" word on Tory politicians' lips a lot from now on.

The speech, laden with references to the latest fashions in economic thinking, included a strong rhetorical defence of capitalism.  Despite recent reverses Mr Osborne celebrated capitalism's world-changing achievements:

"Despite the scale and severity of this crisis, the economic contraction taking place will not undo the awe inspiring increases in living standards that open markets have facilitated in much of the world over the last thirty years. China’s market reforms that began in the early 1980s and India’s opening to trade at the beginning of the 1990s have done more to raise the living standards of more people than any other government policy in the history of the world."

To celebrate capitalism, however, does not mean a belief in anything-goes:

"We are a Conservative Party not a libertarian party. As both I and David Cameron have argued, Conservatives have always understood the limitations of free markets on their own. We understand that unless markets are embedded in strong institutions, laws and cultural norms they can become free-for-alls that are prone to instability and end up benefiting the powerful at the expense of the needy.  Indeed, many of the problems we face today have been exacerbated by the weakening of many of those institutions – not least the Bank of England."

Good stuff but on the 45p tax band, the anti-Tesco nonsenses of Red Toryism and loading business with expensive ideas of corporate responsibility Tory policy sends out confusing signals.

What unpopular things need to be said by the Tory leadership?

On his personal blog Jeremy Hunt MP reflected on the current anti-politician mood and wrote this:

"One of the reasons we are all considered to have our snouts in the trough is the perception that the government is acting purely from self-interested political motives (e.g. to win elections) and not being driven by a broader sense of mission as to what is right for the country... What will solve this? Only a government that deliberately does something unpopular which it knows will cost it votes but is none the less right for the country. Dealing with Britain's debt crisis perhaps?"

Jeremy is 100% right.  ConHome started a truth-telling award in February and honoured Boris Johnson for his remarks on public pensions but there aren't many other examples of politicians leading public opinion.  Even the Tories' opposition to oppose Labour's fiscal stimulus - certainly lonely and reasonably brave - was supported by a good measure of public opinion.

Here are three things I'd like the Tories to say (and then do) that will be unpopular:

1. Cut public spending. The scale of Brown's debt crisis makes this necessary and public opinion appears to support it but once the axe falls there will be huge resistance from trade unions and other vested interests.
2. Defend capitalism.  By capitalism I don't mean big business necessarily but the small businesses and inventors who will rebuild the British economy.  Defending them means opposing measures that will harm them.  A 45p tax rate, for example.
3. Putting more combat troops into Afghanistan. I suspect most readers agree with the other two of my unpopular measures but I guess not with this one.  For reasons outlined by David Cameron at last year's Party Conference ["If the Taliban come back, the terrorist training camps come back. That would mean more terrorists, more bombs and more slaughter on our streets. That is why we back our troops’ mission in Afghanistan one hundred per cent."] we can't afford to lose this first major battle of the war in terror but we are well on the way to losing it.  We need politicians who will tell a war-weary and inward-looking public that we cannot allow Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan to become failed states and havens for terrorists. And telling the public means telling them more than once and in imaginative, reassuring ways.

What are your unpopular things you would like the Tory leadership to say and do?

Tim Montgomerie

The candidates to be chairman of the National Conservative Convention differ on whether they would communicate with the grassroots through ConservativeHome

The three candidates standing to be chairman of the National Conservative Convention answered a first tranche of questions yesterday on candidate selection issues and a second tranche this morning on the role of members in the party conference and policy formation. Here they reply to a final selection of questions from ConservativeHome readers about how they would communicate with the grassroots, what to do about asset-rich wealthy associations, furthering the Conservative cause where the party has few elected representatives - and their principal goal if elected.

Many grassroots activists feel that they don't know enough about the National Conservative Convention and the work of the elected members of the Party Board on their behalf. As such, all candidates for the NCC chairmanship emphasise the need to communicate with the grassroots - and vice versa. But as to the suggestion of using ConservativeHome as a conduit for such communication, there is disagreement. Jeremy Middleton says "we should communicate through ConservativeHome" and Simon Mort says he would be "delighted to write regular reports for ConservativeHome"; Sir Graham Bright, however, is "unconvinced" by such a suggestion.

Below are their answers to that and the remaining questions we posed. The original post announcing their candidacies includes links to their websites and email addresses if you wish to take up any further issues personally.