ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Boris and Dave both seek to gain from the 'Obama effect'

Boris Johnson endorsed Hillary Clinton last year and has now backed Barack Obama according to today's Evening Standard.  London's Mayor is reported as saying: "John McCain has many, many wonderful qualities, but I think a Barack Obama victory would do fantastic things for the confidence and the feelings of black people around the world."

David Cameron has also sought to benefit from Senator Obama's massive popularity in the UK.  UK citizens that have been Googling 'Barack Obama' in recent days will have been presented with a Google ad for the video of the Tory leader meeting the Democrat nominee.  CCHQ won't tell us how much their Google ad campaign cost but insists that it is a "very cheap" campaign and has contributed to the more than 15,000 views of the video.  Advisers to the Tory leader expect Senator Obama to become the President and are preparing for a period of six years where they would both lead their respective nations - should both men secure election and re-election.

A recent survey found that up to a third of Tory MPs may be backing Barack Obama.  Liam Fox remains loyal to the Conservative Party's traditional ally, the GOP, however and will be leading a delegation to the Republican Convention in September.

Jonathan Isaby to join ConservativeHome from The Telegraph

Tim Montgomerie writes:

"I am delighted to announce that Jonathan Isaby will be joining ConservativeHome.  Jonathan was offered the post of co-editor yesterday by Stephan Shakespeare, ConservativeHome's publisher, and he has accepted.  164 applications were received to succeed Samuel Coates, who was recently appointed as a speechwriter to David Cameron.  Sam formally ceased to work for ConservativeHome last Saturday.  A start date for Jonathan has not yet been fixed.

Jonathan has been writing about politics at The Daily Telegraph for five years, latterly as editor of the paper's Three Line Whip column and a regular contributor to the Three Line Whip blog. Before joining the Telegraph, he was a senior political analyst in the BBC's Westminster newsroom. He also writes a monthly column for GQ magazine and his first book, Boris v Ken: How Boris Johnson Won London, was published in June. Jonathan is a former chairman of the University of York Conservative Association and was on the founding national committee of Conservative Future in 1998-99.

There is still a little room left in the ConservativeHome budget for the employment of some part-time help but this money won't be allocated until Jonathan and I have had a chance to talk about how we wish to develop the site over the next year.  You cannot afford to stand still in the blogosphere and we have big plans for expansion in the autumn.  We look forward to sharing them with you in the coming months."

Introducing ConservativeVault.com

We announced our intention to launch a wiki a few weeks ago, and are very pleased to make it public today under the name ConservativeVault.com.

It's basically an online encyclopedia for the Conservative Party and the wider conservative movement in Britain that will comprehensively cover people, debates and policies by harnessing the wisdom of the ConservativeHome crowd. Once it's found its feet and built up more content we're confident it will become an invaluable resource.

It struck us that many of the posts on here would be better off in a wiki that could incorporate the best of what readers would normally add in the comments into the actual article. Two of the pages we've started the wiki off with have been copied from ConservativeHome with that collaborative idea in mind - Harry Phibbs' 100 questions to ask your local council and Tim Montgomerie's "war and peace" account of the Conservative leadership race. Almost all content from now on will be generated by Wiki editors however, and down the line we intend to recognise and reward the most prolific and constructive contributors.

Applications to join the team ConservativeHome have now closed

164 expressions of interest have been received for the vacancy/ vacancies.  We will be in contact with all applicants within seven days.  Thanks to everyone who took the trouble to send in their CVs and tell us about themselves - and, particularly, for the huge volume of ideas that were offered within the applications.

Would you like to work for ConservativeHome?

With the prospect of half of the ConservativeHome team moving on, we'd love to hear from anyone interested in joining it. We're open-minded about how to move forward in terms of whether to hire a few part-timers with specific responsibilities, or to hire a new full-time member of the editorial team. We have a pot of £25-50k to spend on whichever combination.  Our big aim is to provide the most comprehensive coverage of the Conservative Party and we have significant plans for expansion at what we hope will be the beginnings of a long period of Conservative government.  As well as blogging we are about to launch our Wiki site.

We've already had some very high calibre applicants but we'd like to be fair to everyone who might be interested, to people previously unknown to us. The application process will involve an interview (probably with Samuel Coates, Tim Montgomerie and Stephan Shakespeare) and a live test-run of blogging/ writing ability. Applicants should be:

• Sympathetic to our manifesto and committed to the Conservative Party
• Sociable, knowledgeable political animals
• Able to write well under pressure
• Prepared to work flexible but often anti-social hours, including preparation of the 9am newslinks
• Ideally already well-connected, and able to maintain absolute confidences
• Open to going on trips to meet other conservatives around the world
• Not necessarily be tech-savvy but a good grasp of new media would be useful, as would the ability to create/edit image and videos
• Living in London if full-time, preferable but not essential if part-time
• Genuine and friendly.

If this sounds like something of interest to you, please do get in touch with your CV.  Applications close at noon on 23rd July 2008.

Samuel Coates to join David Cameron's office

Tim Montgomerie writes:

"Other blogs got there first but I am delighted to confirm that Samuel Coates, Deputy Editor of ConservativeHome, looks set to join David Cameron's office as part of the speechwriting team. 

At the age of 22, Sam's likely appointment after a number of competitive tests and interviews is a tremendous personal achievement, I wish him every success.  His commitment to the social justice agenda and his interest in international human rights will be just two of the significant contributions I know he'll make to Team Cameron.

David Cameron's gain is definitely a big loss to ConservativeHome.  Sam has become a very good friend over the two-and-a-half years we have worked together, and I'll miss his company as well as his enormous contribution to this website. Today is a day for congratulating Sam.  We'll be announcing the recruitment process for his successor tomorrow."

> The photo of Sam and David Cameron was from a recent 'Day in the life of David Cameron' feature.  Sam's namesake at The Times will be pleased that there'll now only be one Sam Coates covering Westminster!

Why should others write Conservative history?

Do you use Wikipedia?

We're using the software that powers Wikipedia to produce our own online encyclopedia for the Conservative Party and the wider conservative movement in Britain.  It will cover people and events that Wikipedia wouldn't deem 'notable', and by harnessing the wisdom of the ConservativeHome crowd we hope that any pages that do overlap will be better.

We are currently putting the final touches to its design (any Mediawiki experts out there?) but hope to launch it very soon. The Wiki will have a number of features:

There'll be sections dedicated to recent Conservative history, for example:

• The defining events in post-Thatcher Conservative history
• A Timeline of Boris Johnson's Mayoralty
• A history of David Cameron's leadership: The 2005 leadership bid, David Cameron's first 100 days, The Decontamination and Lovebombing phase, From Grammarsgate to Bottler Saturday, From Bottler Saturday to Crewe.
• The achievements of Conservative in Opposition, 1997 to 2005
• Debunking myths, such as Lady Thatcher's comments on there not being such a thing as society and on people having failed at life if they ride buses

There'll be resource sections, for example:

• Profiles of leading, local and unsung Tories
• Accumulated advice, such as "How to become a Conservative MP" (based on the views of more than 100 successful candidates), and "Questions to ask your council"
• The beliefs of the next generation of Conservative candidates
• "Who are the Tory grassroots?"  Key findings of the ConservativeHome.com Members' Panel.
• "Who should get a Conservative peerage?" and other such lists

There'll be policy sections, beginning with:

• An overview of existing Tory policy commitments.
• Balanced overviews of key debates such as "In or out of Europe" and "Hares vs Tortoises".

We hope you'll enjoy taking part.  You'll be able to edit entries and propose your own although we and a team of moderators will be keeping a careful eye on all content to ensure it's fair and legal.  Please email us if you'd like to write an entry for launch day

We haven't been more excited about anything since ConservativeHome first started.  We hope you'll contribute to this resource.  Suggestions on what to cover are very welcome...

Technical update

TypePad - the hosts of this blog - are working on the problem with the loading of pages that we first discussed on Thursday.  The problem isn't constant but deteriorated again badly over lunchtime.  Apologies for this.  We are planning to move the blog from TypePad to MoveableType soon and hope that this will lead to a better service all round.

4.15pm: We think the problem is resolved.  The Latest News & Blogs list had more than 3,000 entries (most of them invisible) and this was causing the problems.  Let us know if you are still struggling to load the frontpage and we'll go back to the drawing board.

Problems loading the frontpage and AOL users

We are aware that some users are having difficulties loading the frontpage of ConservativeHome.  If you are affected by this problem please leave a comment below specifying which browser and computer you use.  This will help us to resolve the problem.  In the meantime our apologies and thanks for your patience.

PS AOL users finding it difficult to leave comments might find it easier to use Internet Explorer.  For some reason this makes a difference.

Subscribe to our email service

On 1st May at 9.59pm we sent all subscribers to ConservativeHome's mailing list our 'call' that Boris would win his battle with Ken Livingstone.  Blackberries and iPhones started buzzing and our 'call' was the talk of at least one drinks party of journalists and politicians that was taking place in London last night.  Sky News put our prediction to William Hague within fifteen minutes.  The 'Conservative Daily' email tells you about big opinion poll news...  About who has been selected for top seats....  It tracks Boris' mayoralty.  Subscribers to ConservativeHome's mailing list are members of the Tory Party's best-informed community.  If you would like to join our mailing list for daily news about the Conservative Party...

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ConservativeHome in GQ

June's edition of GQ has hit the newstands and it includes a series of photographs of leading politicians, political journalists and... political bloggers.  All these photos are safely tucked away on pages 200+.  The cover is reserved for "Gwyneth Paltrow: One Sexy Mother".  Introducing the political feature, GQ writes:

"We have made a point to include the bloggers, whose importance in Westminster has rocketed over the past few years."

All the photographs were taken by David Bailey.  Tim Montgomerie, Editor of this site, was one of the subjects - sandwiched between David Miliband and John Humphrys - click on the image on the right to enlarge.

Iain Dale was also photographed.

The portraits of Iain and Tim both got full page treatment.  It appears that GQ isn't edited by LibDems... poor Nick Clegg got just 1/6th of a page.  PoliticsHome.com has the full list of subjects.

"A kick in the Balls"!

CCHQ have made a video game to re-enact the Balls v Straw punch up.  Click here to play.

Related link: Play Taxman Pacman

Westminster insiders say Tories have best media operation

Regular ConHome readers may remember our involvement in creating a new daily poll of political insiders.  The panel is now up and running and collected data all last week.  From Monday the results will appear on PoliticsHome.com.  Before then, however, various blogs and newspapers have been covering the pre-launch results.  We have learnt that the PoliticsHome.com index of 100 political insiders...

• Thinks by 3-to-1 that Boris will be London's next Mayor (within this Times story);
• Expects the next General Election to result in a hung parliament (Coffee House);
• 50% believe that the British political system needs fundamental reform (Guido);
• 55% think that Speaker Martin will be gone in a year (Iain Dale);
• 60% blame Gordon Brown for Labour's difficulties over 42 days, rather than Jacqui Smith, Labour backbenchers or the effectiveness of David Davis (Martin Bright).

And today we learn that the Conservative media and communications team is most effective at communicating its strategic message.  The Daily Telegraph's Three Line Whip reports the finding on p8 but it doesn't have the breakdown of exact results.   The insiders were asked to rate the various party machines on a scale of one to ten where ten equals most effective.  The Conservatives scored an average of 6.2, Downing Street scored 3.8, Labour 3.6 and the LibDems were at the bottom of the pile on 3.4.  Perhaps press releases like the one below caused the LibDems to score so badly...!  (Hat-tip to Guido).

This gives us an opportunity to thank those hard working staff at CCHQ who are always helpful to ConservativeHome - particularly Henry Macrory, one of politics' nicest people and a most effective Westminster operator.  Many thanks guys and we are glad that political insiders recognise your effectiveness.

The PoliticsHomeIndex of insiders will transform understanding of Westminster village opinion.  We'll no longer be dependent upon anecdotal temperature testing, however interesting (Steve Richards found three commentators earlier this week who had nothing but disdain for Nick Clegg) but will be able to test the opinion of at least one hundred journalists, MPs, movement leaders and other Westminster powerbrokers.  There'll be lots more about the Index and PoliticsHome's other goodies on Monday - the site's launch day.

New Media: Guido's Gordon the bogeyman video

The winner of the new media award is Guido Fawkes' video of Gordon Brown, then still Chancellor, apparently picking his nose while sat next to Tony Blair at PMQs.  If you've never seen it - hundreds of thousands have - here it is:

The video beat the Conservatives Abroad website and its targeting of ex-pat voters and the Tax Pacman game launched by the Conservatives at last year's Party Conference.

More than 8,000 people took part in the vote to choose between the shortlisted entries in each category.  We've been announcing winners on an almost daily basis.  Yesterday's winner of the internationalist award was Ben Rogers of the Conservative Party's Human Rights Commission.

John Redwood's indispensable blog

If you want to know what is going on in the world economy at the moment we recommend one source of analysis above all others: John Redwood's blog.

On a daily basis Mr Redwood is dispensing wisdom of the highest quality.  Here's a selection of his posts from the last few days:

Saturday 15th March: "Listening to the deafening silence of the Chancellor this week, I was left asking myself “Doesn’t he know there is a credit crunch?”. Yes, he said he understood there were storms in the world economy, but then he raised a children’s umbrella and plodded on. He should show some urgency in tackling the overspending and overborrowing in the UK public sector. He should produce a statement on how the Bank of England’s powers in money markets will be urgently restored, learning the hard lessons of the combined failure to avert the Northern Rock crisis last summer. Behind the scenes, instead of playing silly politics with drink and green issues, he should be devoting his sole attention to international collaboration, to make sure the world authorities get ahead and remain ahead of the pack of bears seeking to make money out of bringing down other financial institutions and financial products."

Monday 17th March: "A quick haggle, a visit to the lawyers, and a bank is bought and rescued over a week-end in New York. That’s the way to do it. It makes the UK’s attempted private sector rescue of Northern Rock look ham fisted, long winded and ultimately unsuccessful in comparison. The US authorities have once again acted decisively, with vigour and purpose, to prevent the banking collapse getting out of control.  This week we can expect further interest rate cuts in the US following on the 25pt reduction in the discount rate announced overnight."

Coming soon: A daily poll of political insiders

Tim Montgomerie writes:

This morning, a group of political insiders from all over Westminster will be getting emails from myself and Martin Bright, Political Editor of the New Statesman, asking them to be part of a new daily opinion survey. I can't tell you everything about it yet, but with invitations going out rumours might start flying... and I wanted you to know about it first.

As part of a new enterprise backed by Stephan Shakespeare we are setting up a 100-strong panel of top Westminster insiders – MPs, journalists, think tank leaders, political staffers, columnists – who will answer, anonymously, a couple of key tick-in-the-box questions every day. It will be called the PHI100 (after the PoliticsHomeIndex, a new website on which the results will be published every afternoon).

For the first time, it will be possible to put a number on the "inside track" on issues of the day: Is there any truth to that rumour in the paper this morning? Will Michael Martin survive? Who won PMQs?

Some questions will also be tracker questions, which are asked regularly and which can be plotted over time: Who will win the mayoral contest? Which cabinet ministers/ news sources/ columnists do insiders rate most highly?

Broadly speaking, I am recruiting people on the right and Martin is responsible for people on the left, but we are both talking to a good number of non-aligned insiders - the 100 will represent all political angles. The response has been fantastic. The column on the right identifies a few of the names who have already agreed to take part (many other members of the PHI100 are only taking part on the condition of anonymity).  We are also recruiting some people at the heart of the LibDems.

We expect to have first daily findings in a couple of weeks, just in time for the BETA launch of the PoliticsHomeIndex website. Will keep you posted. In the mean time, comments and suggestions for the kind of questions you would like to see asked are welcome…

"You can get it if you really want" (and become a friend of the Tories)

You can get it if you really want is the theme of a £500,000 upbeat advertising campaign that the Conservatives are launching on Facebook, on billboards across Britain and in tomorrow's national press.  Versions of the two ads that you see below will be appearing in seven national newspapers and many regional newspapers:

There are ten themes to the Tory campaign: the NHS, policing, borrowing and the economy, inheritance tax, stamp duty, pensions, benefits reform, a tougher approach to immigration, green energy and classroom discipline.  No mention of Europe - that's deliberate with the explanation that the Tories are currently working with the cross-party IWantAReferendum campaign.

The party is also introducing a new form of recruitment: Friends of the Conservatives.  People will be able to register as friends of the party for a minimum of £1 and in return they'll receive a weekly online newsletter and suggestions of how they can get involved in their communities.

A few reactions to all of this:

1. A half-a-million pound investment is a big deal for a British political party; this far from an election.
2. It's a positive and upbeat campaign and it's very broad - a good, balanced mix of traditional issues (tax, crime, immigration) with newer messages (protecting the NHS, encouraging greenery).
3. But is it too broad?  The Tories still lack a big theme.  We think the party would be better to pick fewer, more defining messages and pursue them with hare-like boldness.  We don't necessarily have to pick those defining issues now but we still believe that a war on crime and protecting the NHS would be good bets.
4. The Friends idea is a good one.  The age of mass membership political parties is over.  CCHQ doesn't have up-to-date Tory membership numbers but the guess is that it's probably still down from 2005.   Our preference, though, would be for people to be invited to be Friends/ Supporters of Conservative campaigns rather than the party.  This is the age of single issue campaigns.  We think people will give money to vigorous campaigns on issues that they really believe in.  Those campaigns will need good websites to give the campaigns life.  Conservatives.com remains an uninteresting site - too focused on us and not the voters and their concerns.

Conservatives visit Auschwitz and Birkenau

Nadine Dorries MP has been blogging and taking pictures of her visit today with Baroness Warsi, Eric Ollerenshaw, Andrew Robathan MP, amongst others.

It was planned before the silly hype about such trips supposedly being called gimmicks. Here are some highlights from each post:

• "I am leaving now after 1.5hrs sleep and I will get back home at midnight. If anyone calls this a ‘jolly’ I will flatten them... I will be blogging live with photographs once I arrive. As living witnesses diminish in numbers, it is important that others learn and tell the story of that terrible place."
• Mother's letter: "I am taking you, Mirele, to the back entrance of dear, brave Hermann's grocery and the child rescuers will be waiting there for you and the thirty two other children under the age of three. They'll inject you with a sedative so you won't cry and then they'll slip off in the pre-dawn with you - my life, my love, out of this barbaric country to safety..."
• "The feeling which overwhelms you, as you walk through the gate of Camp 1, is the desire to leave. I'm finding it difficult to write as this place leaves you stunned. I didn't want to go into the gas chamber, but of course I had to, I had a choice."
• "The Nazis then destroyed the cemetery, which in itself was symbolic, as in Judaism death is regarded as part of the cycle of life. The Nazis then lined the streets with the gravestones. No Jews live here now. The cemetery is locked overnight, since two swastikas were painted on the cemetery walls."
• "They were asked which of their children were aged over 14 - a mother's first instinct was to keep all her children together, so that she could look after them. She would tell the guards that children as old as 15, 16 and even 17, were under 14. All children under 14 went straight from the train in through the doors of the chamber."
• "Birkenau is vast, cold, oppressive and eerie. I want to leave now and come home - I have never been anywhere so depressing."
• Is this necessary or relevant after 60 years? Anti-Semitism is on the increase, even in England, with attacks on Jewish cemeteries reported regularly - denial of the Holocaust has become an almost accepted academic position.

Michael Gove becomes the latest Tory MP to start blogging

Michael Gove becomes the latest MP to start blogging.  He will succeed if he makes the blog an essential source of information about education.  Too many political websites are all about the party or the candidate.  They need to be issue-driven or community-focused.  Our advice to Michael: Invite teachers, headteachers, parents groups and others to all be guest authors on your blog.  Make it an essential site for those interested in education.  By inviting others to contribute you'll find it easier to maintain and more people will link to it and promote it.

Regular blogging is the most important ingredient of a successful blog.  It's also the hardest thing to achieve.  Some MPs have tried to start regular blogging - Ed Vaizey springs to mind - but find it difficult to maintain the regular posting that is necessary for a reasonable audience.

Group blogs like CentreRight.com and Cornerstone give MPs the opportunity to communicate to Tory audiences - many times larger than they'd reach at a supper club event, for example - without personally needing to post something daily.  Seven Tory MPs are now blogging at CentreRight: Douglas Carswell, Nigel Evans, Mark Field, Liam Fox, Greg Hands, David Lidington, and David Willetts.  Douglas and Greg, in particular, have become regular contributors.

The best three dedicated blogs from Tory parliamentarians are John Redwood, Nadine Dorries and Richard Spring.

PS Do take a look at Robert Colvile's articles, currently appearing on Platform.  He's writing a series of articles on the impact of politics and the internet.

'Dale confronted'

Earlier this week Iain Dale chose not to join blogs like ConservativeHome in criticising Derek Conway.  That was an honourable decision because, as Iain said at the time, he is a friend of Derek Conway and "Anything I have to say about his conduct, I will say to his face."  In the 'Heffer confronted' video above Iain's position has migrated and he's now defending Derek Conway - dismissing the thrust of the disgraced MP's errors as "administrative".  Iain must be one of the few people in the country who do not believe that Mr Conway's errors are much more serious than that.

One MP told ConservativeHome (rather too colourfully) that Derek Conway was like a suicide bomber in the midst of the parliamentary Conservative Party.  He hadn't only wrecked his own career but had badly contaminated the reputation of all Tory MPs and had gifted Gordon Brown his biggest break since Bottler Saturday.  Iain Dale is a great blogger but Simon Heffer gets the better of him in the exchange above.

The Conservative Daily

We have now initiated a daily email to highlight key content on ConservativeHome and to summarise the main news stories likely to be of interest to Tory activists.

If you are not a subscriber to ConservativeHome's email service (and you will have received an email from us earlier today if you are) you can subscribe by clicking here.

There is an 'unsubscribe' option at the bottom of each email so you can remove your name from our list at any time.

What next for ConservativeHome?

Another blog has started today.  The Times' Sam Coates - not to be confused with our own Sam Coates (!) - has begun a Red Box blog.  Sam blogged throughout the Party Conference season last year and good stuff it was, too.  Over the last year, as Peter Franklin noted, there has been an explosion of mainstream blogging.  The Spectator's Coffee House quickly became the most successful mainstream media blog although The Telegraph's Three Line Whip looks set to be at least as essential.  Ben Brogan - back blogging today - remains ConservativeHome's favourite for insidery news.

With all of this extra blogging it's difficult to keep up.  The centre column - 'Latest news and blogs' - on ConservativeHome's homepage provides a rolling links service to the best of all this blogging.  One year ago the ToryDiary section of this site was the most popular.  Now the homepage is visited twice as often - largely because many are using it as a gateway site.

Please use the thread below to offer any thoughts on how you'd like to see ConservativeHome evolve this year.  Our plan is to campaign on ten major themes - the first of which we'll launch tomorrow.  Later this week we'll also be replacing our Columnists page with something we have high hopes for...

Ambushed for YouTube

Radio 4's World This Weekend briefly mentioned this video.  Mitt Romney is left looking evasive and perhaps even rude after being asked if he'll arrest a wheelchair-bound man for using 'medical marijuana'.  Although the issue may be real it was clearly a set-up.  At the end of the interview the man videoing the encounter pursues the wheelchair guy's line of questioning.  We can only hope David Cameron is prepared for similar ambushes.  We guess someone, somewhere is planning something for Mr Brown.  This is the era we now live in.

The ConservativeHome shields

In our last post before Christmas (we return on the 27th) here is a brief guide to the eleven shields that have crowned ConservativeHome.com since our launch on Easter Monday, 2005.

The shields represent the breadth of the ideal conservative coalition - 'the politics of and'.  Each of us come to the conservative colours for different reasons.  Our interests overlap and are sometimes in tension but we are at our best when we recognise that diversity is a strength and absolute unity is impossible.  There needs to be respect for difference if we are to form a coalition that is broad enough for victory.

Each of the eleven shields represent important causes:

Home and family is the first shield.  As John Hayes MP has said, the home comes close to being a unifying emblem for all conservatives:

“The idea of the home can define a Conservative agenda for the twenty-first century. Homes are a symbol of social justice – of private ownership – of security – of independence from intrusive government – of local identity - of embryonic community life…”

Next is prosperity.  If socialists come in to politics to redistribute wealth, conservatives prefer to start with the creation of wealth.  This shield also represents fiscal and supply-side conservatives.

Compassion is the third shield.  Some of the greatest conservatives have been social reformers.  This year David Cameron celebrated the example of William Wilberforce.  Shaftesbury is another giant in the Conservative Party's one nation tradition.  Iain Duncan Smith is the greatest champion of this tradition today.  The conservative approach to compassion is distinctive.  We understand that the institutions of civil society form the soundest basis for a caring society.  School choice, zero tolerance of crime and a safety-net approach to welfare are other favoured hallmarks.

Law and order is the fourth shield.  For most conservatives the protection of the public is a primary responsibility of government.  But it is not just about laws and policing, it is about the nurturing of what David Cameron has called social responsibility.  Without responsibility from families, neighbours and businesses, order is impossible.

Humanity is the next shield.  The image is sometimes interpreted as being a statement about abortion.  For many conservatives the defence of the unborn is foundational but this shield is actually meant to represent a broader understanding of a pro-life philosophy.  In his 2000 inaugural address George W Bush said that "no insignificant person was ever born".  That is what the shield attempts to capture.  Conservatives believe in the importance of the individual or, as Catholic Social Teaching suggests, "the person".  Conservatives will always put the value of the individual ahead of any system.

Faith is the sixth shield and the shield at the centre of the design.  Not all conservatives are religious but most conservatives are still affected by Britain's Judaeo-Christian inheritance.  The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, reminds us of part of that legacy in today's Times:

"Christmas reminds us of a God who is completely committed to the weakest, who uses power only so that human life can be fuller, more peaceful and generous, who gives us the help we need to make our relationships stable and faithful – and who requires of us a complete honesty about ourselves, and gently, steadily, chips away our self-deceptions. Christmas tells us that our best instincts about human nature and what’s needed for a healthy world and society aren’t just things we’ve made up. They are rooted in the way the whole universe is shaped by God."

There are eleven times more 'liberals' at the BBC than 'conservatives'

One of the great things about Facebook is that you can find the nichest of niche groups of like-minded people. It has an advertising package to match. You can, for example, upload an ad banner that will appear 10,000 times to female twenty-somethings who live in York and enjoy listening to jazz. This kind of micro-targeting has got to be the next stage of the Party's online advertising campaign. The advertising package has other uses...

BBC employees went Facebook mad earlier this year with 10,580 now having profiles on the social networking site. Many of them chose to specify their political views as either liberal, moderate or conservative (there isn't a socialist option available to the chagrin of many). An advanced search reveals that more than 11 times the number of BBC employees on Facebook list themselves as liberal than conservative:

BBC - 10,580
BBC liberals - 1,340
BBC moderates - 340
BBC conservatives - 120

Former BBC journalist Robin Aitken, who has still yet to be properly interviewed by any of his many former colleagues about his whistle-blowing on its institutional biases, said you couldn't make a cricket team out of the number of Tories at the corporation. He wasn't far wrong!

To show that these proportions don't merely reflect the fact that the student-dominated Facebook is full of young liberal trendies anyway, a search of the UK-wide Facebook population reveals a liberal to conservative ratio of just 2.5 to 1, that's four times less liberal than those on the BBC network:

UK -  6,407,580
UK liberals - 545,240
UK moderates - 251,320              
UK conservatives - 216,660

Narrowing it down to the London network where most BBC employees reside, the ratio is still just nigh of 3 to 1 at 147,340 to 51,760.

Although 10,480 BBC employees is as big a sample as you're ever going to get in a survey, this isn't a definitive analysis. Facebook is more likely to attract younger employees and many of them wouldn't be comfortable publicly listing themselves as conservatives (they have their careers to think about!). It is, however, a pretty good guide to the political perspectives of those who work for our monolithic national broadcaster, and a worrying one at that.

p.s. We recently created a second Facebook group for ConservativeHome readers, when we reached a thousand members of the first one we lost the ability to mass-message them.

p.p.s. Hat-tip to Stephen Taylor's must-read blog on the Conservative Party of Canada, for the inspiration for this story

12pm update: There are tonnes of stats out there waiting to be found, go to the Flyers Pro section of the Advertising section of Facebook to find out the proportion of conservatives in your university or city. Other observations from me...

• The Lib-Con ratio is fairly even throughout the demographics of BBC employees, with men having a very slightly better ratio than women and over thirties slightly better than twenty-somethings.
• It's difficult to find other organisations that have a large enough sample as most people don't choose to declare their political views on their profile, but another one is the UK Civil Service network which has 5.6 liberals to each conservative.
• You can search for any keyword that is in the sections of people's profiles that describe what they are interested in, Open Europe's Neil O'Brien for example got a search result that said "there are less than 20 people in UK who like euro"

Deputy Editor