ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

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

Is Brown scheming for a coalition with the Liberal Democrats?

The latest ConHome poll of polls is still pointing to a hung parliament (I can't believe that will last as the economic news gets grimmer and grimmer) and Peter Oborne believes that Labour and certain Liberal Democrats are now positioning for a coalition.  Here are three quotes from his piece in the Daily Mail:

"[Brown] is seriously toying with the idea of bringing the Liberal Democrats into a possible coalition. Private discussions  -  all, of course, totally deniable  -  are taking place secretly."

"First, there are signs of a deal being thrashed out between Downing Street and the LibDems over the appointment of the next Commons Speaker... The [Labour] Whips' Office has already launched a campaign to get Labour MPs to back former LibDem leader Sir Menzies Campbell to become the new Speaker."

Second: "It is normal, as an announcement of the date of polling day becomes imminent, for the opposition party to be granted limited access to the machinery of the Civil Service in order to go through their plans for government.  However, this traditional arrangement has been unexpectedly altered. Gordon Brown (to the embarrassment of the Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell) has gone out of his way to try to prevent the Conservatives gaining their normal access to Permanent Secretaries.  After criticism of this controversial ploy, Brown eventually was forced to grudgingly relent  -  but only on one condition. In a departure from recent precedent, he has also authorised-Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats to be given full access to key civil servants."

Oborne goes on to mention the possibility of Vince Cable become Chancellor - he recently praised Brown's handling of the economic crisis - and Paddy Ashdown becoming Defence Secretary.

The great problem with this scheme - already floated before Christmas by Iain Martin - is that a number of Orange Book Liberal Democrats - notably Jeremy Browne and David Laws - will hate the idea of a coalition with Labour.  The Tories have long sought defectors from the parliamentary Liberal Democrats.  If Clegg allows Ashdown-Cable-Campbell to push him towards a LibLab pact (and it's far from clear that he is happy with the talk according to Oborne) he may find he loses MPs (and more councillors) to the Conservatives.  In the long run it will destroy the Liberal Democrat brand in southern England if they prop up a Labour government that the voters of, for example, Taunton, Richmond and Sutton and Cheam wanted out.

Tim Montgomerie

Labour pour cold water on early election speculation

I was sat in Portcullis House yesterday afternoon for about two hours (Portcullis House being part of the Palace of Westminster and the place for journalists, researchers and parliamentarians to mingle).  The only topic of conversation was the possibility of an election early in the new year.  Every person had a different theory...

...Brown needs to call an election before anxiety turns to pain and pain to anger was the wisest thought...

...he won't bottle an early election this time because Peter Mandelson is providing steel to the PM's dither...

...he has to go soon because Darling has said the recession will be over by the autumn but it won't be...

...he is finally enjoying being PM for the first time and he won't risk losing twelve months as the man to navigate Britain through these difficult times - he has great faith in his ability to be seen by history as the great economic leader of the first recession of the 21st century...

...he'll wait until 2010 because he thinks voters will eventually see through Cameron as inauthentic.

The Daily Telegraph pours some cold water on the idea of an early election by quoting one "senior Labour strategist" as saying "voters would be disgusted if we called an election at a time when they are worried about their homes and their jobs."

One thing is certain: Brown can't afford to let election speculation get out of control again and face charges of bottling another election.  Labour was quick to use Benedict Brogan to rubbish Iain Dale's "Exclusive" that it had bought advertising space for January.  If there is to be an early election Labour needs for it to be a surprise.

Tim Montgomerie

Noon: Graeme Archer thinks the 'early speculators' are wrong

Will an economic recovery produce a political recovery for Labour?

In short, no.

YouGov's Peter Kellner noted (at a Conference I attended on Saturday) that Labour hopes that its political fortunes will start to recover late next year as the economy recovers.  There are four main reasons why I don't expect that to happen (or why it won't matter):

• The recession - or at least very tough economic times - are still likely to be evident at the end of 2009.  Hat-tip to Andrew Lilico.
• It's far from clear that Labour will get any kudos for recovery.  International factors and Bank of England interest rate cuts are just as likely to be credited.
• Even if the recovery is underway we'll still have Labour's huge borrowing and the beginning of the tax rises that Labour have pre-announced.
• Labour will - by the end of 2009 - be in a much worse electoral position than now.  We'll have had twelve months of job losses and repossessions. The PBR was Brown's last, best chance and he blew it. The Tory lead in the ConHome poll of polls is currently 7.4%.  It will be a lot larger by this time next year.

These - and Brown's mishandling of issues like Baby P and Damian Green's arrest - are why I am more sure than ever that the Conservatives will win the next General Election.

Tim Montgomerie

Was this the week that determined the result of the general election?

A week is a long time in politics, as the saying goes, and the last seven days are certainly testament to that.

The week began with Alistair Darling's Pre-Budget Report, which showed the country heading for record borrowing, and a devastating attack on the Government's economic record by George Osborne.

The following day, Nick Wood wrote on this website that Labour had made it virtually impossible for themselves to win the next election. And the opinion polls published this weekend - carried out since Monday's PBR - would seem to back up that assertion, showing Tory leads of 15 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.

But those polls were both taken before the full details emerged about the arrest of Tory immigration spokesmen Damian Green on Thursday afternoon.

And whilst his plight has understandably had less media prominence on account of the terrorist atrocities in India, I believe that the public will feel a sense of outrage about his treatment and the position of the Government in the whole affair, which, even if not complicit (as it claims), has stood by, unconcerned about the implications it has for democratic accountability of the executive.

Will we be able to look back in 18 months' time and conclude that this was the week which determined the result of the next election?

Jonathan Isaby

Mandelson: We shouldn't bash the Tories but leave them behind in the battle of ideas

I'm at the TUC HQ and the Annual Conference of "Progress" - speaking later on a panel with Hazel Blears about the Conservative party.  These are highlights from a captivating and often amusing interview just given by Lord Mandelson to The Guardian's Martin Kettle. Paraphrasing, not verbatim unless in quotation marks:

Being Lord Mandelson: It's a rejuvenating thing being in the Lords. Everyone else is a little older! The Lords are seriously-informed, very clever and unwilling to give up their line of questioning until they have an answer. I'm "conservative" about Lords reform. I respect it as it is and don't want it to rival the Commons.

Being "happier": I hadn't expected to return to UK politics. I'd expected to earn my living after Brussels and enjoy myself. Perhaps "a little boating"! I'm happier now in Government than last time. I feel more relaxed with my colleagues. They are less suspicious of me. Less jealous than when I was "Tony Blair's guy".  People made ridiculous assumptions about my influence [pause] "...by and large"!

'Me and Brown': "We had a famously difficult relationship". I've rediscovered in Gordon in what I saw originally. His big brain. His prodigious work ethic. His sense of humour "which has been well hidden from me for the last ten years!" We've begun again.

I'm more Heseltine than Benn: Who would have thought in 1997 that we would have to take majority stakes in some banks?  But "needs must".  Asked about news reports that he is drawing up a list of businesses that are essential to the wealth creating future he answered that he wanted to be more like Michael Heseltine, less like Tony Benn, in wanting to intervene before breakfast, lunch and dinner in the interests of British business. Thinking is preliminary.

Next steps for Labour: We have a real challenge at the next election to show that we haven't run out of steam. New policy ideas and a doubling of energy are essential. Three priorities are education, innovation and readiness for economic internationalisation.

In response to questions:

The Euro: Europe is our domestic market and our currency belongs in the euro. Within the currency we'll eliminate transaction costs and be part of the monetary policy decisions that so affect us. But there is enough to occupy us for the next year or two so immediate discussion of membership is off the agenda.

Obama is New Labour: His campaign was characterised by competence, dignity, ideas and enthusiasm. Nothing backward-looking. Nothing secretarian. Not imprisoned by old ideologies. Those are all old New Labour qualities.

How to beat the Conservatives: The Tories have reverted to the one club policies of the 1980s. The Conservative Party has become more laissez-faire again, not so interventionist - precisely at the wrong time. The Tories are stuck where Labour was circa 1997 believing that policies can be put on the back of a pledge card. The times are much complex today. Labour shouldn't bash the Tories but leave them behind in policy thinking and innovation.

Tim Montgomerie

A snap for a snap election?

The latest election rumour to sweep Westminster is based on lines of Labour candidates seen being photographed with Gordon Brown.

Labour still can't decide how to attack the Conservatives

Any ConHome reader worried about the modest tightening in the opinion polls should listen to a feature from Radio 4's indispensable Sunday night politics programme, The Westminster Hour, transmitted yesterday evening.  Leala Padmanabhan's seven minute package revealed that confusion continues to reign within Labour as to how to attack 'David Cameron's Conservatives'.  Listen to the package here.

The package noted the variety of attack tactics that Labour has employed since David Cameron became Conservative leader:

1. The idea that the party has changed too much and doesn't stand for anything anymore (Labour's Chameleon campaign).
2. The idea that the party hasn't changed at all and is really the same old Tories.
3. The idea that the party is just a party of Toffs.  This tactic was tested most enthusiastically at Crewe and Nantwich and by John Prescott with his David Cameron is "just an ordinary lad from Eton" jibe.

One tactic not examined within the report is Gordon Brown's "This is no time for a novice" tactic (a reheated version of the 'Cameron is weak' attack).  Our guess is that that is going to look a lot less attractive if Barack Obama wins well in America.

There were three main contributors to the package:

• The independent academic Tim Bale (and regular ConHome contributor) who described the Conservative team as the "most gifted opposition" since Tony Blair.  Dr Bale thinks Labour would be foolish to focus their attacks on David Cameron (eg as an estate agent) as they go against the grain of the electorate's view of the Tory leader: "The more they've seen of him the more they have liked him."
• Alistair Campbell said that the most important thing was that Labour rediscovered its zeal for attacking the Conservatives.  He thought the Tories should be attacked for political cowardice and for not standing for anything serious.
• YouGov's Peter Kellner said that it was a mistake to attack the Tories for being policy-lite.  Floating voters choose politicians for their reasonableness and competence.  Kellner suggested that Labour makes the election about the instincts of the wider party, rather than David Cameron.

Harriet Harman: David Cameron wants his wicked way with you

For those interested this was the section on the Conservatives from the Deputy Labour Leader's speech...

Parallels with 1995-97 (and differences)

Rob Wilson MP has already done a good demolition job on the theory that flatters Brown by comparing him to John Major.  This week's Spectator leader is drawing parallels between the leadership speculation that undermined Mr Major and that which is now undermining Mr Brown:

"Labour’s behaviour now closely resembles that of the Tories before and immediately after the 1997 election. This week, all the talk has been of a potential ‘dream ticket’ bringing together David Miliband and Alan Johnson — a remarkably close echo of those in the mid-Nineties who called for a Portillo–Heseltine duumvirate. Curious alliances are proposed. Just as the Europhile Kenneth Clarke and Eurosceptic John Redwood formed an axis in 1997 in a (doomed) attempt to deny William Hague the Tory leadership, so in 2008 there is bizarre talk of an insurgent alliance of neo-Blairites and the left-wing Compass group. And, as in the Major years and their grisly aftermath, absolutely anyone can be a leadership hopeful: for Redwood in 1995 and 1997, read Harriet Harman in 2008."

There are similarities between now and that period but there are also very big differences.  Major enjoyed a growing economy, for example.  Brown's economic chickens are coming home to roost.  Major had his own mandate from the electorate.  Brown doesn't and is much less personally popular than Major.  Redwood offered a very clear policy alternative.  Miliband's article yesterday was pretty mushy.  The calibre of the potential successors to Major was also much higher.  Clarke, Heseltine, Howard and Portillo, for example, could all have assumed the Tory leadership (and after serious experience of Cabinet) - although none of them uncontroversially.  Only Straw has the weight of the people around Major.

We did have two bigger disadvantages then: (1) We'd be in office longer and people were more bored, (2) Blair enjoyed satisfaction ratings higher than Cameron (although Cameron still has time to change that).

Bullseye!

We've just read THE best indictment of the Labour years.

The Centre for Policy Studies is relaunching its pamphlets this week with a new bullesye-style logo and an old-fashioned colour style that reminds us of those great Penguin paperbacks.

The first in the new series of pamphlets is written by Lord (Maurice) Saatchi.  Written in the style of a prosecuting barrister it makes the case that Labour has acted as the 'Enemy of the People' over the last ten years:

"The People charge New Labour on seven Counts:

• Conspiracy to make citizens dependent on the State.
• Conspiracy to force citizens to claim benefits to pay higher taxes.
• Incitement of poor people to pay more tax than rich people.
• Solicitation of multiple tax revenues by stealth.
• Attempt to obstruct the right of citizens to independence.
• Conspiracy to mesmerize and anaesthetise citizens.
• Attempt to conceal their true status as an enemy of the people.

On all Counts, the defendants are found: Guilty."

It will formally be published on Wednesday - when we'll publish key extracts.  You'll be able to get a copy from the CPS website then.  You won't be disappointed.

Philip Dunne MP reveals Labour's latest insult to rural Britain

Research for the Centre for Policy Studies by Conservative MP Philip Dunne has revealed how Gordon Brown has used his control of the nation's purse strings to tilt the growth of funding towards urban Britain - much of it Labour's heartlands.

Commenting to The Telegraph, Mr Dunne said:

"Gordon Brown has a simple strategy to win the next election: to bribe his areas of traditional strength with money pinched from Tory-voting shires. Central government grants of all kinds to councils and other public bodies have increased far faster in cities and big towns than they have in country area.  We have witnessed a deliberate policy of switching taxpayers' money from the country to the city. It has been done in secret, with no announcement, no public debate, no explanation and no justification."

The leader-writers at The Telegraph agree that politics explains the change:

"Country people have made the mistake of refusing to return Labour councils. Indeed, in the southern counties, Labour has virtually disappeared as a political force - an eviction far more dramatic, though less remarked, than the paucity of Tories in Liverpool and Manchester.  Put bluntly, spending more in an area makes its inhabitants likelier to look to the state for their livelihood, which in turn makes them likelier to vote for the high-tax party."

The rural-to-urban drift of funding - previously highlighted by Owen Paterson MP - is only one manifestation of Gordon Brown's use of the highest and stealthiest tax burden in British history to buy votes.

There is the subsidy of Scotland and Wales and the transfer of money from south to north generally.  The massive growth in public sector employment and the quangocracy.   And, of course, the subsidy of the trade unions in return for them paying 90%+ of the Labour Party's bills.

Tories promise "policy striptease" as Brown bores on

Gordon Brown was on Andrew Marr and Adam Boulton this morning.

It's not clear why Gordon Brown bothered.  He offered no new message - just the usual tired talk of listening and facing up to long-term challenges.  Mr Brown told Adam Boulton (who pressed the PM much harder than the deferential Marr)  that he wouldn't hold a 'put up or shut up' leadership challenge to his critics, as John Major did in 1995.

Thursday had been a referendum on Labour, Mr Brown said, but the next election would be a choice between Labour and the Conservatives.  He said that he "relished" the prospect of beating David Cameron at the next General Election.

If Brown bored the Conservatives plan to excite, says a leader in The Sunday Times.  The leader-writers say that the Conservatives "plan a slow striptease over the next two years to unveil the policies that will form the basis of their manifesto."

ConservativeHome understands that this "striptease" aims to address the "enthusiasm challenge" and will include a heavy emphasis on measures to tackle crime and school failure.  The social justice agenda is also going to be 'bigged up' as the party aims to build on lower income voters' loss of faith in Labour after the 10p fiasco.

And let's not forget the LibDems.  Professor John Curtice in The Sunday Telegraph notes that Thursday was also poor for them (our emphasis):

"Outside London the Liberal Democrat vote slipped for the fourth year in a row. With 25 per cent of the equivalent national vote, the party recorded its weakest local election performance for a decade.  Fortunately for Nick Clegg, his party's slide was masked by a modest net gain of 31 seats and Labour's even more dismal performance. But in London, where there was no such camouflage, the party's vote was down on 2004 by between five and six points in both the mayoral race and the assembly contests."

It is very significant that voters are deciding that a vote for the Conservatives, in this mid-term moment, is the best way to most punish Labour.  We now need to make sure that - come the General Election - voters understand that a vote for the Conservatives is the only sure way of ending Labour rule.

3pm video: Sky's 18 minute interview with Gordon Brown

Darling: We're doomed if we don't sharpen our act

If you haven't seen Headcases' portrayal of Alistair Darling watch it here.  The Chancellor is seen running around the greyed out Gordon Brown shouting "we're doomed".

The real Mr Darling is in China and has just said this to Reuters:

"We have got to make sure that in other areas we sharpen ourselves up, that we have a clear message of what we are about."

George Osborne has leapt on the remarks as an "unprecedented attack" on Gordon Brown's government:

“Even Gordon Brown never criticised Tony Blair in public.  What started as anonymous briefings from backbenchers has now burst into the open with a public attack on Gordon Brown from the second most important person in the government. If the government is fighting itself, how can it fight for Britain?”

"The last week has been more significant than the extraordinary few days last autumn when the fortunes of the two main parties changed suddenly."

The title of this post comes from Steve Richards' comment piece in The Independent.

Has British politics changed in some sustainable way in the last few days?

The ICM poll putting Labour at just 29% appears to confirm that Darling's budget has produced a significant shift towards the Conservatives.  The Tories are 8% ahead on economic competence.  Boris is 12% ahead of Livingstone.   

In his sketch of yesterday's Commons business Quentin Letts certainly senses a shift in power to the Conservatives:

"Two minutes before Messrs Darling and Brown arrived in the Chamber, complete with a couple of flunkeys but otherwise without fanfare, there had been a more noticeable entry.  The Tories' three main men, David Cameron, William Hague and George Osborne, had swept in past the Speaker's Chair towards their places on the Opposition front bench.  As soon as they strode into the House at 3.26pm there was a silence from other parts of the Tory benches.  It was the sort of hush you get from a school assembly when a powerful headmaster enters the hall.

Other Tory MPs shifted slightly away from the trio, making room for them, junior members of the pride not wanting to be too close to the big beasts.  Why should this be? Cameron, Hague and Osborne, after all, are only in opposition. But is there maybe an expectation growing at Westminster that these three will be running our affairs after the next general election?"

Let's wait and see.  Stephan Shakespeare has warned about "frothy opinion polls".  Let's see what the polls are saying in a month or so but let's also hope that they produce a dynamic effect.

Economic competence, leader image and party unity are the three parts of the iron triangle of political success.  Labour is steadily losing its reputation for economic competence.  Gordon Brown is looking shaky.  Some panicky disunity on the Labour benches in response to these polls would complete the decline.

The Tories are still to choose a big theme

This morning's Independent wonders if there might be a June 2009 "double election" - with voters asked to choose their MEPs and MPs:

"The idea was discussed in the margins of Labour's spring conference in Birmingham last weekend and has won the backing of some party officials. Although allies of Mr Brown said it was "very premature" to talk about the date, party sources said he did not want to delay polling until the last possible moment in the spring of 2010."

This is the second recent story of its kind.  Monday's FT got there first.  The key factor in Mr Brown's mind appears to be the economy.  If the economy is picking up next year he will be able to go to the country and invite voters to stick with him as the best person to steward Britain through global economic turbulence.  Brown believes that the economy will remain the decisive electoral issue and that the Tories made a strategic mistake in their first two years by emphasising social rather than economic issues.  Oliver Letwin famously wrote of a movement away from an econocentric worldview to a sociocentric worldview. 

Up until now the Tory approach has been to adopt a very similar economic policy to Labour (matching Brown, for example, on spending - an approach endorsed by Daniel Finkelstein in today's Times).  This 'reassurance, reassurance, reassurance' tactic - neutering Labour's fifteen year advantage on economic competence - will only work if the Tories give voters other potent reasons to choose them.

The last week alone has seen frenetic activity from the Tory leader:

• At last week's PMQs he launched his anti-politics drive - followed up by a big speech on Saturday that listed what he would do to restore trust in politics.  27 of the newest Tory MPs joined in with a campaign to allow failed MPs to be sacked by constituents mid-term.
• He has announced an aspiration for a third of ministers to be women.
• He has promised to equalise the size of Westminster constituencies - a major reform necessary to eliminate the system's bias against the Conservative Party.
• A major prison-building programme that will create the space for 'a rehabilitation revolution' - with prisoner governors incentivised to reduce reoffending rates.
• A Military Covenant Commission to investigate ways of improving care of servicemen, their families and veterans.
• A strong attack on 'state multiculturalism' and criticism of Labour's handling of Muslim extremism.

The announcements and initiatives are coming so fast that it is difficult to keep up with them and there is a danger that they are not producing any defining picture of what a Conservative government would look like.  Last week's £0.5m Tory advertising campaign confirmed that the Tories are still keeping their options open in terms of 'a big idea'.  The campaign included ten messages - all carefully targeted - but no overarching theme.  ConservativeHome continues to believe that crime should be the main Tory theme.  The Tory leadership, for the time-being, doesn't seem ready to choose and, to be fair, it still has time on its side.

Brown's not so big tent

Iain Martin explains the true purpose of the Labour conference in today's Telegraph:

"This week was about killing David Cameron and the Conservatives; not defeating them or inflicting a set-back but wiping them off the map. It is important that the nature of this project is properly understood. The smartest ministers know that Cameron is still the best of his Tory generation. They will not want him around much longer and sense that his party will disintegrate if they can inflict a heavy defeat quickly. Brown's building of a big tent is cleverly designed to stress that he runs a national government so all-encompassing that there is no requirement for that old-fashioned concept of a functioning opposition."

Whilst Gordon Brown was too big, too consensual to mention the Conservatives once in his hour long speech, his lieutenants have had plenty of licence to go on the attack.

Ed Balls criticised Cameron's crude, socially divisive education policy for being not back to basics but "back to privilege, back to the past", creating a world-class education not for all but "for the privileged elite". He continued to wage class warfare with his description of Boris Johnson as "a gaffe-prone, TV quiz-show clown – a Bullingdon club throwback to a bygone age". Hazel Blears continued the theme:

"The last thing a modern, diverse, international-class capital like London needs is a fogeyish, bigoted and upper-class twit for its mayor. For all Cameron's claims to localism, his is the party which abolished London's city government, starved councils of cash, and created a centralised government worthy of Napoleon. The Tories have never trusted the people, whether they were single mums, miners, or the millions on the dole, and no amount of open necked-shirts will make us forgive or forget".

Ken Livingstone also got in on the act of attacking the Conservative Party's "backward blond element" by declaring what a pleasure it was for him to deliver the "first annual Boris Johnson memorial lecture".

Mercer and Bercow explain their reasons for joining Brown's big tent

In two separate articles the two Conservative MPs who recently agreed to undertake advisory roles for Gordon Brown have explained their decisions.

In an article for the Yorkshire Post (not yet online), Mr Mercer says that the Prime Minister's decision to appoint Lord West as "directly responsible for the anti-terrorism elements of our security" was a confirmation of his long-held belief that some higher recognition of security was needed within the apparatus of government.  Mr Mercer first became Tory spokesman for homeland security under Iain Duncan Smith and pursued the former Tory leader's belief that ministerial responsibility for homeland security should carry Cabinet rank.  Mr Mercer also uses his article to say that "much of the policy beginning to emerge from the new Minister’s office reflects many of the ideas and concepts in which I have been involved from the Opposition benches."

Mr Mercer will be responsible for "a project that looks at the safety of crowded places (clubs, shopping malls etc) and tries to design out the threat of terrorism as far as that is possible."

Previously critical of Labour's performance on homeland security, Mr Mercer hopes that counter-terrorism policy can become a cross-party affair.  He cites the consensual approach to Northern Ireland and in the World Wars as precedents:

"Go back a couple of decades and we can all remember how the difficulties in Northern Ireland were faced and then controlled by the parties working hand in hand with one another. Go back even further and it is clear that coalition governments had to be formed in the two world wars. Had we failed to do so, and had we allowed the venal interests of day to day politics to intervene, then I suspect that the results might have been very different."

He now writes: "I hope that the parties can work together on an even and sensible keel and that we do not become distracted by squabbling over this all-important subject. I shall certainly contribute as much as I can."

Labour's murmuring grassroots

By demoralising the Thatcher-hating core Labour vote Baroness Thatcher's afternoon tea at No.10 may well cause more long-term damage to Brown than to Cameron, although I doubt that that was in her or her advisers' calculations.

Glancing around what there is of a Labour-supporting blogosphere I see that Bloggers4Labour "can't imagine any remotely plausible political strategy" for the "nauseating sight" of them together. Skipper believes Brown was right in saying that Thatcher was a conviction politician, but sees his cosying up to her as yet another example that he is not, and poor GrimmerUpNorth resents being booed at a local Palestinian Solidarity Campaign fund-raiser because of it.

So what will be the mood of the Labour faithful as they gather in Bournemouth a week on Sunday? I'm no expert on the internal machinations of the Labour coalition but I did attend their conference last time it was there (not as a member) so have some idea of the type of people who go. Then, in 2003, they were all muttering darkly about "blood for oil" and I often found myself compelled to defend Blair.

Now they're meeting for the first time under Gordon Brown's premiership but it will hardly be a love-in. It won't simply be the things that he's "done" in the last few months that will have annoyed them - as well as the above he's recently had run-ins with the Prison Officers' Association, Rail Maritime Transport union and, to some extent, the Trades Union Congress - but the things he hasn't done.

What happened to the man the Left looked up to? Many of them Some of them will have held out during the Blair years patiently waiting for the coup d'etat, and now Brown's got the crown and gone all Blair on them. New Labour hacks will accept Brown's political manoevring for what it is, but the ideologues will be wondering when the political capital is actually going to be used for some ideological ends (sound familiar?).

Deputy Editor

Saatchi & Saatchi to run Labour's election advertising campaign

It won the bid with this effective slogan:

Campaign magazine said:

"Saatchis is understood to have clinched the business after impressing Labour with the breadth and depth of its creative ideas, its capacity as a big agency and the new management approach under SSF chief executive Robert Senior."

What it doesn't mention is that M&C Saatchi (now a different company) is applying for the Conservative contract. Robert Senior was glowing about Brown:

"This is a seminal moment for Saatchi & Saatchi and a seminal moment for Kate [Stanners] and myself. It's a real statement of intent for the agency. We have the opportunity take the strength and conviction that Gordon Brown has shown as Prime Minister and apply our creativity to that to do the right thing for the country."

Saatchi & Saatchi was the company that successfully worked on Thatcher's campaign, although Maurice and Charles Saatchi were ousted from it in the mid-90s and it was M&C Saatchi that ran Howard's advertising campaign.

Deputy Editor

Bercow and Mercer to advise Brown's 'unity' government

Gordon Brown gets back on to the political stage today.  The Telegraph gives prominent coverage to their interview with him and yesterday's retreat of British forces from the centre of Basra is likely to be soon followed by further troop withdrawals.  This is the start of Mr Brown's September offensive.  That offensive will determine whether he re-establishes a significant opinion poll advantage and gambles on an October General Election.

Speaking to the NCVO Mr Brown has announced that two backbench Conservative MPs will advise his Government.  I'm not yet clear what role John Bercow will perform but he will, as predicted by Ben Brogan, undertake an advisory role.  Patrick Mercer's agreement to advise Lord West on security is much more of a surprise and perhaps reflects Mr Mercer's continuing disappointment at Mr Cameron's treatment of him last year.  Both men are certainly aiding Mr Brown's attempt to portray his administration as a government that can unite the country.

11am update from BBC Online: "Patrick Mercer, forced to quit as Tory homeland security spokesman after a row over alleged racist comments, is to advise Lord West on security matters.  Fellow Conservative MP John Bercow is to head a review into support to children with learning difficulties.  Mr Brown also said that the Lib Dem MP Matthew Taylor would be advising the government on future land-use policy."

11.30am, Caroline Spelman statement: “Patrick Mercer and John Bercow both have expertise in these fields and if this is a genuine attempt to involve talented people from other political parties, then it is welcome. David Cameron has always made clear that he would work with Gordon Brown on issues where we agree and both Patrick Mercer and John Bercow discussed their intention to join these reviews with the party in advance.  But it is important some of Gordon Brown’s other ideas finally result in action.  He has talked about many of these ideas throughout the last ten years but failed to deliver on them.  The Government has announced the idea of citizens juries no less than 15 times since 1997."  This statement says that Bercow and Mercer discussed their new roles with the party before they were announced.  My understanding is that the party leadership (reluctantly or otherwise) gave the two men their blessing so there will be no chance of disciplinary action against them - as some have urged in the thread below.

Gould advises Brown to call an early poll

It happened to Tony Blair, now it's happened to Gordon Brown: a memo from Philip Gould has been leaked to the Daily Mirror. In the memo, apparently written before Brown took over from Blair, Philip Gould advises the Prime Minister to call an early poll.

In his ten-point plan Gould says the Prime Minister should portray himself as a "muscular" leader with a strategy of "audacious advance". He says:

"The best way of achieving this is to hold an early election after a short period of intense and compelling activity - a kind of 'shock and awe strategy' blasting through the opposition. It is inconceivable that you will not enjoy a significant honeymoon when you become leader. You need to build on this and translate it into a new mandate. I am sure this strategy will work."

He does make clear the problems that Labour face in the next election - warning that about 60% of voters want "dramatic change" - but tells Brown:

"You have to exemplify renewal, change, and a fresh start. Your Premiership has to have a dynamism and an energy that pulls people along in its slipstream. You must become the change Britain needs."

Gould warns Brown against emulating Blair saying: "It will not be enough just to be different to Tony. You should be identifying challenges and driving the nation forward to meeting them. You should own the future." He adds  "When you become leader, you must unleash your power and energy and emerge as the compelling politician and person that you are. Your own distinctive charisma will then emerge."

He makes clear that a radical strategy of change is needed to increase Labour's vote and identifies crime, terror and immigration as the main political issues, even more important than public services and the economy.

Telling Brown: "You should aim to be a great reforming PM." he says: "You must start election planning early. We can't leave it late as we did last time. We must make a start."

Two reasons to be cautious about an autumn poll

I'm pretty worried that Gordon Brown might call an autumn poll but here are two good reasons why there might not be a September/ October election:

1. The SNP are doing well in Scotland.  A YouGov poll reported by the Scotsman notes that the SNP are doing better today than in May when they became the largest party at Holyrood.
2. Labour didn't do that brilliantly last Thursday.  That's not my view but that's the verdict of Mike Smithson over at PoliticalBetting.com.  His post is well worth a read.

PS While referring to Scotland there was an interesting article in yesterday's Scotsman about the Tories by Peter Jones.  Here are two key sections from his article:

"Goldie, with her justice spokesman, Bill Aitken, was in First Minister Alex Salmond's office within days of the election to put the Tories' argument for the agenda in the battle against drugs addiction to move much more firmly towards rehabilitation. Those points have been accepted by the SNP. Aitken has similarly made proposals about the handling of sexual offenders. Again, they have been generally accepted by the SNP.  This is enormous progress. From being the untouchables of Scottish politics, the Tories are now again acceptable citizens. It means that the MSPs now have real political purpose to their work, being able to make real achievements rather than just hoping to get the odd mention in the newspapers.

Much more is likely to come. Apart from the justice agenda, where there is considerable agreement between the Tories and the SNP manifestos, there is also much similarity between their thoughts on business rates (big cuts for small firms) and on the need for Scottish Enterprise to be slimmed down and reshaped...

One other sign of the Tories' return is worth mentioning, and that is the election of a Conservative MSP, Alex Fergusson, as the parliament's Presiding Officer. This may not look politically significant, since he has to divest himself of political trappings. But I recall listening to a ferocious argument between two Labour MPs over who should succeed Betty Boothroyd as Speaker of the House of Commons - Michael Martin, a Labour MP, or Sir George Young, a Tory.

Never forget, said one vehemently anti-Young MP, that Boothroyd's deft handling of the job had helped to convince a dubious electorate that Labour could handle big public offices. Did George Reid, while impeccably impartial, do that job for the SNP? And might Fergusson also do it for the Tories?"

Scottish Chairman Peter Duncan resigned today.  BBC Online has the story.  Let us hope that this opportunity will be used for a reorganisation of the Conservative operation in Scotland and the appointment of a full-time CEO-type figure.

Summer campaign to "keep the heat" on Brown

George Osborne is to announce a campaign against Gordon Brown in case there is an election in the autumn:

"With Westminster gripped by speculation that the Prime Minister is considering a snap election to take advantage of a "bounce" in the opinion polls, the Conservatives are planning to go on the attack. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor and Tory election co-ordinator, said last night the party intended to show Mr Brown that they were ready for an early election. "We intend to take the fight to Labour and show that we have the money to campaign hard. We are going to keep the summer heat on Brown," he said. Tory strategists hope their campaign will check Mr Brown's rise in the polls and dampen Labour's enthusiasm for an early election by showing that a well-financed Conservative Party can mount a hard-hitting campaign."

An election in the autumn is seen as increasingly likely in Westminster. At least one Conservative MP has cancelled their September holiday because of the prospect of an election in that month and a few Shadow Cabinet members are privately convinced of it.

Conventional wisdom is that an early election favours the incumbent as MPs, unlike their opposing candidates, already have a profile in the constituency. The Party's "war book" is already thick however, and it is clearly up to the challenge should Brown take the risk.

Deputy Editor

Bercow defection is expected at time of maximum embarrassment

24 hours ago a Tory MP suggested to me that John Bercow was certain to defect to Labour and it was only a question of when.

Earlier this week the MP for Buckingham attacked Iain Duncan Smith's proposals for a tax allowance for marriage during a Conservative-sponsored debate on the relief of poverty (picture).  In a recent debate on Europe he went out of his way to welcome British loss of powers on asylum policy and to support Quentin Davies' European views:

"I happen to believe that asylum policy is also an area on which we should co-operate. It was referred to en passant by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who spoke from the Front Bench about the pursuit of a common European asylum policy as though that were somehow a bad thing. Actually, as I have been arguing for the last two years in pamphlets and elsewhere, it would be a good thing. Why? Asylum is a phenomenon that confronts all EU member states and a great many other countries to boot. If we want seriously and effectively to tackle the growing phenomenon of asylum shopping, to share the responsibility for people seeking sanctuary, and to sign up to and enforce the principle of non-refoulement, we need some sort of collective agreement.

I strongly agree with a great deal of what my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) had to say."

Another MP tells me that Mr Bercow was completely silent during a tearoom discussion after Quentin Davies had defected.

Mr Bercow has already been on a long political journey.  In the 1980s he supported a group that argued for the voluntary repatriation of black and Asian people, the repeal of the Race Relations Act and the abolition of the commission for racial equality.  Since then he has become the party's leading advocate of homosexual rights and resigned from the shadow cabinet in 2002 at protest at IDS' opposition to gay adoption.  A defection to the Labour party would not be difficult for a man who has supported the Iraq war and who has opposed tax cuts.

Mr Bercow has often denied that he will defect but the consensus amongst a growing number of Conservative MPs is that he will defect at a time of maximum embarrassment for the Conservative Party.  This post should carry a large speculation warning but I thought you'd all like to know.