ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Why are Britain's Tories 'back'?

I'm now in Ottawa and - as in Washington DC - am constantly asked to explain why Britain's Tories are 'back'.

There are a growing number of explanations out there and they tend (in my opinion) to exaggerate the impoprtance of green issues and the decontamination project - eg James Crabtree, Jonathan Freeland and Jamie Boulding.  I don't want people drawing the wrong lessons from our experience.

Tomorrow I'll be speaking to 150 or so Canadian conservative activists and I'd like your help in answering the question at the top of this post.

I've identified the following 13 factors:

1. Time for a change: It's the most powerful slogan in politics: After a while voters get bored with a government. John Howard's government made mistakes but, most of all, Australian voters were tired of him and his party. It simply appeared exhausted.
2. Labour's general failure: If longevity produces boredom, failure produces more active opposition. Labour's record on crime and immigration are factors in producing opposition among floating and right-leaning voters. My guess is that Iraq and civil liberties have been crucial causes of discontent within the ideas class.
3. Labour's economic failure: This factor will probably grow over the next year and explain what will be a widening Tory lead. Few voters (me included) yet understand the implications of multi billion pound bailouts.  That'll change as the consequences for the tax burden and public spending settlement become all too clear.
4. Gordon Brown: Judging from doorknocking, Brown is a big negative for Labour; he certainly was when I was face to face with angry voters in Crewe and Nantwich. Where Labour strategists hope voters will see seriousness, they actually see boring.
5. David Cameron: His personality. His message of change. His general leadership qualities.
6. The strength of the Tories' 'TV team': Boris Johnson, Ken Clarke, William Hague, David Davis, Iain Duncan Smith etc
7. Positive Tory policies. For example: Scrapping inheritance tax/ Freezing council tax for two years/ A referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
8. The Tories' economic message that Britain is already indebted enough.
9. Decontamination (getting rid of the things voters didn't like about the Conservatives): Certain things did need to be done for certain people to even consider voting Tory.  Moving away from negativity towards gay people, for example. Creating a less male-dominated candidates' list.  Ending the more general finger-wagging and Punch & Judy politics may have been another.
10. The creation of a gentler, greener conservatism: David Cameron's messages on climate change and social justice.
11. Wooing the BBC/Guardian: Hostility towards the Conservatives from the BBC is very damaging in a nation where broadcast media is so powerful (And the route to the brains/ hearts of many BBC big cheeses is through The Guardian).
12. The strength of the party organisation: Lord Ashcroft's target seats campaign and the general quality of CCHQ's media and fundraising operations.
13. The weakness of the Liberal Democrats as an alternative to Labour and the Conservatives.

I realise the factors overlap hugely - David Cameron's strategic choices, for example, explain many of the other factors.  Nonetheless, please discuss these factors in the thread below but most of all I'd like you to take this survey and help me rate their importance.

I'll publish the findings tomorrow so don't delay voting!!

Tim Montgomerie

John O'Sullivan: Cameron's Conservatives aren't serious

Former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, John O'Sullivan, has written a piece for The National Review about David Cameron's Conservatives.  He contends that a lack of policy seriousness explains the hesitant nature of Tory support:

"Barring miracles, Cameron will be the next prime minister — handed victory by the sheer scale of Brown’s failure rather than as a result of confidence in the opposition. Why is there no enthusiasm for the Tories? Why have they actually lost their polling gains of last year? There are many possible answers, but the one that knits them all together is that the voters sense something not quite serious about the Cameron Tories. They share responsibility for the crisis because, like Labour, they assumed prosperity would continue forever. They went so far as to adopt Brown’s budgetary policies essentially as an exercise in political positioning and conflict avoidance. Even where they differed from Labour, as on Europe and immigration, they cannot benefit from the failures of government policy because they decided to downplay controversial issues. They avoided deciding matters that divided them internally, in particular foreign policy, so that open rows are now breaking out between Cameron’s senior colleagues over Iraq and Gaza. And across the spectrum they selected policies on the basis of their popularity with media liberals rather than because they would solve or ameliorate problems. In short, they abandoned a broadly coherent post-Thatcherite conservatism without having any clear idea of what might replace it. They are today ideologically and psychologically directionless. They hesitate and wobble indecisively even on so clear an issue of principle as free speech in the Geert Wilders controversy. They need something to believe in — so they flounder after silly ideological novelties, as in their recent flirtation with an interventionist “Red Toryism."

Read the full article here.

Monday 2nd March: Daniel Finkelstein has posted an open letter to John O'Sullivan, questioning his analysis.

David Cameron's New Year message

Just released by CCHQ and published in full below. In his message the Conservative leader promises that he won't drop his green, social justice and international responsibility agendas but will "step up the pace" on them.  He accuses Labour of losing its moral compass and of being "corrupted by power".  Boris' message is also pasted at the end of the post.

“In my New Year message three years ago, I said that I wanted the modern Conservative Party to be a voice for change, optimism and hope.  What was true in the good times is even truer now that times are tough, and getting tougher.  People are looking to us for hope in these dark days, and we must be ready to offer it: hard-edged hope, built on a clear-sighted analysis of what has gone wrong and how we can put it right.

That provides this Party with three important tasks for 2009.  First, we must show that we have learned the lessons of Labour’s Debt Crisis and will never let it happen again.  Second, we must offer constructive and positive ideas to help keep people in work and in their homes, and make sure the recession is as short, shallow and painless as possible.  But third and perhaps most important of all, we must set out our positive vision of change: to describe the new economy and the new society that we want to build once the recession is over and the recovery underway.

Live blog of David Cameron's press conference

Highlights, not verbatim:

This government has been in power too long. His long list includes the Department of Transport initiative that spent more on an efficiency drive than was saved (link), Labour's manipulation of knife crime statistics and a refusal to express regret over the arrest of Damian Green.

A big choice now exists in British politics; on the economy and society. He lists Tory proposals on the economy. On society we have a plan to repair Britain's broken society.  The Labour proposal to force single mums with children as young as one is a "rotten apple" in Labour's welfare reforms.  It is "shameful".  We will work with all MPs in all parties to stop that idea in its tracks.

The right moment for compulsion is when the children of single mothers start to go to school (link).

There is no excuse whatsoever for Gordon Brown delaying talks between the civil service and Conservatives on preparing for an orderly transfer of power.

Three years of David Cameron's leadership

David Cameron was elected three years ago today, winning 67.6% of party members' votes.

He marks the anniversary by addressing a Conference of the Ulster Unionists.  The Tory-UUP deal, overseen by Owen Paterson, is one of the high points of his leadership.  Mr Cameron has consistently refused to take risks with the Union and has consistently declined to encourage the anti-Scottish sentiment that is too evident on ConservativeHome threads.

The ConservativeHome poll of polls puts the Tories 7.4% ahead on this anniversary weekend.  That's not quite enough for a working majority but I've never been more sure that David Cameron will be Britain's next Prime Minister.  For the reasons set out earlier this week, the economic situation will deservedly end Labour rule.

Labour remain clueless as to how to attack David Cameron.  That much was evident last week when I sat on a panel with Hazel Blears.  Hazel was absolutely charming but her critique of David Cameron as an Etonian flip-flopper won't go anywhere.  The class war nonsense failed Labour in Crewe and Nantwich and David Cameron's leadership has actually been characterised by considerable consistency.  I think of championing a more diverse slate of parliamentary candidates; opposition to new grammar schools; ending the patient passport and all that it meant; opposition to "unfunded" tax cuts; abandoning sympathy for ID cards and championing civil liberties; not "obsessing" about Europe; and taking green positions on, for example, a third runway for Heathrow and expanding rail travel.  Today's is not the same Conservative Party that Mr Cameron inherited.

Some of the changes have, of course, depressed grassroots Conservatives and David Cameron still struggles to enthuse.  I have always been a supporter of Mr Cameron and his social reform agenda - the biggest idea on the centre right today; an idea that owes so much to Iain Ducan Smith's Centre for Social Justice.

The greatest mistake of the Cameron period was the tactic of economic disarmament; most characterised by the now abandoned decision to match Labour's spending plans.  That shift completes the rebalancing that took place in the summer of 2007.

The greatest remaining weakness is a tendency to be too political.  Eight-times-out-of-ten when I ask a frontbencher why x or y policy cannot be enacted I get a political answer; We can't do that because focus groups tell us that it would unpopular or because we'd upset The Sun.  Rarely am I given practical reasons why a policy might be unworkable.  I don't hear enough passion and belief from Team Cameron although this year's Party Conference speech was a notable exception.

In the time before the election my big hopes are for

1. Francis Maude's Implementation Office; can it do the hard work of turning policy ideas into transformational programmes for government?
2. For a strengthening of the government-in-waiting team, including more full-time frontbenchers;
3. A serious commitment to reform of the bloated, inefficient state that the Brown-Blair years have spawned;
4. The development of a foreign and security policy that is equal to the challenges of our time. 

Tim Montgomerie

Fasten your seat belts (II)

'What's the mood of Conservative MPs?' I asked a frontbencher last week. 'Is it still tracking the opinion polls?' 'Oh no,' he replied quickly, 'It's worst than that. It's not all opinion polls; just the very latest one.'

I hope I'm wrong but it's perfectly possible that there'll be an opinion poll this time next week which will show the Labour Party narrowly ahead.  Labour are pursuing two main themes at the moment (I paraphrase):

1. We'll do whatever it takes to mitigate the downturn (unlike the Tories); and
2. We'll force the horrible banks to lend to the real economy.

CCHQ are hitting back in the next 24 hours with the launch of an advertising campaign.  It will be posted on conservatives.com early tomorrow morning.  But we should be prepared for some bumpy times so - like last year - I'm inviting you to fasten your seat belts and while the polls fluctuate remember ten reasons why the next election is still likely to produce a Conservative victory...

Andrew Lilico and Warwick Lightfoot both back a fiscal stimulus today but the message of Matthew Parris, writing in The Times, is that the stimulus may not work and that prospect should probably be Gordon Brown's number one worry:

"If summer comes and still the recession bites, Mr Brown's sorcerer's reputation may dim. With the stimulus spent and still not stimulating; the seed corn eaten, not sprouting; the grind of the pistons as the engine refuses to spark, a Prime Minister hunched over the ignition, still bragging that he knows how to start this thing, could annoy mightily."

Tim Montgomerie

"How the Conservatives lose the next election"

Brown cuts taxes... Osborne doesn't find room for serious tax cuts... Infighting breaks out inside Tory Party... Lots of interest rate cuts... Caroline Spelman forced to resign over nannygate... Barack meets Brown... Then narrow Labour election win early next year...

That's the theory of Robert Winnett over at The Telegraph (or as Guido would have it, The Labourgraph).  For the reasons set out very briefly yesterday (and that the Brown bounce isn't that big), it's not ConHome's view.

David Cameron: Barack Obama is the first of a new generation of leaders who will deliver change

David Cameron, Leader of the Conservative Party:

"In electing Barack Obama, America has made history and proved to the world that it is a nation eager for change. This has been an exciting and inspirational contest with two great candidates. In these difficult times people everywhere are crying out for change. Barack Obama is the first of a new generation of leaders who will deliver it - he has my whole-hearted congratulations. This is an important moment not just for America but for the world. Barack Obama's victory will give people a new opportunity to look at the United States and see her for what I believe she is - a beacon of opportunity, freedom and democracy."

> Related comment: Louise Bagshawe sees hope for the Tories in Obama's victory; Suli Shah hopes for two big things from the President-Elect; Tim Montgomerie says Thank you, John McCain

> Related video: David Cameron meets Barack Obama, 26 July 2008

Broadcast reaction to DC's big speech

Throughout the evening we'll be recording the broadcast media's reaction to David Cameron's speech.  We'll be watching:

• 6pm: BBC1's Six'o'clock news
• 6.30pm: ITN News
• 7pm: Channel 4 News
• 10pm: BBC1's Ten'o'clock news
• 10.30pm: Newsnight

BBC1 SIX'O'CLOCK NEWS: Lead item: Cameron is a man with a plan. Eleven minute package that ended at 6.11pm. Main report ends with David Cameron kissing Samantha, in front of his shadow cabinet. Nick Robinson says that there is no change of agenda here despite reference to Margaret Thatcher. The green and flexible working messages underlined the continuity, he concluded. Voters in a BBC focus group in Stafford wanted more policy detail and less sitting on fence. Most of the focus groupers didn't like the mention of Margaret Thatcher.

ITN 6.30PM NEWS: Third item: Cameron says Britain needs character and judgment, not experience. Begins at 6.42pm and ends at 6.48pm.  ITN report ends with visit to voters in Jacqui Smith's Redditch; concludes "This is one town where voters are heading in David Cameron's direction."  Tom Bradby describes the speech as a "quite clever" rebuttal of Gordon Brown's 'no time for a novice' line and a movement towards the Right.

C4 7PM NEWS: Lead item: A man with a plan. 13 minutes (with a focus group report later in the programme to come). A sobre, serious speech but short on policy.  Like the BBC1 and ITV Gary Gibbon's report uses the Margaret Thatcher and experience section. Phil Collins of The Times - former Blair speechwriter - admits speech was "very impressive", in many ways "Blairite" - laughs that a white shadow cabinet walked on stage after diverse, handpicked candidates had introduced Cameron. Nick Boles says "very powerful" speech was best so far from David Cameron; Cameron has brought together best traditions of party and a celebration of modern Britain.  The image below is the C4 word cloud...

BBC1 TEN'O'CLOCK NEWS: Lead item: David Cameron is a man with a plan. 12 minute report. Nick Robinson's report begins with film of Cameron out jogging through Birmingham with PPS Desmond Swayne at his side.  The report included a generous treatment of all the speech's main themes.  The BBC focus group reacted very warmly to DC's message on the Human Rights Act. Nick Robinson's concluding two-way decides that Margaret Thatcher was toxic and wonders at Mr Cameron's attempt to compare today's choice with that of 1979.

BBC2 NEWSNIGHT: Cameron's speech is second item - after Senate vote on bailout. David Grossman interprets the speech as a warning that taxes may have to rise. Michael Crick says yesterday's speech was better; gives Cameron 7/10 and Brown 7.5/10 for his speech of last week.  Also says the speech put tax increases on the agenda.

Live blog of David Cameron's Party Conference speech

Highlights, not verbatim:

4.03pm: Final words: "Better times will lie ahead"

4.02pm: We don't promise new dawns. I'm a man with a plan not a miracle cure. I'll stick to my guns and not bottle it when times get tough. Leadership, judgment, character are what Britain needs. These are tough times but I'm optimistic because of Britain's innovative spirit.

4.01pm: We are a changed party and united. We are making progress in the north. We have won the Mayoralty of London. The Crewe & Nantwich by-election. A metropolitan authority in the North East of England.

3.58pm: [Olive branch to David Davis with generous mention]. Progressive ends - helping the poor - and conservative means.

3.57pm: With the inspiring help of Iain Duncan Smith we have built our party as the party of social justice.

3.55pm: That 5m people of working age are out of work is bad for our economy, society and for those people. The benefits system encourages a benefits culture. We will end the something for nothing culture. If you don't take a reasonable job offer you risk losing your benefits.

3.51pm: When families fail a good school is the best second chance for a child.  There aren't enough good schools - particularly at the secondary school level and in our cities. That's why Michael Gove will break up the state school monopoly. The election of a Conservative government will mean "a declaration of war" on the idea that all must have prizes.

3.46pm: Many state interventions have been good but many state interventions are now having diminishing returns. Today we must look at the causes of social problems. The family is the best welfare system there is. We will back marriage in the tax system because of the commitment it embodies.

3.45pm: Yes we need to be tough on crime but come with me to Wandsworth prison and yes, you meet the mugger but you also meet the young man who has never been loved or the middle-aged man who has never succeeded.

3.42pm: My great mission is to be as radical on social reform as Margaret Thatcher was on economic reform.  I don't know what planet people are living on when they say our society is not broken.  [Lists social problems].  Our angry, harsh culture of incivility sums it all up.

3.42pm: We will be the party of the NHS.

3.40pm: Reads a letter from Alan Johnson outlining four bureaucratic ways of complaining about the NHS but not one way of letting people die with dignity.

3.37pm: We will keep our manifesto promises and we fight the European elections on a pledge to hold a referendum on Lisbon.

3.34pm: People are sick of the sleaze in politics. MPs voting on their salaries and the "wretched" John Lewis list have to go. All of our MEP candidates must sign a pledge on code of conduct.

3.33pm: The problem is Labour and that won't be changed by Miliband or Balls or Harman.

3.32pm: Huge applause for his attack on Labour for believing that people are on their own if government is not at their side.

3.30pm: The Tories have two big missions: Protecting the NHS and mending our broken society.

3.29pm: The Government's role isn't just about tax and spend. I don't believe in laissez-faire. When the south-east is overheating and the north is overheating it's wrong to give the go-ahead to a third runway at Heathrow. That's why we'll build a new high speed rail link to rebalance the economy.

3.28pm: The flight of companies is a big problem. We must help businesses by cutting corporation tax and making it simpler.

3.27pm: I understand business. I admire entrepreneurs. I go to bed with one every night (and I wake up with the same one every morning!).

David Cameron: Britain needs change, not experience

These key extracts from David Cameron's speech has been pre-released:

“If we win, we will inherit a huge deficit and an economy in a mess. We will need to do difficult and unpopular things for the long term good of the country. I know that. I’m ready for that."

"There is a big argument I want to make - about the financial crisis and the economic downturn facing the country too. It’s an argument about experience. To do difficult things for the long-term, or even to get us through the financial crisis in the long term, it’s not experience we need - it’s character and judgment. To rebuild our economy, it’s not more of the same we need, but change.

"Experience is the argument of the incumbent over the ages. Experience is what they always say when they try to stop change."

POSTSCRIPT

The BBC has analysed the 400,000 words from the publicly-available speeches that David Cameron has made since he became leader in December 2005.  Read the analysis here but most notable is the consistency of his references to the NHS (and not to immigration) and the fact that Iain Duncan Smith gets more name checks than any other member of his team - a tribute to the importance of IDS' social justice agenda.

David Cameron promises to impose spending "straightjacket" on Tory government

On Andrew Marr's Sunday programme David Cameron discussed the Conservative commitment to establish a new Office of Budget Responsibility.  The Tory leader said that the taxpayer-funded Office would regularly produce an independent assessment of progress towards a balanced budget.  It would be very politically difficult for a Conservative Government to ignore the Office's assessments about spending control, he argued.  In effect, said David Cameron, the Conservatives are imposing a "straightjacket" on themselves for when they hope to be in office.

Andrew Marr then quizzed David Cameron on the party's spending plans but asked all the wrong questions.  He focused on the period up until 2011 when the real issue is what Conservatives will do beyond then.  Mr Cameron did, however, cast doubt on Gordon Brown's ability to keep spending growth to 2%pa over the rest of the parliament.  He argued that the PM's speech to Labour in Manchester included a number of new spending pledges.  There was a danger that Brown would pull the walls of the building down upon himself before he left office.  "The scorched earth policy".

Asked about the looming nationalisation of Bradford & Bingley he said that he favoured Bank of England-led reconstruction rather than Labour's rush-to-nationalisation.  He did offer to work with Labour in a bipartisan way to introduce fast reform of deposit protection arrangements.  On issue-after-issue (eg education and Trident) he said that the Tories have demonstrated a willingness to work with Labour in the national interest.

David Cameron said that there'll be no easy and cheap bashing of the market from the Conservatives.  Such bashing won't save a job or help pay a mortgage. But Gordon Brown's regulatory mechanism has comprehensively failed.  Under a Conservative government, banks will be required to be better capitalised and he also noted other Bank of England reforms (as reported by ConHome yesterday).

The Plan by Hannan and Carswell to launch tomorrow

Direct Democracy will tomorrow launch its third major publication, written by Douglas Carswell MP and Daniel Hannan MEP. The Plan: 12 months to renew Britain sets out a legislative programme that the authors believe would take a single session of Parliament, accounting for recesses, but change Britain for ever.

The original Direct Democracy publication, subtitled Agenda for a New Model Party, argues for the Conservatives running and government unambiguously as the anti-Establishment, anti-centralist party, devolving power either back to the individual or to the lowest possible level of government. The book identified voters' dissatisfaction with politicians and reluctance to vote as a rational response to the way in which Britain is governed, with the decisions most clearly affecting people's lives more often taken by quangos and bodies of supposed expert opinion than by elected politicians. Released following the 2005 General Election, three out of four leadership contenders - David Cameron, David Davis and Liam Fox - endorsed the pamphlet. The proposal of elected sheriffs is now Conservative Party policy. This was followed by the Localist Papers, serialised in the Daily Telegraph.

Openly radical, The Plan applies these general principles to produce a policy and legislative programme. The book includes proposals for the use of referendums to allow citizens to initiate and to halt legislation, and a Great Repeal Bill, abolishing thirty laws, many selected from ConservativeHome readers' comments to Douglas Carswell's CentreRight thread 'What laws would you repeal?'. The book has chapters devoted to pitfalls and voters' dissatisfaction in areas from health care to foreign policy.

ConservativeHome will be covering The Plan's launch event tomorrow evening. The book can be ordered online now.

Peter Cuthbertson

The Guardian, The Independent and the Conservatives

The two newspapers that really count in Britain are The Guardian and The Daily Mail (...discuss!).  The Guardian is the newspaper of the ideas class (notably the BBC).  The Mail represents the roar of middle England.  The Mail came close to endorsing David Cameron a few weeks ago.  The Guardian, last week, more or less invited its readers to give the Conservative Party a sympathetic hearing.

Today's Independent media section reflects on the invitation.  Here are the article's key observations:

• The 'Progress in Blue' leader was personally signed off by Editor Alan Rusbridger.
• Labour reacted furiously - producing a memo for frontbenchers that accused The Guardian of being taken in by the Conservatives.
• Labour is blaming a few influential Guardian journalists for the leader and the series of "friendly" articles that preceded it.  Julian Glover, Matthew Parris' partner, and The Guardian's chief leaderwriter is a chief target of Labour's suspicions.
• "Friends of Polly Toynbee say she is "livid" at the apparent "neutral" repositioning by The Guardian."

A CCHQ source has told ConservativeHome that The Guardian's shift is a vindication of the party leadership's decision to regularly place exclusives with the newspaper.  The party thinks that "Guardian-love" is a key route to the heart of the BBC; the party's ultimate objective.  Our source also said that The Guardian had become "p***ed off" by the bullying of the Downing Street press operation: "Damian McBride [the PM's chief spindoctor] doesn't understand that you can't imitate 1997 media management tactics when Brown is as far behind as Blair was then ahead."

David Cameron: We won't 'seal the deal' until General Election Day

David Cameron spoke to CCHQ staff this morning.  WebCameron have recorded some of his remarks...

His key messages:

• The Conservative Party knows that it hasn't sealed the deal until election day.
• The party must keep its feet firmly on the ground and focus on the problems of the country.
• Labour is in a shambles.

"One of the most profound, but under-appreciated, changes that David Cameron has brought to Conservative politics is a determination to put the strengthening of relationships at the heart of policy."

We've discussed Michael Gove's remarks about Nuts and Zoo but there's much more to this morning's speech to the IPPR.  It's an explanation of David Cameron's Conservatism that sees the quality of relationships as essential to progress in education and the relief of poverty.  It's a statement of the superiority of people-sized institutions - like the family, neighbourhood charity and local school - over state-sized bureaucracies.  It stands very much in the great tradition of To Empower People, the landmark book on civil society by Neuhaus and Berger.  Some highlights from Michael Gove's speech:

The importance of relationships: "Ubuntu is a Bantu word which, broadly translated, means "I am because you are". President Clinton has made it something of a mantra, and deployed it to great effect in his speech to the 2006 Labour Party Conference. It resonated because it spoke to a deep truth. Each of us is defined, and enriched, by our relationship to others. It's the strength of our relationships, the warmth of our friendships, the time we have with our partners, parents and children, the respect we're given in the workplace and by our peers, the achievements we forge collaboratively and collectively, which generate real happiness and fulfilment. We are fully ourselves because others believe in us.  One of the most profound, but under-appreciated, changes that David Cameron has brought to Conservative politics is a determination to put the strengthening of relationships at the heart of policy."

Labour is undermining community relationships: "The Government's approach to the closure of post offices, with its narrow emphasis on economic costs without regard to social benefits, is an erosion of community resilience.  The determination to push ahead with the closure of small GP practices and their replacement by polyclinics is another move in the direction of narrow cost efficiency over enriching personal intimacy... More broadly, the web of autonomous institutions which help bind communities together have found their lives made more difficult in the last ten years. From scouting to child-minding, regulation has driven adults out of roles where they served their communities. School governance and charitable engagement have become much more time-consuming, legally fraught and bureaucratically complex."

Eight Tory lessons for the US Republicans

As we did for Mike Gerson, ConservativeHome recently arranged a three day visit to the UK for Fred Barnes, Executive Editor of America's Weekly Standard.  Our programme for Fred involved about fifteen meetings, including with George Osborne, Michael Gove and Iain Duncan Smith (politicians); Martin Bright, Janet Daley and Daniel Finkelstein (commentators); plus Andrew Cooper, Rick Nye and Stephan Shakespeare (pollsters).  The New York Times' David Brooks is our next guest.

Fred has now written up his visit as the cover piece in the latest edition of TWS.  It's one of the very best summaries of Project Cameron that we've ever read.  He identifies the following main lessons that the Conservatives of the UK can teach the Conservatives of the US.  He unpacks each lesson in his article but here they are as bullet points:

1. It takes time... to rebuild voters' trust
2. 'It's not about ideology. It's about you.'  Personalities as well as policies needed reforming.
3. 'Broader ground.'  Social justice and green issues have been added to the Tory pitch.
4. Don't ignore elites*.  The BBC and progressives have been cultivated.
5. Co-opt liberal ends and capture liberal jargon.  The Tories have colonised the left-wing term of social justice with centre right ideas.
6. Social psychology.  Nudging etc.
7. You need a leader.  After November, if McCain loses, the Republicans will lack an obvious leader.
8. Forget slogans.

Read the full piece.

* David Frum fears the GOP has done this.  Meeting Tim Montgomerie last week he noted that, for example, there is not a single economist that supports the Republicans at the University of Chicago.

Highlights from David Cameron's Andrew Marr interview

Highlights, not verbatim, from David Cameron's remarks on this morning's Andrew Marr programme:

• Knife crime: Getting caught on the streets with a knife and only getting a caution sends the "most appalling signal".
• Prisons: Conservatives would start building prisons as soon as we came to office - paid for by scrapping the ID cards scheme and by selling the prime propoerty locations of the old Victoria prisons and building new prisons, better equipped for rehabilitation.
• Tax cuts: My decision to resist calls for big taxes has been "vindicated" because of the deteriorating economic poisition... I disappoint people every day in the Conservative Party by saying you can't have that unfunded tax cut.  That is what leadership is about.
• Labour's VED plans: There is nothing green about taxing the Ford Mondeo that a family bought a few years ago.  I don't think Labour will go ahead with planned VED hike.
• We'll vote for James Purnell's welfare reforms: We have taken tough decisions on the public finances including our ideas on welfare reform.  We are "thrilled" that Labour is now taking up Tory get-tough ideas on welfare.  If Labour's backbenchers give James Purnell's welfare reforms difficult the Conservative Party will "do the right thing" and ensure their passage.  They are the right thing and they will save money.
• Tories are making the running in UK politics: On welfare reform, cleaning up MPs' expenses and knife crime you see a Conservative Party that isn't just taking tough choices but making the running in British politics.
• Heathrow: I'm leaning against Heathrow expansion because the economic case hasn't been made and there could be serious environmental consequences.
• Lisbon Treaty: The Lisbon Treaty should have been declared dead after the Irish vote.  If the process is still going on when we come to office we will certainly hold a referendum on Lisbon.  If Lisbon has been ratified across Europe by the time of the next election "we won't let matters rest there" and will spell out in our manifesto what we will do.  The Conservatives are also committed to hold a referendum on any future EU Treaties that would see powers transferred to Brussels.  Click here for Dan Hannan's take on this section of the interview.

Watch the interview here.

Project Cameron has evolved but has been remarkably consistent overall

Peter Oborne writes about the big Tory turnaround in today's Daily Mail.  He believes that Cameron has made major changes in order to transform his opinion poll ratings of last year.  Here are some of Oborne's 'evidences' with our comments in italics afterwards:

• Grammar schools: "A year ago, Cameron's leadership had just been brought to its knees after he infuriated his core supporters by sanctioning a scathing attack on grammar schools by his education spokesman David Willetts. However, Cameron has since appointed a new education spokesman, Michael Gove, and has a new policy which decrees that grammar schools must be 'absolutely defended'."  Although it's true that Michael Gove has been warmer to grammar schools there is no big shift in policy towards, for example, supporting their expansion in areas of the country where there are no grammars.
• Green issues: "Take, also, the environment. When Cameron became Tory leader, green issues lay at the heart of everything he did.  He would take his 'carbon neutral' bicycle journey to work.  To show his concern about melting glaciers, he orchestrated a photo-shoot of himself being pulled by dog-sled inside the Arctic Circle.  Nuclear power was, he declared, a 'last resort'.  However, this emphasis has now radically changed.  Recently, Cameron remarked: 'If nuclear power stations can make their case in the market, they should go ahead.'  The Tories have also pledged to introduce a 'fair fuel duty stabiliser' which would lower the amount of duty imposed by the Chancellor when the cost of oil goes up.  And his concern about his own carbon footprint seems to have waned - having now clocked up more than 70 flights by private jet or helicopter - the most environmentally-damaging methods of transport since becoming Tory leader."   The environment is certainly not the central theme that it was and the shift on nuclear power is notable.  David Cameron's recent opposition to Heathrow expansion shows that the theme is still alive, however.  The most significant shift is towards a more positive environmentalism - George Osborne signalling recently, for example, that households will be encouraged to recycle.
• Economic policy: "On the economy, the shift has been almost as marked. This time last year, Cameron seemed out of touch with the financial struggles which dominate the lives of so many ordinary, hard-working British families.  Economic policy, he blithely insisted, was 'not just about giving people a tax cut but giving them more time for the good things in life'.  Yet Cameron's most recent comments have been much more understanding, with an emphasis on the pain that voters are suffering from rises in the cost of living and the difficulties so many face in paying their ever-increasing tax bills."  The economy and tax are back at the centre of the Conservative message but there has been no big shifts.  The pledge to match Labour's spending increases is still Tory policy and there'll be no unfunded tax relief.
• Crime: "Then there is the area of law and order.  Soon after becoming Tory leader, David Cameron spoke with sympathy about the hoodies who menace so many of our streets.  The problem, he declared, was 'neglect and absence of love'. That naive view has quickly been jettisoned.  Now he's much tougher and the message is: 'Carry a knife, and you will go to jail.'"  No contradiction or big change here.  Cameron still wants to be tough on the causes of crime - by proving young people with better structure, education and the love of a good family - and tough on crime - by increasing prison places etc.
• Law and order: "Cameron's personal style has changed, too.  When he took over from Michael Howard, he called for an end to 'Punch and Judy politics' and promised an element of crossparty consensus by saying he would support the Government on certain issues.  Now, however, Cameron is far more confrontational, as witnessed by his repeated attack on Gordon Brown as 'useless' during Wednesday's Prime Minister's Questions.  In short, a new, more confident and much nastier Tory leader has emerged in recent months - one that has received the private endorsement of Margaret Thatcher."  Peter Oborne is largely correct here and he could also have mentioned the disappearance of open necked shirts, too.

Oborne exaggerates but it's also true that his list is incomplete.  He could also have mentioned greater discussion of immigration (part of a wider 'And theory' broadening); the downgrading of the A-list for candidate selection; and a willingness to now mention (and appear with) Margaret Thatcher and George W Bush.

But the more striking feature of 'Cameronism' is its continuity on some of the biggest issues.  Three stand out:

• The centrality of the social reform agenda.  David Cameron's first act as Tory leader was to visit a community project with Iain Duncan Smith (Ray Lewis' Eastside Young Leaders' Academy actually) and establish the Policy Group on Social Justice.  Social justice has remained a central theme ever since and George Osborne connected it to the long-term health of the public finances last Tuesday.
• Economic stability before tax cuts.  We think it's a false choice but you can't accuse George Osborne of wavering from his belief that fiscal conservatism and budgetary discipline must come before supply-side tax cuts.
• The NHS is safe in Tory hands.  The party has said that it will match Labour's spending on the NHS and avoided any talk of bold reform.  As with the economy, 'NHYes' is a reassurance-drenched message.

The defining events of David Cameron's leadership

We've already drawn attention to it on the homepage but there's a must-read piece in today's Sunday Times by Jonathan Oliver and Isabel Oakeshott about David Cameron's right-and-wrong speech from last Monday.  We said at the time that it was "a great speech" and Oliver and Oakeshott have put it alongside two other speeches as the defining moments of David Cameron's leadership.  The other two being his speech at the 2005 Party Conference which saw Mr Cameron become overnight favourite to succeed Michael Howard and his speech last year - again in Blackpool - when he called Gordon Brown's bluff on an autumn election: Call That Election, We Will Fight, Britain Will Win.

We'd put George Osborne's inheritance tax announcement, the 'huskies trip' to the Norwegian glacier and the tough reaction to Derek Conway as three other defining moments.

What do you think?  We'll add the best suggestions to our Wiki, which will be up-and-running in a few days...

FT leader attacks David Cameron's "posturing"

Not a great press day for the Conservative Party.  The newspapers are full of stories about Ray Lewis.  The Mail, notably, devotes its whole front page to a splash about the "wheels coming off" Boris' Mayoralty.  Completely OTT.

For the second time in a week we also have a newspaper worrying about the depth of the Cameron project.  Earlier in the week it was The Times.  Today the FT devotes a leader to David Cameron's "big flaw"; "posturing".  We can dismiss the section of the editorial that is dedicated to the EU (The FT being Britain's most Europhile newspaper) but some of its other thoughts are more challenging:

"While the Brown government has taken firm decisions on a range of issues – such as the need to develop nuclear energy, the need to expand London’s Heathrow airport and the need to streamline planning laws – the Conservatives sit on the fence. This cannot go on. Mr Cameron is wary about nuclear power, but what would he replace it with? If he is not in favour of expanding Heathrow, which UK airports will he grow to meet capacity constraints? If he is against streamlining decisions for big infrastructure projects, how can he make the UK competitive? The voters deserve an answer."

The Conservative Party has done some hard thinking on UK competitiveness - this week's report on tax simplification being a case in point but we do not yet have an economic policy that is up to the task of restoring the UK's economic competitiveness.  Much more important than the immediate slowdown - significant as that may be - is the longer-term uncompetitiveness created by more than a decade of tax, regulation, bureaucratisation and increased welfare dependency.

'A growth agenda' will be the subject of one of the five essays that we'll be publishing in the week beginning 14th July as part of our 'A Government worth having' series.  In that second week of the series we'll be looking at other areas of policy reform that the Tory leadership has yet to adequately master.  This coming week, however, we'll be identifying five policy areas where Conservative policy is far from "posturing".  The series starts on Monday with an article from Michael Gove on schools policy. 

A Government worth having

Yesterday's Times leader marked the beginning of a new phase in David Cameron's leadership.  Although the leader communicated a dissatisfaction with what the Conservative Party presently has to offer, The Times also communicated the fact that the Tories are now seen as the Government-in-waiting.  With that comes a lot more scrutiny.

David Cameron has responded today and welcomes that scrutiny although his article does not fully address The Times' concern that the Conservative Party has yet to enthuse the nation or address some of its biggest challenges.

Over the next two weeks ConservativeHome will be launching a special ten part feature: A Government worth having.  Next week we will publish a daily essay on five areas of policy where the Conservatives are close to having policies that are as bold as the challenges are great.  Michael Gove will be writing about schools, Nick Herbert about crime, Maria Miller about the family, Chris Grayling about welfare and Greg Clark about civil society and the voluntary sector.

The following week we will be examining the areas where the party still needs to do much more.

David Cameron has already done an enormous about to build 'a Government worth having'.  But the mess that Brown will leave - and he may operate a scorched earth policy over the next two years - will require a Conservative Government of considerable intellectual and moral preparation.

Two years to develop a programme at least as bold as 1979

As we've blogged before, the standard ConservativeHome talk to Conservative Associations over the last six months has been divided into two halves.

We begin with the good news and it's all political.  The rise of the Conservatives and the decline of Labour.  Bottler Brown's 'Ratner Saturday' was, we argue, the decisive turning point in Labour's political fortunes - and our own.

We then turn to the bad news: the weakness of Britain.  Britain's problems are different from 1979 but at least as challenging.  An economy built on debt.  A tax burden that is putting UK plc at a terrible economic disadvantage.  Schools that don't teach the basics. Hospitals that don't stand up well to international comparisons.  A growth in extreme poverty.  A policing culture that is cowardly in the face of militant Islam and anti-social behaviour.  A culture that worships irresponsible behaviour and is indifferent to the importance of parenting and the family.  An overstretched, underfunded armed forces.  A constant bleeding of powers to the EU, a United Kingdom in danger from separatists and an unprecendented distrust of politicians.

In yesterday's Daily Mail Max Hastings provided his own catalogue of Britain's problems.  It's a must-read piece.  He says that David Cameron will need to "play hardball" as Prime Minister.  Max Hastings is right.

In terms of meeting the big challenges we can take a lot of encouragement from Boris Johnson's first moves.  On Thursday the new Mayor of London announced that Tim Parker had been hired as day-to-day chief of City Hall.  Mr Parker has a great record of cost-cutting in both the private and public sectors.  Unsurprisingly, the left doesn't like this inspired appointment.  A record that he'll now bring to London after years in which Ken Livingstone allowed costs and council tax to get out of control.

Boris has also brought one of the two men behind Carphone Warehouse's success into an executive role for the Olympics.  Hammersmith & Fulham's tax-cutting leader, Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh, is helping with an audit of City Hall.  Ray Lewis, a very successful social entrepreneur, is advising Boris on London's problems of youth crime.

David Cameron has two years to prepare for 'hardball'.  Personnel picks are going to be almost as important as policy decisions.  The same individual helping Boris with his appointments - Nick Boles - is also right-hand man to Francis Maude; the shadow cabinet minister responsible for David Cameron's transition plans.

What will a Cameron premiership be like?

It's a premature question but, according to the latest ConservativeHome survey of members and readers, 93% of you think that it is "very likely" or "fairly likely" that 10 Downing Street will be home to the Camerons after the next election.

As we try and answer the question five pointers stand out as guides to what a Prime Minister Cameron might be like.  Our list would include:

• His policy priorities and manifesto
• The people he has already picked for his inner circle and for his frontbench
• How he has reacted to big events during his leadership
• How he has managed the Conservative Party since becoming leader
• His conduct before he became leader and as a younger man.

So: How is David Cameron performing on those five criteria?  Here is our assessment...

'New Labour has already won the next election'

That's the view of The Economist's Bagehot.  The Conservatives may be 26% ahead (we couldn't resist mentioning that again) but, writes Bagehot, "the revival of the Conservatives under David Cameron arguably represents the project's final triumph".  Here are The Economist's arguments for the triumph of New Labour and, in italics, our responses to them:

1. The emergence of a more compassionate conservatism: "The party that opposed the establishment of the minimum wage and much of Mr Brown's tacit redistribution now has the chutzpah to present itself as the champion of the poor, and even as the avenger of inequality. Eleven years of New Labour has made compassion compulsory."  30% true.  The Conservatives are rediscovering the party's one nation tradition and will not challenge key ingredients of the Labour programme, eg the minimum wage but the Conservative approach to poverty will be very different.  David Cameron writes this in today's Independent: "We can see that in the 20th century, the methods of the centre-left – principally income redistribution and social programmes run by the state – had considerable success in relieving poverty. It would be churlish to pretend otherwise. But those methods have now run their course. The returns from big state intervention are not just diminishing, they are disappearing."  A Tory approach to poverty-fighting is going to be much more multidimensional.  The Centre for Social Justice emphasises smaller, innovative charities not Labour's big, statist voluntary groups.  There'll be much more emphasis on the family, school choice and drug rehabilitation.  Ray Lewis, Boris' new deputy, and Shaun Bailey, our Hammersmith candidate, are both poverty-fighters and both reject huge parts of Labour's approach to exclusion.