ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Conservatives will mend Britain's broken economy, its broken society and its broken politics

That was the theme of this video that was launched on Sunday and shown before David Cameron spoke to the Cheltenham Spring Forum. The words are slightly hard to read on the small screen until 40 seconds in but are large enough after then.

It's a reworking of this video from October 2007.

'We miss him'

David Cameron talks to ITV viewers about the loss of his son, Ivan.

Sarkozy versus Brown

French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised last night not to repeat Britain's economic "mistakes" and Gordon Brown's VAT cut had "absolutely not worked"...

Browse ConHome's video collection.

What is the 2009 equivalent of Labour isn't working?

The Conservatives will win an early election if they can convince the British people that Labour's borrowing is irresponsible. Although speeches, telephone number statistics and op-eds are essential parts of the persuasion process the most decisive political victories have also been associated with iconic images that resonate with the public.

In 1979, Labour's record on jobs was captured by Saatchi & Saatchi's Labour isn't working poster:

In 1992, voter worries about Labour's tax plans were solidified by the tax bombshell campaign:

We now need something for Gordon Brown's debts.  What should it be?  It could be a poster or it could be a short YouTube.  Here are two inspirations for you:

If we can get some good ideas on this thread ConHome will translate one of them into 'the real thing'...

How can you be a journalist and a politician and still be loved?

It's hard to watch this Clarkson meets Boris video and not think that the Mayor of London is something of a political superstar.

Tim Montgomerie

John Major, the movie

You can't lift yourselves out of recession with short term stimuli or with high taxes.

That was one of the messages that John Major communicated in this nine minute broadcast from 1992 (when Britain was last in recession).  We see the former Tory leader (now enjoying a measure of rehabilitation) tour Brixton - where he grew up - and he talks about his love of the House of Commons, about multiracial Britain, his Citizen's Charter, the NHS and schooling.

As with 1992's tax bombshell PPB, we are grateful to the Conservative Party's Archive for allowing us to republish this broadcast.

After eight minutes the video climaxes with some memorable blasts of Purcell.

Tim Montgomerie

The original tax bombshell broadcast

John Major's 1992 tax bombshell broadcast was one of the most successful of modern times and helped propel the Conservatives to an unexpected victory over Neil Kinnock. Most political enthusiasts still remember the 'bombshell' part of this broadcast but most of the five minutes was taken up by a look at the implications for homemakers and workers of Labour's '£1,000 tax bombshell'.

Watching it again I am struck by just how accurate the video has turned out to be.

I am very grateful to the Conservative Party Archive for allowing us to publish this broadcast which hasn't been on YouTube until today.

Tomorrow we'll be publishing the famous 'John Major, the movie' broadcast from the same year.

Tim Montgomerie

Brown is lovin' his recession

Please fill in THIS SURVEY if you would like to help make future videos.

Another great CCHQ video

Remember last year's..?

PS I was a bit ambitious to promise eight conclusion posts today (I'll do the other four tomorrow!).

Seven minute section of David Cameron's interview with Sky

[On our video the Sky interviewers' questions are mute, DC's answers aren't].

Highlights of David Cameron's answers:

• The PM has experience but his experience his of bungling regulation of the financial sector and building up the largest ever fiscal deficit;
• Mr Cameron recommends urgent action on deposit protection and a lead role for the Bank of England in managing financial rescues.
• The underlying economic problem, he says, is too much debt.
• He had a gas bill over £1,000 last year and an oil bill of over £1,000.
• Crime isn't just about punishment, but about mending the family and dealing with other root causes.
• "Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan" is Britain's number one foreign policy priority.
• Gordon Brown "thumped the poor" when he abolished the 10p tax band.  It was an "appalling" decision.

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.

Jonathan Isaby's day as Sarah Palin's number one fan

More here. Jonathan is soon going to be editing ConHome, hopefully by the end of October.

Hague and Osborne discuss Middle East strategy

At yesterday's Annual Business Lunch of Conservative Friends of Israel, Daniel Finkelstein (The Times' new Chief Leader Writer) interviewed two of the Conservative Party's top three figures; Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague and Shadow Chancellor George Osborne.  You can watch the Q&A in the videos below but here are some of the key points to emerge from the discussion:

• CFI: The first organisation that William Hague joined as a Conservative was Conservative Friends of Israel.
• Zionism: William Hague said that he was a Zionist if Zionism means being a friend of Israel who believes in its right to exist and its right to defend itself.  This echoed David Cameron's reply of last year and William Hague joked that the new thing in the Conservative Party was that all MPs say the same things!
• Iraq: Both stated that they still support the Iraq war but too many mistakes were made.  William Hague said that note should be taken of substantial progress in recent months.  There is, he continued, another democracy in the Middle East alongside Israel; Iraq.  We must help that democracy to flourish.
• Democratisation: The best long-term guarantee of peace and stability is the emergence of more and more democracies, said George Osborne, in response to a question about the Sharansky doctrine.  William Hague said it takes time to create democracies.  'Would Israel be more secure if all Israel's neighbours became democracies?', he asked.  'Probably not,' he replied.  They would likely go in a direction more hostile to Israel.  In the long-run, however, we want to see Israel's neighbours becoming more open and democratic.
• Syria: William Hague said it was imperative that we avoid a so-called clash of civilisations by building much better links with moderate Islamic states, in particular.  He repeated his commitment to a dialogue with Syria.  He has previously spoken of an acquaintanceship with Syria.
• 2006's Lebanon war: The Shadow Foreign Secretary stood by his belief that Israel's behaviour in the Lebanon war had been "disproportionate" and militarily ineffective.  It was the only time, he said, that he'd ever criticised an Israeli military campaign but you have to look at Lebanon today and see Hezbollah so much stronger to realise that it was not a good campaign for Israel.
• Hamas: William Hague said that Hamas must renounce violence and recognise Israel and honour previous agreements before Israel should talk directly to them.
• George W Bush: Both George Osborne and William Hague avoided answering a question about whether George W Bush had been a good President.  George Osborne said noone should underestimate the difficulties that the Bush adminstration have faced in the post 9/11 world and their actions need to be judged in that context.  Mr Hague said that history would judge President Bush more kindly than today's commentators.  He continued, however, by saying that America had been insufficiently open to the differences between Middle Eastern states - Syria and Iran, for example.  There had been a tendency to see the Islamic world as monolithic when it is very complex and diverse.
• McCain v Obama: William Hague said that the Conservative Party would not choose between Barack Obama and John McCain although the Republicans were the sister party.  George Osborne said that in terms of campaign techniques the Obama campaign was the campaign to study because of its "phenomenal" use of the internet.
  

The lunch was attended by eighty Tory MPs and many parliamentary candidates.

The "nice decade" is over

Poor Gordon.  Today was his big relaunch but what does the main evening BBC news bulletin lead with?  Mervyn King's warning that the road ahead - on economic growth, inflation and house prices - is going to be rocky.  Mervyn is right, of course.

Headcases

We've just added Headcases' portrayal of Nick Clegg to the PlayPolitical website.  Click here to watch the portrayals of Clegg, Cameron and Brown.  In summary: Cameron is mocked as aloof, Clegg as childish and
Brown as very boring.

Headcases broadcasts on Sunday at 10pm on ITV1.

New Media: Guido's Gordon the bogeyman video

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

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

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

You're £110 worse off because of this Budget

George Osborne's video response to what he's calling Labour's Bad News Budget.

New Tory video

Click here to watch the Tory video that accompanies the You can get it if you really want campaign.

'Dale confronted'

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

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

A video history of British Conservatism

This ten minute video emphasises the progressive character of conservatism.  It takes us right up to present day's Cameron-led party and the Built to Last values statement.  Thanks to Louise Bagshawe for alerting us to it.

Ambushed for YouTube

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

You will never see anything like this on webcameron

Britain and America have so much in common and then, wham, you're reminded of some big differences... Here are two big reminders...

Exhibit A.  A video from Rudy Giuliani promising to give Americans "fiscal responsibility" and "strict constructionist judges" for Christmas...

Exhibit B.  More powerful evidence this one.  On the day that Nick Clegg 'confesses' to atheism, Mike Huckabee's very Christian video message...

They're both on PlayPolitical, as is this CBS news report on why John McCain is making a comeback.

YouTube doesn't get meaner than this

This editing together of Fred Thompson's umm-ing and err-ing is just the latest in a series of YouTube videos that are mercilessly magnifying American candidates' personal traits.

The nervous laugh of 'Rudy Giggliani' and, much more amusingly, Hillary Clinton's mechanical laugh have also been targeted.

For the funniest ever political videos visit the comedy section of PlayPolitical.

Seventeen years ago today Margaret Thatcher failed to win the first leadership ballot by enough votes

With apologies to our younger readers but can you believe it?  It's been seventeen years since Margaret Thatcher won the support of 204 MPs and Michael Heseltine won 152 votes.  In many ways it seems like yesterday to me.  The 52 majority wasn't enough to end the attempt to oust her and a few days later Margaret Thatcher resigned.  Watch the BBC News report her resignation here but the video below records John Sergeant's reflections on the Iron Lady - including that famous Paris scene where she reacts to her failure to win the first ballot decisively.

Ben Brogan's favourite website...

...is PlayPolitical.  The Daily Mail's Political Editor wrote about this very briefly on Friday.  Thanks Ben!

PlayPolitical.com is part of the ConservativeHome family of websites.  It aims to host the best political videos from around the world.  Most videos tend to be American but, over the last few weeks, we've been following Australia's elections closely and you can watch the latest Liberal and Labor ads here.

Sam Coates and I aim to add new videos everyday.  Today there's a two minute 'Who would Jesus vote for?' ad and a five minute recording of Mitt Romney's defence of his Mormon faith.

And if you want to see our favourite political videos of all time please visit PlayPolitical's Hall of Fame.  It includes Ronald Reagan's Morning in America ad, John Redwood 'singing' the Welsh national anthem, Gordon Brown picking his nose at PMQs, the hilarious JibJab Kerry Vs Bush video from the 2004 campaign, the SwiftBoats ad, Child's Pay - a clever attack on Bush's borrowing, and A World Without America.  Watch them all here.

And please add PlayPolitical.com to your favourites!