Paul Scully is the Conservative MP for Sutton and Cheam, and a former Post Office minister.
I’m off to pastures new. I’m stepping down at the next General Election, and much of my time is spent looking to my future. But on Wednesday night, whilst at the Centre for Policy Studies dinner celebrating their 50th anniversary, my mind shot back to my distant past as a six-year-old in 1974.
I remember the TV news leading up to the nadir of the 1978/9 Winter of Discontent. When I moved into my own first house much later in 1989, I bought candles as part of my first supermarket shop, thinking that was part of the store cupboard essentials, such was the ingrained impressions I’d formed as a young boy during the power cuts.
What the Conservatives are doing now isn’t just managing the effects of being left holding the baby after three once-in-a-century events. We are setting the ingrained impression of generations of young people. We are forming their voting habits.
Whilst the Government remains in crisis management, it’s not giving itself space to build and articulate a vision for the country, especially for younger people. Rishi Sunak’s five pledges are important, but don’t speak to individual people and their aspirations for themselves, their families, and their communities.
This approach doesn’t just put this election at risk, but as we can see from fuller detail in recent polls, we are becoming irrelevant to younger people who are then not turning to us as they get older.
Crisis management is a basic requirement of governing. People don’t focus on intricacies. If we don’t even do the basics, they’ll find someone that they think can. But we need more than this. We need to paint a picture of a better tomorrow, not just reciting stats from yesterday and getting stuck in the weeds of today.
When I was Minister for Small Business, I often talked about business owners being too busy working to have time to work on their business. That can be true of politicians too. The need to reconnect and recognise the human scale of what we do is so vital, as illustrated by the Horizon postmasters scandal.
My decision to step down wasn’t based on my prospects in Sutton and Cheam. Forecasts suggest it remains eminently winnable. It’s more about getting detached from the ability to solve problems, to get stuff done. Politics is about public service, not personal survival, unless the latter is there to achieve the former.
Poll gaps usually tighten before elections as voters focus on their own decisions rather than simply expressing frustrations. But that’s not a given without our party sharply focusing on the task at hand rather than creating more families than Mario Puzo.
Should the polls be right, rebuilding after a General Election, whenever it comes, will be a whole lot quicker if we learn the lessons of 1997. People have largely stopped listening. They won’t start again if we head off into an ideological spiral. We can’t stand up to our necks in the sea waving to the shore, urging passers-by to get in, the water is warm. That’s effectively what Reform is offering from the right and George Galloway is doing on the left.
We need to take people with us on a journey. Showing we’re looking ahead and moving forward with a natural impulse, rather than stumbling along is so important. John Lennon said “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”
That is not to say we need to be wishy-washy in our approach to be relevant to everyone. That’s what the Liberal Democrats are there for.
No, we need to be on that shoreline, in the crowd with the passers-by; nudging, guiding, coaxing, and leading people into the sea, encouraging their attention and ultimately regaining their trust in us. We need to talk about a wider range of relevant issues with meaningful solutions that people can buy into.
Starting under the high point of the ‘bell curve’ gives us the biggest audience possible. Yes, we always need to have a battle of ideas. The next few years will be crucial in redefining Conservatism for the 21st Century but that needs to be done having rebuilt the broad coalition that has made the Conservative Party such a dominant force over the last century.
As Kenneth Clarke told me as a new MP celebrating our outright majority in 2015, the reason that the UK has very few coalition governments is that the coalitions are built within the parties before the elections.
The Conservative party feels fractured at the moment, with people saying things to each other that can’t be unsaid, going further than the normal rules of respectful debate. That’s being fuelled by social media which I suspect will get worse before it gets better.
The fact that politics affects people’s lives so deeply means it is emotive and bruising at times but it’s not a game. It’s not a sport. That approach dehumanises the process and disconnects us further from those we are there to represent.
We have to show respect to the electorate. Our approach to the London Mayoral election showed how we fell short in this. The party didn’t start with a job description, looking at the skills and experience of how to be a strategic leader of a global city with an annual budget of some £20 billion and 9 million people. As a result, it’s ended up with the front page of the Evening Standard screaming out: “Have the Tories given up on London?” Respect is a two-way street. The electorate will treat the party seriously if it shows a greater degree of seriousness itself.
Take it from me, the odd person who actually joined the ailing Conservative party two weeks after the 1997 election and worked alongside some incredibly dedicated volunteers for some eight or nine years before we felt we were finally getting through and being heard, we can curtail that process if we learn from past mistakes; update that thinking to the here and now rather than the different era of the nineties and come together under strong, unifying leadership rather than heading off into obscurity.
Paul Scully is the Conservative MP for Sutton and Cheam, and a former Post Office minister.
I’m off to pastures new. I’m stepping down at the next General Election, and much of my time is spent looking to my future. But on Wednesday night, whilst at the Centre for Policy Studies dinner celebrating their 50th anniversary, my mind shot back to my distant past as a six-year-old in 1974.
I remember the TV news leading up to the nadir of the 1978/9 Winter of Discontent. When I moved into my own first house much later in 1989, I bought candles as part of my first supermarket shop, thinking that was part of the store cupboard essentials, such was the ingrained impressions I’d formed as a young boy during the power cuts.
What the Conservatives are doing now isn’t just managing the effects of being left holding the baby after three once-in-a-century events. We are setting the ingrained impression of generations of young people. We are forming their voting habits.
Whilst the Government remains in crisis management, it’s not giving itself space to build and articulate a vision for the country, especially for younger people. Rishi Sunak’s five pledges are important, but don’t speak to individual people and their aspirations for themselves, their families, and their communities.
This approach doesn’t just put this election at risk, but as we can see from fuller detail in recent polls, we are becoming irrelevant to younger people who are then not turning to us as they get older.
Crisis management is a basic requirement of governing. People don’t focus on intricacies. If we don’t even do the basics, they’ll find someone that they think can. But we need more than this. We need to paint a picture of a better tomorrow, not just reciting stats from yesterday and getting stuck in the weeds of today.
When I was Minister for Small Business, I often talked about business owners being too busy working to have time to work on their business. That can be true of politicians too. The need to reconnect and recognise the human scale of what we do is so vital, as illustrated by the Horizon postmasters scandal.
My decision to step down wasn’t based on my prospects in Sutton and Cheam. Forecasts suggest it remains eminently winnable. It’s more about getting detached from the ability to solve problems, to get stuff done. Politics is about public service, not personal survival, unless the latter is there to achieve the former.
Poll gaps usually tighten before elections as voters focus on their own decisions rather than simply expressing frustrations. But that’s not a given without our party sharply focusing on the task at hand rather than creating more families than Mario Puzo.
Should the polls be right, rebuilding after a General Election, whenever it comes, will be a whole lot quicker if we learn the lessons of 1997. People have largely stopped listening. They won’t start again if we head off into an ideological spiral. We can’t stand up to our necks in the sea waving to the shore, urging passers-by to get in, the water is warm. That’s effectively what Reform is offering from the right and George Galloway is doing on the left.
We need to take people with us on a journey. Showing we’re looking ahead and moving forward with a natural impulse, rather than stumbling along is so important. John Lennon said “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”
That is not to say we need to be wishy-washy in our approach to be relevant to everyone. That’s what the Liberal Democrats are there for.
No, we need to be on that shoreline, in the crowd with the passers-by; nudging, guiding, coaxing, and leading people into the sea, encouraging their attention and ultimately regaining their trust in us. We need to talk about a wider range of relevant issues with meaningful solutions that people can buy into.
Starting under the high point of the ‘bell curve’ gives us the biggest audience possible. Yes, we always need to have a battle of ideas. The next few years will be crucial in redefining Conservatism for the 21st Century but that needs to be done having rebuilt the broad coalition that has made the Conservative Party such a dominant force over the last century.
As Kenneth Clarke told me as a new MP celebrating our outright majority in 2015, the reason that the UK has very few coalition governments is that the coalitions are built within the parties before the elections.
The Conservative party feels fractured at the moment, with people saying things to each other that can’t be unsaid, going further than the normal rules of respectful debate. That’s being fuelled by social media which I suspect will get worse before it gets better.
The fact that politics affects people’s lives so deeply means it is emotive and bruising at times but it’s not a game. It’s not a sport. That approach dehumanises the process and disconnects us further from those we are there to represent.
We have to show respect to the electorate. Our approach to the London Mayoral election showed how we fell short in this. The party didn’t start with a job description, looking at the skills and experience of how to be a strategic leader of a global city with an annual budget of some £20 billion and 9 million people. As a result, it’s ended up with the front page of the Evening Standard screaming out: “Have the Tories given up on London?” Respect is a two-way street. The electorate will treat the party seriously if it shows a greater degree of seriousness itself.
Take it from me, the odd person who actually joined the ailing Conservative party two weeks after the 1997 election and worked alongside some incredibly dedicated volunteers for some eight or nine years before we felt we were finally getting through and being heard, we can curtail that process if we learn from past mistakes; update that thinking to the here and now rather than the different era of the nineties and come together under strong, unifying leadership rather than heading off into obscurity.