Ever since the shattering election defeat in July Conservative Campaign Headquarters CCHQ has been a target of heavy criticism.
From candidate selection, the campaign itself, individuals within Mathew Parker Street, to the search for donations – every aspect of CCHQ has been picked over. Some have even come to question the very point of CCHQ’s existence.
Our panel confirms that little of that criticism has died down.
64.4 per cent either ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ believe CCHQ is doing a bad job. Of the 23.3 per cent who think it’s doing a good job the vast majority only ‘somewhat believe’ it’s doing that.
Whilst that frustration with CCHQ doesn’t seem to have changed in six months – CCHQ actually has.
There’ve already been lay offs. More redundancies are currently being worked through. This is more a reflection on the state of the party’s finances than anything else, but the fact is some of those the membership were unhappy with post-election simply don’t work there anymore.
A fresh set of faces and skill sets is something 33.7 per cent of our panel want to see.
How much that is motivated by a desire to punish for failure, or a strategic yearning for new and different talent isn’t clear. The former would see some talent lost that may not deserve to be, whilst the case for the latter is strong. The challenge is – the party may not be able to afford that new talent, and in opposition, struggle to persuade them it’s even a job they want to do.
It doesn’t help though that structural issues, the tone of CCHQ interactions with the rest of the party, and a basic faith in their ability to “turn things around” is just not there right now. What’s not clear is whether this is driven by anger built over the last 14 years, or, more worryingly, still present despite recent changes meant to remedy the situation.
The mood inside CCHQ divides into; reluctant acceptance they’d be a ‘flak magnet’ anyway in the wake of such a defeat and a defensive-posture that not everyone blamed for bad outcomes was actually directly responsible for them. Those that are left in CCHQ are working harder to cover the gaps created by staff reductions, but at the same time the wider party isn’t in the mood to bother with who’s to blame for what – it’s a general ‘plague on all your house’.
In the autumn of 2024 there were voices calling for CCHQ to be abandoned altogether – “I’d simply raise it to the ground, sell the space, and start again” was heard in plenty of quarters. That doesn’t seem to be our panel’s position. Over half (55.2 per cent) think the future is to retain a central CCHQ but increase the role of the regions and voluntary party.
We know Kemi Badenoch has been in to Matthew Parker street and delivered, depending on who you talk to, a hard hitting honest message that CCHQ simply has to work better, or berated an already bruised team of people doing little for their morale. Sympathy for them will be hard to find. The simple truth is CCHQ does need to bring in money, and it’s campaigning has to be better.
Some around the new leader are on record saying they want CCHQ to be less ivory-tower and more plugged into the party nationally. Our panel seems to suggest it wants the same. That’s important because the regions and voluntary party don’t just desire a greater say – they been demanding it for months.
Last week wasn’t great for any of the main party leaders.
Sir Keir Starmer was rightly criticised for trying a ludicrously innumerate and bogus premise on the public by suggesting they had to choose to accept the tax hit on family farmers in order to have shortened waiting times and lower mortgage rates.
Nigel Farage’s new environmental policy got widely criticised for the back-of-fag-packet thinking it seemed to demonstrate, while his deputy got rinsed on air by his sudden concern for Russians being killed in a war Russia started – and could end tomorrow.
Kemi Badenoch’s last PMQs disappointed many of her MPs who say they just want her to do better each week. They want more from her and they want reassurance she really has that ‘more’ to offer.
However, for all three, this is the short term stuff of Westminster headlines and political gossip.
Getting CCHQ into a place where it could be the election winning machine it has been in the past is of no interest to the public and media. However it is harder to fix properly, takes money, fresh strategies and time, to get right. It’s our problem, and Labour and Reform would love the Tories to mess it up.
Ignoring that call for greater involvement from the regions and voluntary party could be a bigger mistake than any critiques of a lacklustre day at the despatch box.