Hannah Campbell is Business Development Director at Apprentify. She was Parliamentary candidate for Telford in 2024 and is currently the Regional Deputy Chairman (Political) for the West Midlands.
One of the more significant developments at Conservative Party Conference was not an individual announcement, but the publication of The Right Way. Amid announcements on tax, welfare, employment, housing, defence and the state, it would be easy to treat a 98-page document on Conservative principles as accompanying material. I think that would miss its significance.
The Right Way attempts to answer a more fundamental question than what should appear in our next manifesto: what principles should guide a Conservative government, particularly when it encounters problems no manifesto could have prepared for?
That distinction matters for a party rebuilding after defeat. We certainly need credible policies, but simply assembling a new list won’t answer the deeper question of what distinguishes a Conservative response to the country’s challenges. My argument is that The Right Way should become our North Star: the framework against which Conservative policies are developed, tested and communicated.
The argument before the programme
The historical reference is deliberate. The Right Way takes its inspiration from The Right Approach, published in October 1976, three years before Margaret Thatcher entered Downing Street. As Kemi Badenoch writes in the foreword, those documents preceded the 1979 manifesto because “the argument had to come before the programme”.
That is an important distinction between a manifesto and a governing philosophy. A manifesto necessarily responds to the political and economic circumstances of an election. Government is then confronted by events, crises and choices that could not have been anticipated when it was written. As The Right Way argues, good government therefore needs to know how it thinks: how it understands trade-offs, what government should do itself, what it should leave alone and how it should respond when circumstances change.
This is why I believe The Right Way should become our North Star. Its purpose should not be to provide an answer to every conceivable policy question, but to establish the principles through which Conservatives can arrive at an answer. Policies necessarily respond to circumstances; a governing philosophy should help us navigate circumstances we did not anticipate.
There is also a welcome willingness to examine our own record. The Right Way acknowledges that previous Conservative governments promised lower immigration without a strategy capable of delivering it, legislated for Net Zero before establishing an economically feasible route to achieving it, and left the European Union without the economic plan that should have accompanied it.
That candour is necessary. Anyone who has spent time campaigning since 2024 will be familiar with the response that Conservatives had 14 years in government. Trust will not be rebuilt by pretending that every problem began when we left office. Badenoch’s formulation is more useful: Labour goes wrong when it follows its principles, while Conservatives go wrong when we fail to follow ours. The task is therefore not simply to develop different policies, but to become more consistent about the principles from which they flow.
A strong state is not the same as a large state
Several recognisably Conservative ideas run throughout The Right Way: wealth must be created before it can be distributed; work, enterprise and aspiration should be rewarded; freedom brings responsibility; and people who follow the rules should not continually find themselves disadvantaged against those who do not.
Perhaps the most useful distinction, however, concerns the role of government. The Right Way argues for a “strong state, not a hyperactive one”: a government capable of defending the country, controlling its borders, maintaining order, upholding the law, building essential infrastructure and ensuring public institutions function properly, without assuming that every social or economic problem requires another government intervention.
This is more sophisticated than an argument simply for a smaller state. A government can regulate extensively, spend heavily and intervene constantly while proving remarkably weak at performing its core functions. Conversely, limiting the areas in which government intervenes should allow it to concentrate resources and political attention on those responsibilities which only the state can fulfil.
The distinction also provides a framework through which apparently unrelated policies can be understood. If personal responsibility matters, welfare policy should help those who can work towards independence rather than simply administer dependency. If enterprise and opportunity matter, and we are concerned that young people struggle to secure their first job, it is reasonable to ask whether government itself has increased the cost of employing them. If aspiration matters, the tax system should not continually discourage people from earning, saving, owning property or building businesses.
Similarly, a belief in the rule of law has implications far beyond criminal justice. The Right Way argues that important rules should carry “predictable and proportionate consequences”, describing this as the point at which strong government and limited government meet. That principle can inform our approach to everything from policing and sentencing to borders and much more mundane questions of local government.
The important point is the direction of travel: principle first, policy afterwards.
From Conservative philosophy to Conservative campaigning
There is a parallel here with some of the work taking place through the Conservative Campaign Academy. As candidates and activists prepare for an increasingly fragmented electoral environment, there has been a growing focus on multi-party persuasion. In many areas, we are no longer operating within a straightforward Conservative-Labour contest. Voters may be choosing between Conservatives, Labour, Reform, the Liberal Democrats, Greens and independents, with political loyalties considerably less fixed than they once were.
One of the useful ideas explored through that training is that campaigning should lead with values rather than policies. That sounds like a subtle distinction, but it changes the nature of the conversation with a voter.
Consider some of the staples of local campaigning: potholes, bins, planning and fly-tipping. All matter to residents, and competent councils should deal with them. But there is nothing inherently Conservative about filling a pothole. If every candidate promises to repair the same road, the promise itself tells the voter very little about why they should choose a Conservative.
Fly-tipping provides a simple example of how the conversation can be different. We can promise to “crack down on fly-tipping”, but another party can make precisely the same promise. Alternatively, we can begin with personal responsibility. Most people dispose of their waste properly, comply with the rules and respect their neighbours. It is unfair for somebody deliberately to avoid those responsibilities and leave everybody else to meet the cost of clearing up after them. If rules are to retain legitimacy, deliberately breaking them should have consequences. Enforcement against fly-tipping then follows from the principle rather than being presented as an isolated policy offer.
The eventual policy may be identical, but the voter has learnt something quite different. They have learnt something about how a Conservative thinks.
Why values matter more in a multi-party system
This becomes increasingly important as electoral competition fragments. Every mainstream party will tell voters that it wants safer communities, thriving high streets, good schools, better roads and effective public services. Those desired outcomes alone cannot provide much political differentiation.
The more important question is how our values lead us to approach those problems differently. Personal responsibility, freedom, ownership, enterprise, rewarding work, living within our means, equality before the law and the responsibility of the state to protect its citizens are not substitutes for detailed policy. They are the principles that should determine which policies Conservatives choose.
There is also a practical political benefit. Policies necessarily change as evidence, technology, economic conditions and public needs change. A party whose identity is constructed around a particular collection of policies therefore risks losing its coherence as circumstances move on. Principles are more durable. They allow Conservatives to address a problem that did not exist when The Right Way was written and still reach a recognisably Conservative answer.
This is where the work on policy and campaigning can reinforce one another. Nationally, we should begin with our principles, diagnose the problem and develop the appropriate policy. Locally, candidates can begin with those same values, understand the voter’s concern and explain why a Conservative would approach it in a particular way. In both cases, the discipline is to resist beginning with a solution and subsequently searching for an ideological justification for it.
A North Star only works if we use it
The danger for The Right Way is not principally that Conservatives disagree with parts of it. Debate about its conclusions is healthy. The greater danger is that it becomes another substantial document launched at Conference, discussed for a few weeks and then gradually displaced by the political issue of the day.
Its real value will be demonstrated if it changes the way we develop and communicate policy. When confronted with a new proposal, Conservatives should become accustomed to asking what principle justifies government acting, whether government is the appropriate actor, what incentives the intervention creates, what trade-offs are involved and whether the proposal strengthens or weakens individual responsibility.
The same discipline should extend to campaigning. Rather than offering voters an ever-expanding shopping list of things we will fix, we should be able to explain the Conservative reasoning that connects our answers.
There is an opportunity now for three strands of the Party’s renewal to reinforce one another: The Right Way can provide a framework of principles; our developing policy programme can demonstrate how those principles apply to the problems Britain faces; and our campaigning can communicate them in terms that are relevant to people’s everyday lives.
Circumstances will change, policies will change, and the electoral landscape will continue to change. The problems confronting the next Conservative government will include some we cannot yet anticipate. That is precisely why I think we should treat The Right Way as our North Star, rather than simply as another contribution to the policy debate.
The test of The Right Way will not ultimately be how many Conservatives have read all 98 pages. It will be whether, when faced with the next difficult question, we instinctively begin by asking: what is the Conservative principle here?
If we can do that consistently, we will be in a much stronger position to explain not simply what we would do differently, but why a Conservative government would approach the country differently in the first place. That is what a North Star should do.
Hannah Campbell is Business Development Director at Apprentify. She was Parliamentary candidate for Telford in 2024 and is currently the Regional Deputy Chairman (Political) for the West Midlands.
One of the more significant developments at Conservative Party Conference was not an individual announcement, but the publication of The Right Way. Amid announcements on tax, welfare, employment, housing, defence and the state, it would be easy to treat a 98-page document on Conservative principles as accompanying material. I think that would miss its significance.
The Right Way attempts to answer a more fundamental question than what should appear in our next manifesto: what principles should guide a Conservative government, particularly when it encounters problems no manifesto could have prepared for?
That distinction matters for a party rebuilding after defeat. We certainly need credible policies, but simply assembling a new list won’t answer the deeper question of what distinguishes a Conservative response to the country’s challenges. My argument is that The Right Way should become our North Star: the framework against which Conservative policies are developed, tested and communicated.
The argument before the programme
The historical reference is deliberate. The Right Way takes its inspiration from The Right Approach, published in October 1976, three years before Margaret Thatcher entered Downing Street. As Kemi Badenoch writes in the foreword, those documents preceded the 1979 manifesto because “the argument had to come before the programme”.
That is an important distinction between a manifesto and a governing philosophy. A manifesto necessarily responds to the political and economic circumstances of an election. Government is then confronted by events, crises and choices that could not have been anticipated when it was written. As The Right Way argues, good government therefore needs to know how it thinks: how it understands trade-offs, what government should do itself, what it should leave alone and how it should respond when circumstances change.
This is why I believe The Right Way should become our North Star. Its purpose should not be to provide an answer to every conceivable policy question, but to establish the principles through which Conservatives can arrive at an answer. Policies necessarily respond to circumstances; a governing philosophy should help us navigate circumstances we did not anticipate.
There is also a welcome willingness to examine our own record. The Right Way acknowledges that previous Conservative governments promised lower immigration without a strategy capable of delivering it, legislated for Net Zero before establishing an economically feasible route to achieving it, and left the European Union without the economic plan that should have accompanied it.
That candour is necessary. Anyone who has spent time campaigning since 2024 will be familiar with the response that Conservatives had 14 years in government. Trust will not be rebuilt by pretending that every problem began when we left office. Badenoch’s formulation is more useful: Labour goes wrong when it follows its principles, while Conservatives go wrong when we fail to follow ours. The task is therefore not simply to develop different policies, but to become more consistent about the principles from which they flow.
A strong state is not the same as a large state
Several recognisably Conservative ideas run throughout The Right Way: wealth must be created before it can be distributed; work, enterprise and aspiration should be rewarded; freedom brings responsibility; and people who follow the rules should not continually find themselves disadvantaged against those who do not.
Perhaps the most useful distinction, however, concerns the role of government. The Right Way argues for a “strong state, not a hyperactive one”: a government capable of defending the country, controlling its borders, maintaining order, upholding the law, building essential infrastructure and ensuring public institutions function properly, without assuming that every social or economic problem requires another government intervention.
This is more sophisticated than an argument simply for a smaller state. A government can regulate extensively, spend heavily and intervene constantly while proving remarkably weak at performing its core functions. Conversely, limiting the areas in which government intervenes should allow it to concentrate resources and political attention on those responsibilities which only the state can fulfil.
The distinction also provides a framework through which apparently unrelated policies can be understood. If personal responsibility matters, welfare policy should help those who can work towards independence rather than simply administer dependency. If enterprise and opportunity matter, and we are concerned that young people struggle to secure their first job, it is reasonable to ask whether government itself has increased the cost of employing them. If aspiration matters, the tax system should not continually discourage people from earning, saving, owning property or building businesses.
Similarly, a belief in the rule of law has implications far beyond criminal justice. The Right Way argues that important rules should carry “predictable and proportionate consequences”, describing this as the point at which strong government and limited government meet. That principle can inform our approach to everything from policing and sentencing to borders and much more mundane questions of local government.
The important point is the direction of travel: principle first, policy afterwards.
From Conservative philosophy to Conservative campaigning
There is a parallel here with some of the work taking place through the Conservative Campaign Academy. As candidates and activists prepare for an increasingly fragmented electoral environment, there has been a growing focus on multi-party persuasion. In many areas, we are no longer operating within a straightforward Conservative-Labour contest. Voters may be choosing between Conservatives, Labour, Reform, the Liberal Democrats, Greens and independents, with political loyalties considerably less fixed than they once were.
One of the useful ideas explored through that training is that campaigning should lead with values rather than policies. That sounds like a subtle distinction, but it changes the nature of the conversation with a voter.
Consider some of the staples of local campaigning: potholes, bins, planning and fly-tipping. All matter to residents, and competent councils should deal with them. But there is nothing inherently Conservative about filling a pothole. If every candidate promises to repair the same road, the promise itself tells the voter very little about why they should choose a Conservative.
Fly-tipping provides a simple example of how the conversation can be different. We can promise to “crack down on fly-tipping”, but another party can make precisely the same promise. Alternatively, we can begin with personal responsibility. Most people dispose of their waste properly, comply with the rules and respect their neighbours. It is unfair for somebody deliberately to avoid those responsibilities and leave everybody else to meet the cost of clearing up after them. If rules are to retain legitimacy, deliberately breaking them should have consequences. Enforcement against fly-tipping then follows from the principle rather than being presented as an isolated policy offer.
The eventual policy may be identical, but the voter has learnt something quite different. They have learnt something about how a Conservative thinks.
Why values matter more in a multi-party system
This becomes increasingly important as electoral competition fragments. Every mainstream party will tell voters that it wants safer communities, thriving high streets, good schools, better roads and effective public services. Those desired outcomes alone cannot provide much political differentiation.
The more important question is how our values lead us to approach those problems differently. Personal responsibility, freedom, ownership, enterprise, rewarding work, living within our means, equality before the law and the responsibility of the state to protect its citizens are not substitutes for detailed policy. They are the principles that should determine which policies Conservatives choose.
There is also a practical political benefit. Policies necessarily change as evidence, technology, economic conditions and public needs change. A party whose identity is constructed around a particular collection of policies therefore risks losing its coherence as circumstances move on. Principles are more durable. They allow Conservatives to address a problem that did not exist when The Right Way was written and still reach a recognisably Conservative answer.
This is where the work on policy and campaigning can reinforce one another. Nationally, we should begin with our principles, diagnose the problem and develop the appropriate policy. Locally, candidates can begin with those same values, understand the voter’s concern and explain why a Conservative would approach it in a particular way. In both cases, the discipline is to resist beginning with a solution and subsequently searching for an ideological justification for it.
A North Star only works if we use it
The danger for The Right Way is not principally that Conservatives disagree with parts of it. Debate about its conclusions is healthy. The greater danger is that it becomes another substantial document launched at Conference, discussed for a few weeks and then gradually displaced by the political issue of the day.
Its real value will be demonstrated if it changes the way we develop and communicate policy. When confronted with a new proposal, Conservatives should become accustomed to asking what principle justifies government acting, whether government is the appropriate actor, what incentives the intervention creates, what trade-offs are involved and whether the proposal strengthens or weakens individual responsibility.
The same discipline should extend to campaigning. Rather than offering voters an ever-expanding shopping list of things we will fix, we should be able to explain the Conservative reasoning that connects our answers.
There is an opportunity now for three strands of the Party’s renewal to reinforce one another: The Right Way can provide a framework of principles; our developing policy programme can demonstrate how those principles apply to the problems Britain faces; and our campaigning can communicate them in terms that are relevant to people’s everyday lives.
Circumstances will change, policies will change, and the electoral landscape will continue to change. The problems confronting the next Conservative government will include some we cannot yet anticipate. That is precisely why I think we should treat The Right Way as our North Star, rather than simply as another contribution to the policy debate.
The test of The Right Way will not ultimately be how many Conservatives have read all 98 pages. It will be whether, when faced with the next difficult question, we instinctively begin by asking: what is the Conservative principle here?
If we can do that consistently, we will be in a much stronger position to explain not simply what we would do differently, but why a Conservative government would approach the country differently in the first place. That is what a North Star should do.