Recommendation 12: I’ve saved what I think is ConservativeHome’s most important recommendation for last… It is very difficult to see the Conservative Party winning a parliamentary majority without reducing the number of Liberal Democrat MPs. There is little sign of the Conservative Party unseating the fifteen to twenty-five LibDems that is probably going to be […]
Recommendation 11: David Cameron is making a number of speeches and announcements every week. This devalues his status. ‘Less is more’ is the right maxim at this stage of the parliament. An announcement from the Conservative Party leader should not be routine – it should be an event. David Cameron already appears in election mode […]
Recommendation 10: The Conservative Party needs a powerful campaigns and policy centre in the north of England – perhaps Leeds. Functions from CCHQ that do not need to be in London should migrate there. The northern HQ should coordinate regional media and be headed up by a charismatic, political figure. It should have the special […]
Recommendation 9: It is vital that the party anticipates the difficulties that are going to be presented by the gap of time between the Policy Reviews reporting and the leadership deciding which recommendations to embrace. Team Cameron have reacted quickly to the Tax and Social Justice reports – shunning one and embracing the other. Will […]
Recommendation 8: Next May’s Scottish and Welsh results are likely to be very difficult for the Conservative Party. David Cameron has improved the party’s opinion poll standing but progress in Wales and Scotland, in particular, is very limited and the party is unlikely to make significant gains. There is a danger that there may even […]
Recommendation 7: George Eustice currently coordinates media for David Cameron but he is having to do so with a much smaller team than his predecessors. The lack of a broad and experienced team has meant certain storms have not been brought under control quickly enough. The Polly Toynbee and Tosser affairs should never have been […]
Recommendation 6: George Osborne’s pro-American, Eurosceptic and hawkish views will make him an ideal Foreign Secretary. If Hague can become full-time after his much-anticipated Wilberforce book is finished he’ll be a reassuring Shadow Chancellor opposite Brown’s likely successor, Alistair Darling.
Recommendation 5: 32% of Tory members are dissatisfied with David Cameron and the party leader desperately needs a party chairman who can energise activists by explaining the leader’s ambitions to Associations throughout the country. Francis Maude was the right man to oversee the A-list and the reforms to CCHQ but his negative approval ratings mean […]
Recommendation 4: I hear the A-list has been topped-up again and, of course, a few A-listers might soon be culled but isn’t it time for it to be scrapped? It has succeeded in increasing the number of female candidates but only at the expense of creating a large number of disaffected activists and of dividing […]
Recommendation 3: According to yesterday’s Times 66% of voters do not believe that David Cameron has put a stop to “the Punch and Judy politics of Westminster: the name-calling, backbiting, point-scoring and finger-pointing”. Part of the reason for this might be the fact that both David Cameron and George Osborne have been guilty of some […]
Recommendation 2: Over the last year David Cameron has moved the party on to the centre ground of British politics and he’s been careful to build bridges with people that have turned away from the Conservative Party of recent times. The most notable outreach has been to public sector workers. David Cameron has often appeared […]
Following on from last week’s review of the peaks, troughs, modernising and reassurance moments of David Cameron’s first year, ConservativeHome spends today proposing twelve actions that will help Project Cameron to make the best of its second year and build upon the modest 3% Tory lead in ConservativeHome’s poll of polls. Recommendation 1: The Conservative […]
I had lunch with Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips yesterday and she recorded this five minute assessment of David Cameron’s first year as ‘Blue Labour leader’ for 18 Doughty Street Talk TV.
In the fourth of a series of ten point guides to David Cameron’s first year as Tory leader, ConservativeHome looks at the ‘ten biggest troughs’ of the last twelve months. It didn’t take one month before the right-of-centre press started to worry and worry again and again about Project Cameron. Lord Tebbit launched his first […]
In the third of a series of ten point guides to David Cameron’s first year as Tory leader, ConservativeHome looks at the ‘ten biggest reassurance events’ of the last twelve months; the moments when the Tory leader communicated a more recognisable conservatism to the party’s traditional supporters. David Davis is kept in charge of home […]