ConservativeHome’s proposals for Party reform, to avoid a repeat of the miserable snap election result.
We will have one shot at getting the revision of the Planning Framework right. This makes the next eighteen months critical for the Conservatives’ long-term future.
Cameron’s insistence on binding Britain to the OECD has undermined not just May’s vision for overseas development, but his own.
“The low point of the Conservative campaign has followed the manifesto launch,” we wrote. “The social care policy tanked, and Tory poll ratings fell with it.”
Yet the Prime Minister’s vulnerability could conceivably strengthen her, by forcing her to listen.
We have allowed our enemies to infiltrate almost every power centre that matters and delegitimise our very existence.
For all his manifesto mistakes, his core take is correct. The key people in elections are who he has always said they are: lower middle-class, provincial, home-owning voters.
The next manifesto might propose breaking the link between student maintenance costs and parental income by introducing a universal loan.
Over time, proposals have either been denounced as politically correct nonsense, or embraced with an enthusiastic “me, too”-ism. Neither approach is exactly rigorous.
The process of choosing members is taking a long time. Some will wonder how departments can continue without full scrutiny for almost four months.
My pizza-fuelled focus group confirmed why our campaign was so unattractive to these voters, and how we can win them over.
Detoxifying the Party never meant moving to the left – this year’s manifesto was well to the left economically of anything we advocated.
Once we’re no longer sending the proceeds to Brussels, the Government can invest in education and social care without asking more from the taxpayer.
The general election was a perfect storm for our Party in this part of the world, but looking ahead I think there are grounds for optimism.
The Opposition have lots of well-motivated infantry and the digital tools to coordinate them effectively. They could put Corbyn into Downing Street.