Conservative party

"I don't think there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime." - 1975 'To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say. You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning.' 'I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.' 'If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.' 'I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.' 'To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches.

Margaret Thatcher is the most significant British political figure of the past 50 years. In her time in office, she transformed the British economy, promoted the vigorous virtues and offered strength and support to the dissidents of Eastern Europe and. On top of all this, she was — of course — Britain’s first female Prime Minister. In future, people will find it hard to believe just how nationalised Britain’s economy was before the Thatcher revolution. As she said in her 1982 conference speech, ‘How absurd it will seem in a few years' time that the State ran Pickford's removals and Gleneagles Hotel.’ With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to underestimate the state of crisis that this country was in before Margaret Thatcher’s election in 1979.

The Spectator was the only national publication to fully support Margaret Thatcher in the first ballot of the Tory leadership contest. Patrick Cosgrave explain why in this political column from 23 January 1975: If I start with a reference to the sorry condition of the Tory Party, I hope readers will not immediately turn to another page, on the grounds that this record has been played too often. For I want to add that, if only the Tories can take a fairly cool look at themselves, it will quickly be apparent that the condition is not as serious as all that; and that it is certainly capable of repair. Housman's ancient "three minutes of thought" will suffice to show that there is only one direction in which the Tories can go.

Tory backbenchers have written again to the Prime Minister demanding legislation guaranteeing a referendum in the next Parliament. Conservative MP John Baron delivered the letter, which bears more than 100 backbench signatures, to Downing Street this morning. While its existence was reported in the Sunday papers, Baron has now spoken exclusively to Coffee House about the letter's contents. I understand that though Baron and his colleagues working on the plan approached only backbenchers (and those include former ministers who left the government in September's reshuffle), a number of ministers and PPSs have also approached them to express sympathy with the idea, and there are several individual letters from PPSs going to David Cameron as well.

Boris needs to pay attention. As James Allen said, 'Circumstances do not make the man, they reveal him.' Given his colourful character, discussion so far about Boris’s leadership potential has focused on the man himself; but politics is about being in the right place at the right time, as Churchill would attest. Unprecedented levels of national debt, a stagnant economy, a healthcare system that isn’t delivering, a Eurozone that may yet collapse into meltdown, a chronic housing shortage, endemic low productivity and a state that has stretched its tentacles into so many areas of people’s lives it is proving extremely difficult to disentangle – these are just a taste of some of the challenges Britain is facing and it’s not clear how Boris would handle them.

The petition to get Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53/week has amassed more than 122,000 signatures. And counting, quickly. The petition was inspired by IDS remarking, on yesterday’s Today programme, that he could live on such a welfare settlement. The secretary of state could not have said anything else; yet these incidents always create media firestorms. The IDS blaze still burns this morning; but that may not unnerve the government: from its perspective, news bulletins devoted to IDS’ gait are preferable to those devoted to the vulnerable. After a gruelling, though not unsuccessful, 24 hours warring over welfare cuts, the government is mounting a flanking counter-attack.

YouGov have once again tested how a Boris-led Tory party would compare to a Cameron-led one in the polls. When they last did so in October, they found that Boris was worth a seven-point bump: with Cameron as leader, the Tories were nine points behind Labour; Boris narrowed the gap to just two. The results this time — reported by Joe Murphy in the Evening Standard — are very similar: the Tories do six points better under Boris than under Cameron. That's enough to eliminate Labour's lead entirely. With Cameron, it's Labour 37, Tories 31. With Boris, it's 37 all. As I said last time, switching to Boris probably would not be enough to give the Tories a majority.

Downing Street’s mini-shuffle announced this morning to coincide with a joint Cameron Fallon visit to a green car plant is intriguing. Having made some inquiries, it seems that the aim was to move John Hayes out of DECC, where he was still clashing spectacularly with the Secretary of State Ed Davey and alarming some in the industry, and Michael Fallon in. Everything else followed from that. Fallon’s additional responsibilities are yet another sign of the high regard Number 10 holds him in. Fallon might be culturally, and politically, quite different from most of those in Number 10 but they have come to see him as their safest pair of hands. I’d be surprised if he isn’t elevated to the Cabinet before the next election.

The mini reshuffle earlier this morning is significant. David Cameron has moved Tory ‘greybeards’ to address problem areas. Cameron’s twitter feed has announced: ‘Delighted John Hayes joining me as a Senior Parliamentary adviser - and Michael Fallon adding a key energy role to his brief.’ Benedict Brogan and Tim Montgomerie have good analyses of what this means. In summary it appears that Hayes, a self-confessed ‘blue collar’ Tory and popular MP, is going briefless to the Cabinet Office to help the PM communicate government policy to the backbenches and the working classes. Hayes speaks in plain language. He has been pushing the energy bill through parliament, and has clashed openly with Ed Davey, the Lib Dem energy secretary.