Conservative party

Friday

Jonathan Jones

The coalition: two years in

As the coalition celebrates its second birthday, it seems as good a time as any to take a look at how it’s doing in the eyes of the public. First, here’s how the government’s approval rating — as measured by YouGov — has changed since its formation: As you can see, the coalition took office with reasonably good ratings, but the first ten months or so — which included the Comprehensive Spending Review and the tuition fees vote — saw public opinion turn against it. For the rest of 2011, the ratings stayed fairly flat, with the government neither regaining ground with the public nor losing any more — and

Fraser Nelson

The folly of Cameron’s gay marriage culture war

For some time now, a growing number of Tory MPs have been quietly informing the whips that they will not be voting to support gay marriage. They’ve been getting letters from their constituents, and even those in favour of the idea know that they can’t afford to support it. When a cabinet member spoke to the whips office recently, he was given a startling reply: don’t worry, it will never come to a vote. The consultation is ongoing, but the agenda is being dropped. The effect it’s having on the morale of the Tory grassroots is calamitous. I look at this fiasco in my Daily Telegraph column today, and here

Thursday

James Forsyth

Coulson easily handles his Leveson test

Andy Coulson’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry was a reminder of why he rose so quickly. He never said more than he had to and never let his ego interfere with his judgment. It is a testament to his skill that we essentially learnt nothing new from his evidence this afternoon. But it should be remembered that Coulson wasn’t on that bad a wicket today. The Leveson Inquiry isn’t going to overlap with the criminal investigations going on and so there wasn’t much time spent on hacking or on payments to the police. Instead, the questions focused on his relations with politicians and Cameron and Osborne in particular. Helped by

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22: Will the riots return?

We haven’t done enough to prevent the riots of last summer happening again, says Simon Marcus in this week’s cover feature. And in the latest episode of our The View From 22 podcast he expands on this, discussing his personal experiences with the Boxing Academy in Tottenham and Hackney: ‘What enabled us to engage in strong debate during the whole process was what I saw on the front line at the Boxing Academy for many years. But what I was being asked, in many ways, to accept was wrong. When you’re being told that your eyes and ears have deceived you for five years, that’s something I can’t accept.’ James

James Forsyth

Why the Tories are shaping up for an EU referendum

An EU referendum pledge in the next Tory manifesto is ‘basically, a certainty’ according to one of those most closely involved in the party’s electoral strategy for 2015. The current plan is for the manifesto to declare that a Conservative government would renegotiate Britain’s membership of the European Union and then put the new terms to the people in a referendum within 18 months of the general election. I understand that the Tory line would be that they would urge staying in the EU if Britain’s concerns could be met through this process. But if the rest of the European Union refused to play ball, they would be prepared to

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Jokes and jibes follow the ‘gracious speech’

The Queen’s Speech debate is a unique mix of parliamentary variety show and proper politics. The debate was opened by Nadhim Zahawi — who combined humour with some serious points to good effect — and Malcolm Bruce, who gave a rather worthy speech. Ed Miliband then kicked off the more political part of proceedings. Miliband, who no longer has a kick-me sign attached to him when he gets up to the despatch box, is clearly still exulting in the local election results. He scored the best hit of the debate when he complimented Zahawi on his speech. Noting that the Tory MP was the co-founder of YouGov, Miliband joked ‘I’ve

James Forsyth

First blood to the sceptics on Lords reform

The Queen’s Speech commitment that ‘A Bill will be brought forward to reform the composition of the House of Lords’ is a lot vaguer than theLiberal Democrats were hoping for, or expected just a month or two ago. Crucially, there is no mention of the second chamber being elected. If this was not enough, the bill’s place in the speech — it was the 16th piece of legislation mentioned — sent out the signal that it is not a government priority. It appears that the Tory sceptics of Lords reform have won the opening battle. This impression is bolstered by the fact that leading Tory opponents of Lords reform are content

Peter Hoskin

Cameron tries to reassure his backbenchers ahead of the Queen’s Speech

The newspapers are awash with articles previewing today’s Queen’s Speech, but few stand out as much as James Chapman’s interview with David Cameron in the Daily Mail. Here, Cameron does something that he rarely does: complain about life with the Lib Dems. There was that one time when he claimed the Tories would be ‘making further steps’ on welfare and immigration were they in a majority government, of course — but this goes further than that. He tells the paper, ‘There is a growing list of things that I want to do but can’t.’ As for the specific items on that list, Cameron mentions ECHR reform, employment regulation and the

Monday

James Forsyth

Cameron faces a political storm

For the Cameroons, the political weather at the moment is about as appealing as the prospect of a Bank Holiday trip to the beach. The Tory party is having a very public debate about its future strategy. The Alternative Queen’s Speech being promoted by David Davis, John Redwood and Tim Montgomerie is a reminder of how vocal the leadership’s internal critics are prepared to be. The worry for Cameron has to be that there is this much sounding off just two years into the coalition. One wonders what it will like be a year from now. If this was not enough, Thursday and Friday promise to bring excruciating details of

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

Whatever they say, Lords reform will remain on politcians’ minds

Have our politicos looked at last week’s turnout numbers, and thought ‘y’know, we might be a bit cut-off after all’? Reason I ask is because they’re all tripping over themselves today to downplay the significance of Lords reform, and focus the conversation on The Issues That Actually Matter. This, as James said earlier, is what George Osborne has been up to throughout the day. Ed Balls did likewise during an appearance on the Sunday Politics with Andrew Neil. And, most significantly, even Vince Cable echoed their sentiments in his interview on Sky’s Murnaghan Show. ‘We need to just quickly and quietly get on with this,’ he said of reforming the

James Forsyth

Osborne brings it back to the economy

It wasn’t, as expected, Nick Clegg on Marr this morning but George Osborne as the coalition attempted to move the argument back onto the economy. Osborne kept stressing that the government would focus on the things that ‘really matter’ to people; code for we’re not going to spend too long on Lords reform. Indeed, given that Nick Clegg has turned down a compromise on that, we now appear to be heading for — at most — a referendum on the subject. Osborne defended his deficit reduction programme, arguing that the lack of growth was a result of the Eurozone crisis and the oil price spike. But he did concede that

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

It’s time to lurch towards the public

Much of the post-Boris analysis in today’s press features on whether a rightwards shift is appropriate. The Daily Mail calls for a return to Tory values, while Matthew Parris in The Times says such calls are predictable and meaningless. But, to me, talk about moving to the right or the left is pretty pointless. As the Telegraph says in its leader today, what’s needed isn’t a lurch to the right, but a lurch towards the public. This comes back to the great, eternally-relevant distinction that Keith Joseph made between the ‘middle ground’ between political parties, and the ‘common ground’ between a party and the public.   The problem with what

James Forsyth

How the parties fared

As the dust settles on these elections, it is becoming clearer how the parties did. Labour exceeded expectations, the Tories had a bad but not disastrous set of results and the Liberal Democrats took another kicking. Indeed, they actually lost a higher proportion of the seats that they were defending this year than they did last year: 44 per cent compared to 41 per cent in 2011. Given these results is it is quite remarkable how solidly behind Nick Clegg the Lib Dem parliamentary party remains. Not a single MP has called for him to go or for the party to quit coalition. I’m sure this is partly because the

Peter Hoskin

Local elections: the video catch-up

A few videos from yesterday that we thought CoffeeHousers might care to tune into this morning. First, Boris’s victory speech (with a bit of Ken Livingstone tacked on to the end): Second, Livingstone’s concession speech, in which he announced that ‘this is my last election’: And, finally, Ed Miliband’s unfortunate meeting with an egg:

Friday

James Forsyth

The Boris factor

Boris Johnson’s victory in London is a remarkable achievement. He has won re-election in a Labour-inclined city against the backdrop of a Tory-led government making cuts and a country in recession. He has defied the national trend and, indeed, the trend in the capital itself given the results in the assembly elections. This triumph proves his vote-winning credentials in a way that his victory four years ago, secured in very favourable circumstances (Labour was in a poor state as Gordon Brown stumbled from disaster to disaster), did not. In Downing Street, there’s relief that Boris made it over the line; a Labour victory in London would have made this undeniably

Fraser Nelson

What Cameron can learn from Boris

It looks like Conservatism will tonight be affirmed in the greatest city in the world — but thanks to Boris Johnson, who has been able to sell it to Londoners far better than David Cameron managed in the general election campaign. The number to watch out for tonight is the Boris factor, the gulf between those voting for him as Mayor and those voting Conservative for the Greater London Authority.  As I say in my Telegraph column today, the clown prince is getting something badly right.   Until recently, we had been told that there are two choices for Conservatism: the ‘modernising’ faction of it, or the old voter-repelling model

Hamish Macdonell

Labour succeeds in slowing Salmond’s advance

This was the election which was supposed to establish the SNP as Scotland’s new national party, replacing Labour as the default party of choice for Scottish voters. This was also the election which was expected show that last year’s extraordinary Scottish Parliament result was not a one-off and that the SNP could push on and defeat Labour in its town hall heartlands too. But none of this has happened. Not all the results are in from Scotland’s councils yet but the overall picture is already clear. Labour has recovered from last year’s Scottish Parliament shocker and halted the SNP momentum — at least in its core key urban areas of

Tim Bale

Why Boris will struggle to become PM

‘Just three months ago’, writes Tim Montgomerie in today’s Times (£), ‘it was almost fanciful to imagine Boris as a future leader.’ Notwithstanding today’s news, it still is. The idea that, unless David Cameron ‘finds an election game-changer, the party might very reluctantly reach for the blond-coloured nuclear button,’ is a great story. But, even if the rumours that the Mayor is planning to stand for Parliament again are true, securing the leadership of the Conservative Party is going to be very difficult indeed. Here’s why. Now, I love Boris as much as the next floating voter: it’s not just that there’s something about him; it’s also because he seems

James Forsyth

The Tories air their grievances

In my unscientific canvass of Tory opinion this morning, there have been a couple of consistent themes. There’s a lot of criticism that the government lacks a narrative, that voters don’t understand why it is doing what it is doing. Another regular demand is for a shake-up of Number 10. Now, undoubtedly some of this is just the acceptable way of criticising the leader. But reinforcements arriving in Downing Street — especially ones with deep roots in the Tory party — would reassure quite a few people, as well as broadening Number 10’s support base in the party. Sayeeda Warsi is also coming in for a lot of stick. There’s

Peter Hoskin

A dreadful turnout

There are two major stories behind the headline results this morning: the rejection of elected mayors and the low voter turnout. Of these, I think the second is the most significant. You can apportion some of the blame to the dreary weather, if you like. But, still, a predicted turnout figure of 32 per cent? That’s hardly encouraging. First, though, we shouldn’t exaggerate the situation. This wouldn’t be the lowest turnout figure for any local election in history — but the lowest since 2000, when the figure was less than 30 per cent. And it’s also true that turnout has risen for the past three general elections, even if we’re