Conservative party

Monday

David Blackburn

What happens if Labour wins?

Bruce Anderson’s column in the Independent is a must read today and it concludes with this telling anecdote: ‘The other day, a Cabinet minister had lunch with a journalist. “What happens if you win?” enquired the hack. The minister looked astonished. It was clear that this possibility had not occurred to him. Having regained the power of speech, he replied: “There’d be an immediate leadership challenge”.’ Really? Brown was immovable when trailing by twenty points; a mandate will make him impervious to everything except death and possibly blindness. A narrow Conservative victory followed by a second election this autumn is a more likely scenario than a Labour win. Would Brown

James Forsyth

A note of caution over Cameron’s welcome attack on lobbyists

The Tories will be happy with their start to the week. David Cameron’s speech this morning has succeeded in highlighting how Labour had not suspended the whip from the three MPs charged by the CPS and drawn one of the Tories’ favourite contrasts, decisive Cameron versus dithering Brown. It was also refreshing to hear Cameron take a tough line on lobbying, proposing to double the waiting period before ministers leaving office and taking private sector jobs to two years. Lobbyists already have far too much influence on our politics. But there are risks to Cameron in this Obama-style play. As one Tory insider said to me just before party conference,

David Blackburn

Brown’s personality defines the character of his government

David Cameron will re-launch his election campaign with a personal attack on Gordon Brown. Cameron will embark on the straightforward task of proving that the Road Block is not a moderniser – the Prime Minister’s sudden avowed passion for PR is merely a marriage of electoral convenience. Cameron has led the expenses reform debate and will use Brown’s dithering over the latest furore to condemn him as a ‘shameless defender of the old elite’. According to Francis Elliot, Cameron will say: “There is no chance Gordon Brown will do what is right and put the public interest before his own political interests. He cannot reform the institution because he is

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

The cuts consensus

John Rentoul today puts Trevor Kavanagh and myself in the dock for demanding “massive spending cuts” and concludes that if we “had any power” we would be “about as helpful to Cameron as Sarah Palin was to John McCain” but believes Cameron “will hold to his strategic course”. I mean: massive cuts. How crazy is that? Surely only swivel-eyed maniacs would be planning cuts – real, hard-core ideologues – would plan that when the deficit is a mere 13 percent of GDP. Surely? It struck me, reading this, that John is unaware of the massive cuts which Labour is planning (understandable, as they were in the small print and have still not

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

What’s needed now is a modern Conservative party with clear, discernible principles

I’d like to do a final round of responses to comments to my Keith Joseph lecture. It’s easy for debates about Conservatism to be caricatured as being for or against Cameron – and my lecture fits into neither category. I’m a big supporter of Cameron’s, but often wish he’d have more faith in himself: I fear he feels he has to make more short-term concessions than he has to – thus blunting his message of ‘change’. For years, any debate about Tory policy is described in the terminology of Tory civil war circa 2002 (which all too many people, from both sides, are still fighting) – ie that you an

David Blackburn

Parris versus Nelson

Here’s a question: to be a good angel or a bad angel? We know what Fraser thinks; Matthew Parris differs. Writing in the Times today, he asserts that he would give David Cameron the same advice he offered Margaret Thatcher in 1979: agree a gloriously unspecific manifesto. The details of hard-edged manifestos are ambushed well before polling day; discretion is the better part of valour. In the immediate circumstances of the Tory wobble both arguments are commendable. The Tories have unwound when trying to supply detail to flesh out their broadly radical ideas. Recognising marriage in the tax system has been their foremost blunder. The impassioned denunciation of Labour’s record on

Friday

James Forsyth

More fuel for the anti-politics fire

Obviously, after the news that three Labour MPs and a Tory lord have been charged with various criminal offences over their expenses, there is a limit to what can be said for legal reasons. But it can be noted that because the four charged are from the two main parties, the politcal impact will be more anti-politics than anything else. I suspect the attempt of the the three Labour MPs to claim Parliamentary privilege will exacerbate these feelings. P.S. In case any CoffeeHousers missed the news, Lord Hanningfield has resigned from the Tory front bench and had the party whip suspended.

Peter Hoskin

The Tories need to push the fiscal case for public service reform

Andrew Haldenby’s article in the Telegraph this morning got me thinking: when was the last time the Tories really pushed the fiscal case for public service reform; that the government can indeed deliver better services while spending less money? By my count, you’d have to go back around six months to George Osborne’s speech on progressive politics at Demos. There, the shadow chancellor said this kind of thing: “Indeed, I would argue that our commitment to fiscal responsibility in the face of mounting national debt is not at odds with progressive politics, but fundamentally aligned to it – as politicians on the left from Bill Clinton to former Canadian Prime

Peter Hoskin

Four Parliamentarians to be charged over expenses

It’s just been announced which Parliamentarians will face criminal charges over their expense claims. They are: David Chaytor Jim Devine Elliot Morley Lord Hanningfield So, three Labour MPs and one Tory Lord.  Expect plenty more public anger – the Legg report has no way near drawn a line under this issue.

Daniel Korski

Post-election Entene Cordiale?

If there is a strategic thought lurking inside the Tories’ grab bag of foreign policy ideas, it seems to be closer cooperation with France, particularly on defence matters. Should William Hague become Foreign Secretary after the election, he might end up working with a new French counterpart, as rumours persist about Bernard Kouchner’s imminent departure (knowing this, he apparently even floated his own name for the Kabul UN job). A new Parisian counterpart for Hague – for example, the current French Agriculture Minister, Bruno Le Marie – could make a new Entente Cordiale easier. But, even then, would the French be up for closer links with the UK? Angela Merkel

Fraser Nelson

In response to CoffeeHousers

CoffeeHousers have left some characteristically forthright and thoughtful comments on the blog about my Keith Joseph lecture, and I thought I’d answer them in a post.   Tiberius says that I don’t mention voters very much – I talk only about ideas. The voters have been taught Labour ideas: isn’t this something the Tories have to deal with? First, I firmly believe that the public are open to persuasion, open to new ideas having seen the collapse of Labour’s ideas. But, in my lecture (full text here), I do mention voters quite a lot. As Keith Joseph put it, it is folly to seek the ‘middle ground’ between political parties,

Thursday

Alex Massie

New US Army Division: The Fightin’ Hermaphrodites

Given that homosexuals are permitted to serve in the armed forces of, I think, every NATO country bar Turkey and the United States and that none of these countries have reported any great difficulty as a consequence of ending this discrimination, it’s hard to see how lifting the ban on gays serving in the military can really destroy the United States military. For that matter, in the draft era, thousands of gay men obviously served in the army and, as best I can recall, this didn’t have any significant operational impact. Still, it’s grimly amusing seeing what excuses the opponents – including a flip-flopping John McCain – can come up

Fraser Nelson

Why winning isn’t enough – and a response to The Fink

I delivered the Keith Joseph lecture last night, entitled Winning Is Not Enough. My point: that the Tories have adopted so many Labour policies out of tactical considerations that they are in danger of getting to office only to find they have signed up to continuing Gordon Brown’s agenda. The problem is not so much Gordon Brown himself, but his misunderstanding of government and politics: it’s his ideas that are so dangerous. If those ideas survive with a blue rosette, they are no less dangerous. And if a Tory government adopts these ideas then that’s not change. It’s more of the same.   By the time you add up all

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

The chip on Brown’s shoulder

So the former roadblock is now a born-again reformer – and, like most born-again types, he wants everyone to know about it.  Writing in today’s Guardian, Gordon Brown sells his proposal for a referendum on the alternative vote system as “a rallying call for a new progressive politics.”  And, from there, he gallops through written constitutions, Lords reform and digital democracy.  Watch him go.   Amid it all, though, I couldn’t help noticing that the PM repeats a key mistake from last year: “I am inviting the leaders of all parties to engage positively in these debates and back our constitutional reform and governance bill. So far the Conservative leadership

James Forsyth

Was today a turning point?

I suspect that when we look back at this year, we might conclude that today’s PMQs was a turning point. David Cameron has had a poor January but today he was back on form, winning – as Lloyd Evans says – PMQs for the first time this year. Perhaps more significantly, there was real noise from the Tory backbenches, which have been noticeably quiet in recent weeks. It was as if the party was pulling back together after a relatively trying period. It was also significant that Cameron stayed on the offensive throughout; he didn’t get drawn into conducting the debate on Labour’s terms despite Brown’s best efforts. Gone was

David Blackburn

Brown meets his Waterloo

Lord Guthrie had it right with his well-directed expletive: Gordon Brown just doesn’t get defence. His record, both as Chancellor and PM, leave him vulnerable to criticism on the subject; but today, Brown has been confronted by a khaki-clad nightmare. After suffering his first reverse at PMQs for months, beaten decisively by a beautifully executed Tory plan, former permanent secretary at the MoD, Sir Kevin Tebbit, informed the Chilcot Inquiry that Brown ‘guillotined’ the defence budget with annual reductions of £1bn. Geoff Hoon’s testimony disclosed the full effects of Brown’s single act of stringency. The timing could not be better for the Tories, who have been intent on self-destruction of

Peter Hoskin

Dispatches from the Green Budget

It’s back to the British Museum for public finances anoraks. After George Osborne’s speech here yesterday, the IFS are this morning presenting their Green Budget (that’s green in colour, rather than green in outlook). It’s the mid-session coffee break, so I thought I’d fill CoffeeHousers in on what’s been said so far. The bottom line came more or less immediately, with the IFS director Robert Chote’s introduction. His point was that the next government will have to introduce “more ambitious” fiscal tigthening, going forward to 2015, than that set out in Darling’s PBR. But he added that there shouldn’t really be more spending cuts and tax rises this year. The

James Forsyth

How to set up a school

When the Tories talk about enabling any group that wants to, to set up a school and be paid by the state for every pupil they educate, it is sometimes difficult to imagine how this would work in practice. We have got used to such a top-down education system, where the state provides the schools and determines how many there are in any place, it is hard to imagine how a more organic system would work. But today the New Schools Network, a cross-party charity set up to promote the establishment of new schools, has published a proposed application form for those who want to set up a school.  The

Tuesday

James Forsyth

The next parliamentary scandal

On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with Sir Ian Kennedy’s judgements on those MPs who have appealed against Sir Thomas Legg’s judgement of how much they should repay. The Commons will also be publishing a record of all lunches, dinners and receptions MPs held for outside groups in the Palace of Westminster in the last five years. This is going to be an intriguing document and one that I suspect could set off another series of scandals. First of all, people will cross check this list against the list of electoral donations and there are sure to be some ‘cash for access’ controversies. There will also be

David Blackburn

Oh no, the Tories are consulting Lord Stern

According to Laura Kuenssberg, Lord Stern is not an official advisor but confirms that he is consulting with the Tories on their climate change policy. As Iain Martin notes, what bizarre timing. The UEA and IPCC scandals simmer and Ed Miliband recently declared war on reason – which has almost certainly reduced James Delingpole to tears of fear. Even more extraordinary, The Sunday Telegraph reported that findings in the Stern report, which defined climate change policy, were “severely edited” before publication. ‘But it can be revealed that when the report was printed by Cambridge University Press in January 2007, some of these predictions had been watered down because the scientific