Conservative party

Monday

Peter Hoskin

The need to go further and faster on Welfare reform

I’m on my way to the home city of the best football club in the world (and one of the worst) shortly.  In the meantime, it’s worth flagging up this morning’s reports on Tory welfare policy, which we’ll be hearing more about later today.  Basically, the Tories are going to re-emphasise that they’d put incapacity benefit claimants through medical tests, to check their ability to work, and that the more effective private-sector wing of the welfare service would be massively expanded.  While this is, in essence, an extension of existing government welfare policy, it’s certainly to be welcomed.  There will be over 6 million out-of-work benefit claimants when the next

David Blackburn

The Tories look evasive on Europe, but now is not the time to clarify

The phrase “we will not let matters rest” sounds slightly menacing, but it’s completely opaque. Is it time for the Tories to define what they mean by it? The leading article in the Times argues that perhaps it is. ‘Now that the Irish have ratified the Lisbon treaty at the second attempt, the Conservative Party needs to listen to Robert Peel. In 1834 Peel issued a manifesto in Tamworth in which he said the Conservative Party should now accept the Great Reform Act which it had vigorously opposed. Now that David Cameron finds himself struggling to clarify the circumstances in which he will offer the nation a referendum on the

Fraser Nelson

Straight talk on Lisbon?

I have just been on a phone-in with Five Live, and heard Greg Clark getting into a fix over Europe. “Are you going to do some straight talking with us tonight?” asked Steven Nolan. Yes, he replied. What will the Tories say if Lisbon is ratified, then? Wriggle wriggle wriggle. “We don’t deal in hypotheticals” Clark said – the worst possible answer in my view. Any question starting in the word “if” is a hypothetical, and politicians answer them all the time. To claim otherwise insults the intelligence of listeners. But what other option did Clark have? I can’t understand why the Cameroons don’t say that there is no point

Sunday

James Forsyth

Who won’t make it into Cameron’s Cabinet?

There are 29 members of the Commons and the Lords speaking from the podium at conference. Four shadow cabinet members are not — Lord Strathcylde, Lady Anelay, Patrick McLoughlin and Mark Francois. We shouldn’t read too much into who is not speaking. The Leader of the Lords and the Chief Whips in the Lords and the Commons are not regular conference turns and there is an obvious reason why the Tories don’t walk to talk about Europe. What might be more significant is that one person who is on the front bench but not in the Shadow Cabinet has got a slot, Maria Miller — suggesting that the party hierarchy

James Forsyth

Someone didn’t tell the printers

The official conference guide announces that at 2pm tomorrow “Alan Duncan, Shadow Leader of the House of Commons” will be speaking in a session entitled “Reforming politics: Transparency”. Of course, he won’t be. He is no longer shadow leader of the House. Ironically, it was this appointment that sealed his fate. It was thought that it would be a PR disaster to have someone who had complained that MPs were living on rations speaking on this topic and so Duncan was demoted to be shadow Prisons Minister and Sir George Young moved into his job and speaking slot. I suspect that a proof reader somewhere will be getting an earful

James Forsyth

We await the beef

The Tories have been briefing heavily that this would be a policy heavy conference. Indeed, I’m told that every shadow Cabinet member will have at least one substantive announcement to make. But there is relatively little that is genuinely new in the Sunday newspapers. One explanation for this is that the Tories accept that Lisbon is going to crowd out any other story. One senior source told me on Friday that CCHQ thought that nothing other than Europe would have cut through until Sunday afternoon. So far, the Tory containment operation on Europe appears to be just about holding. There is, though, grumbling about Boris’s comments in the Sunday Times

David Blackburn

Cameron’s radicalism is best for Britain

The Observer’s leading article asks the question: will David Cameron’s modernism serve Britain’s interests? The article’s conclusion is a firm ‘no’; its key is that the ‘Conservatives’ apparent relish in tackling the budget deficit is not entirely economic in motivation. It expresses a broader ideological commitment to a smaller state.’ A smaller state is better for Britain. The consistent growth of the state over more than a decade has demolished Britain’s financial strength. In changed economic circumstances, its continued growth is unsustainable. July is a month that should produce a revenue surplus, as tax receipts outweigh borrowing. This year saw a £8.1bn deficit. Nothing expresses the nation’s parlous financial position and the

David Blackburn

The European issue gets the Tory conference underway

The Conservative conference is just hours old, but already Cameron faces a battle to hold the line over Europe and the Lisbon treaty.  He produced his standard response on the Andrew Marr show: that he wanted a referendum if the Czechs refuse to ratify the treaty. And he added: “I don’t want say anything or do anything that would undermine what was being decided and debated in other countries”. Meanwhile, rent-a-quote Europhiles and Eurosceptic Tories exchange blows in Manchester. Leon Brittan described a possible referendum on the Lisbon Treaty as “ludicrous” and Dan Hannan has just told Sky News: “This is not the Conservative party of the past. This is

Fraser Nelson

Signs of the changing political landscape

So how radical is David Cameron? I  was on a Radio Four panel yesterday for “Beyond Westminster” (now online) where, for once, I was not the only token right-winger. It was presented by Iain Martin and had Bruce Anderson, who wrote this week’s cover piece about Cameron, and Jackie Ashley. I was begging Iain to introduce her as being from “the left-wing Guardian” to repeat the intro that the BBC so often gives the “right-wing” Spectator (“Warning: the views you are about to hear are not from the consensus”). Iain asked me if I thought Cameron had the courage and the character needed to transform Britain. I concluded with words

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

Time to start banging on about Europe

It’s not yet official, but everyone is couning on a big “yes” from Ireland – to the tune of about 64% says The Guardian. I say in my News of the World column tomorrow that this is far from a disaster for the Conservatives. It works well for them, in fact: it isn’t nerds who want a UK referendum but any fair-minded person who has just witnessed the way Brussels bullies, bribes and cajoles to get its way. Tony Blair was the one who reneged on his promise of a rederendum – something which, in my opinion, should be a criminal act (but, as Stuart Wheeler tested, is not technically

David Blackburn

The politics of hope are dead. Cameron has everything to gain by being realistic

Publicly at least, Labour MPs are jubilant that Gordon Brown has agreed to appear, in principle, in a televised election debate. They give the responses to the creed first spun by Blair: that Brown is an arch-realist and heavyweight who will undo the vacuous Tories in debate. Certainly, Mr Brown is blessed with talents. As proud wives like to do, Brown’s listed his the other day – intelligence, hard work, dutifulness, diligence and patriotism. All laudable attributes, but even from environs of the cosy Labour conference, Mrs Brown did not dare suggest that her husband was in any way a realist. Brown’s, and Labour’s, messy divorce from political reality was

Friday

David Blackburn

A glimpse of Home Secretary Grayling?

Chris Grayling’s reputation as a one-dimensional attack-dog was accentuated by his ill-judged comparison of Britain with Baltimore. The argument laid against Grayling is that he shouts about the government but provides no more than a whisper about policy. However, Grayling shows deep and nuanced consideration of policy when interviewed by Martin Bright in the Jewish Chronicle. Grayling’s subject is extremism and failing multi-culturalism. I apologise for its length, but here is the key section: ‘“I think the government has to make it absolutely clear that anyone in our country who espouses violence is not going to be able to do business with the government of the day and in many

David Blackburn

The Hague Miliband Euro-feud hots up

Much has been made of David Miliband’s vitriol against the Tories and their EU parliament grouping, and the intimation that Eric Pickles is Anti-Semitic. William Hague complained yesterday, and has now formalised that complaint by writing to the Foreign Secretary, highlighting the factual errors and misconceptions that dominated Miliband’s speech. Hague ends the letter by writing: ‘Democratic politics is at its best when it is a civilised and constructive debate between different points of view. It is deeply regrettable that you have listened to those who prefer the politics of slur and smear. Your duty as the country’s Foreign Secretary is to support our nation’s good relations with our allies.

David Blackburn

How to form a government

The change from being in opposition to being in government is almost impossible to gauge. How does a new prime Minister assume control of government? Peter Riddell gives David Cameron 10 tips that would ease the process. To emphasise the scale of Cameron’s impending problem, the only tip he can enact now is to ensure a smooth transfer from Shadow Cabinet to Cabinet. Riddell writes: ‘Do nothing that would make governing harder. When appointing Shadow spokesmen, think whether you want them to do the same job in office. In 1979 and 1997, two fifths of the new Cabinets had not held the same posts in opposition. The most successful ministers

David Blackburn

Council tax freeze is a cracking wheeze for Labour

Paul Waugh has the scoop that all eight Labour councils in London will freeze council tax from next April. The councils worked with Communities Secretary John Denham, who emphasised that 2010-2011’s increase in the central grant means that tax rises are unacceptable. As Waugh puts it, the “low-tax era seems finally to have begun”. This is very early to announce rate levels and represents a pre-election skirmish, suggesting that Labour will campaign on the issue of maintaining low council taxes nationwide. Labour face annihilation in the capital, so freezing unpopular rises whilst not embracing equally unpopular cuts is politically smart. Although it will be interesting to see if Tory councils

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Memo to Brown: compromise can be a good thing sometimes

Iain Martin writes a typically insightful post on Labour’s conference capitulation.  His central point is that Brown & Co. are following a misguided “no compromise” strategy: “These difficulties with the media are part of a wider problem with the so-called ‘fight-back’ strategy being used by Gordon Brown. It is based on an analysis which is highly unlikely to convince any voter to change his or her mind. In short, it runs like this: ‘We have looked at the many opinion polls which tell us the vast majority of you think we’re untrustworthy and have messed up monumentally. But we think you’re wrong. We’re actually brilliant, and we’re going to keep

James Forsyth

A conference that changed nothing

The red flag has been sung and the delegates are heading home. But no one I’ve spoken to believes that this conference has really changed anything. Labour is still heading for defeat at the next election.   Perhaps, the biggest thing to come out of this conference is that Labour’s relations with the media are rapidly heading back to where they were in the days of Neil Kinnock. The party is in a rage at both the BBC and Sky News and seems intent on picking a fight with News International. If Labour does carry on running against the media, the only winner will be the Tories. Labour is also

David Blackburn

Forget referenda. If the Irish vote Yes, a future Conservative government would have to adopt the Lisbon treaty

According to exhaustive polling data, the Irish will vote Yes to the Lisbon treaty. With Czech senators looking set to ratify the treaty also, the probable future Conservative government in this country faces a dilemma: what to do about Lisbon. Simple, says Bill Emmot in the Times. Cameron and Hague must hold their noses because it is in their national and partisan interests to do so. ‘For a new Tory government in Britain, the European scene could not be better, with right-wing parties in power in both France and Germany. The chance is there to seek common cause on an issue dear to Tory hearts, namely defence and the protection

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

How Cameron responded

A quick post to point out that Fraser’s interview with David Cameron – to which CoffeeHousers contributed questions – will be appearing in tomorrow’s issue of the magazine.  We’ll also be making the article free to all website users tomorrow morning, so you can read the full thing then.  In the meantime, here’s a selection of the quotes within it, so you can get a sense of what the Tory leader had to say for himself: Thoughtful radicalism: “What you need is thoughtful radicalism. Prepared radicalism. It needs to come from a solid and strong base. Compare Margaret Thatcher’s trade union reforms with Ted Heath’s. It wasn’t that Ted Heath’s

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

The Sun shines on David Cameron

The Sun’s Whitehall Editor, David Wooding, has just tweeted that the newspaper will officially back the Conservatives at the next election.  Given the paper’s recent editorial stance, it’s hardly surprising news.  But it will still delight Team Cameron, and is a blow for Brown in the aftermath of his conference speech.  I expect we’ll hear more about it shortly. UPDATE: The relevant Sun story is here, although it’s still only showing the opening paragraph.