Conservative party

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 30 April 2015

An instinctive Tory faith Sir: For once Bruce Anderson does not exaggerate: David Cameron did indeed win golden opinions for his ‘high intellect and low cunning’ at the 1992 election (‘The boy David’, 25 April), putting him among the most brilliant products of the Conservative Research Department over its long history. He contributed magnificently to the widely praised briefing material that the department produced for Tory candidates, in particular its 350-page Campaign Guide (a publication now discontinued after appearing at elections for 120 years, despite Cameron’s own boast that this is the ‘most organised’ campaign in his career). But there was more. Thanks to Bruce and others, no one in

Lloyd Evans

State of play

Writers and producers have shown little appetite for putting the coalition on stage. Several reasons suggest themselves. In 2010 wise pundits assured us all that the Rose Garden duo would squabble and part long before the five-year term expired, and theatre folk were persuaded not to gamble on a ship that might sail at any moment. And the conduct of parliamentarians has been pretty unhelpful to dramatists. Chastened by the expenses scandal, MPs have reinvented themselves as models of probity and self-restraint. The Commons has been all but free of sin. Eric Joyce cracked a few skulls. Nadine Dorries bunked off for a fortnight in the jungle. The occasional ex-minister

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 30 April 2015

Home The British economy grew by 0.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2015, the slowest quarterly growth for two years. The Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out many absurdities in party election promises, noting that most people would see tax and benefit changes that reduced their income; it said that the Conservative and Liberal Democrat plan to increase the personal allowance to £12,500 would not help the 44 per cent of people who now pay no tax, that Labour’s promised 10p tax band would be ‘worth a princely 50 pence a week to most income-tax payers’ and that it could not be sure whether the reintroduction of a

James Forsyth

Ed Miliband's refusal to admit that Labour overspent could cost him dear

Tonight’s Question Time special with Cameron, Miliband and Clegg provided the best television of this campaign so far. A well-informed audience relentlessly pressed the three leaders on their weakest points. At the end of the evening, an ICM poll for the Guardian gave the evening to Cameron by 44 per cent to Miliband’s 38 per cent with Clegg garnering 19 per cent support. Miliband’s didn’t have a great night and his most awkward moment came on the record of the last Labour government. The audience were audibly irritated by his repeated refusal to concede that the last Labour government had spent too much money. Under questioning from the audience, Miliband

Steerpike

Question Time: Will Ed Miliband take his lectern with him?

With Ed Miliband’s expensive election guru David Axelrod rarely spied at the Labour leader’s side, Miliband has found a new pillar of strength to get him through the campaign. Rarely a day goes by without Miliband being pictured next to a lectern: Apparently his party believes that the lectern helps voters imagine him as Prime Minister. So you can imagine Steerpike’s concern upon seeing a photo of the set for tonight’s Question Time Election Leaders special. The picture, snapped by BBC political correspondent Ross Hawkins, shows only one lectern: It’s a lectern emergency Since David Dimbleby will most likely have dibs on it, this begs the question: how will Miliband cope without his comfort lectern? Perhaps the venue has a BYOL* policy? Mr S has contacted a Labour

Isabel Hardman

Douglas Carswell interview: Stop using my father to make cheap political points

Douglas Carswell seems rather excited about the Spectator following him around as he campaigns in Clacton, but it’s not clear whether that’s just because our interview starts in McDonald’s. Tucking into a quarter pounder with cheese, the Ukip candidate seems on good form, expounding at length on the failure of mainstream politicians to connect with the electorate, and enthusing about his vision for the party in the future. But a little later, as we plod around the streets of the constituency, his mood changes. He’s getting a lot of messages and calls about a BBC foreign affairs debate that he has pulled out of at the last minute. With each

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: the election where everybody loses and Boris's vision for conservatism

With one week to go, are the Conservatives back on track to being the biggest party? In this week’s View from 22 podcast, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth discuss the state of the election campaign with one week till polling day and which party has the momentum. Fraser and James have also interviewed Boris Johnson in the magazine this week, who reveals his concerns about inequality — is this the opening salvo for his leadership campaign? Based on Boris’s comments, Tim Montgomerie and Ryan Bourne also debate the future of conservatism and what ideas the next Tory leader might embrace in his or her manifesto. Is finding a different role for the state a core part of this? And how much does the legacy

Fraser Nelson

One-nation Boris

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/theelectionwhereeverybodyloses/media.mp3″ title=”Tim Montgomerie and Ryan Bourne discuss Boris’ vision for conservatism” startat=758] Listen [/audioplayer]Boris Johnson strides into the Uxbridge Conservative Club, asks after the barmaid’s health and sits down beneath a portrait of Margaret Thatcher. Churchill and Harold Macmillan are on the other walls. The room comes from the days when the Conservatives were not just a political party but a huge social network: a natural party of government. Times have changed, however. The Conservatives’ membership has dwindled and the party is in a desperate fight to hold on to power. But Johnson is full of optimism. He assures everyone that this election is going to have a happy

The Spectator

Vote Tory | 30 April 2015

Andrew Roberts  Biographer The Cameron ministry of 2010-15 will go down in history as having made Britain as the most successful economy in the developed world, despite it having inherited a near-bankrupt nation from a Labour party that spent money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Ordinarily that should be enough to have it returned to power with a huge majority, but we live in gnarled, chippy, egalitarian times. The Prime Minister has overseen a hugely successful Olympics; saved thousands from almost certain death in Benghazi; won referendums on the alternative vote and (for the present at least) Scottish independence; protected 400 free schools and the great Gove education

Wednesday

Steerpike

Nigel Lawson criticises the Tories' election campaign

Given that Nigel Lawson served as chancellor of the exchequer in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet, Mr S suspects that the Conservatives will have hoped that they could rely on Lawson for a vote of confidence as polling day approaches. Alas, Lawson says that he has been disappointed by the manner in which the Conservatives have conducted their election campaign. Writing in the latest issue of The Spectator, Lawson says that on a recent trip to New York, Americans voiced surprise that the Tories were yet to achieve a significant lead in the polls given the strong state of the British economy: ‘During my round of New York engagements, there was, inevitably, a fair amount of US interest

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Fallon refuses to back Labour on Trident as he plays politics with defence

Things have come to a pretty pass when the two party spokespeople who experience the worst drubbing in a debate are the current Defence Secretary and the Green party representative. In today’s Daily Politics defence debate Rebecca Johnson ended up, after some considerable flapping and obfuscation, disowning a section of the Green party’s website which said membership of a jihadi organisation shouldn’t be illegal. And Michael Fallon repeatedly refused to say that the Tories would support Labour in a vote on Trident renewal, then struggled under tough questions about the Tory failure to commit to spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence. Vernon Coaker also dodged questions on Labour’s

Isabel Hardman

Will Cameron's ‘10 days to save the Union' message work?

David Cameron continues his anti-SNP campaign today, launching what the Times calls his ‘strongest attack so far’ on a Labour-SNP government. The Prime Minister tells the paper that there are ‘ten days to save the United Kingdom’, which is an echo of Tony Blair’s ‘24 hours to save the NHS’ and William Hague’s less successful ‘last chance to save the pound’. The Conservatives are increasingly talking about the SNP and spending money on billboards featuring a thieving Alex Salmond because they say this message is cutting through in marginal constituencies. But the SNP’s retort is that even if people are bringing the SNP up on the doorstep, it may make

Monday

Isabel Hardman

PM pumps up the passion after porridge and panic

David Cameron is known as the ‘essay crisis’ Prime Minister, and today he did little to dispel that impression. With just 10 days to go until the election, Cameron produced a passionate, excited speech in which he insisted that he was ‘pumped’ about the election and about fighting Labour. Afterwards, when asked what he’d had for breakfast, he roared ‘PORRIDGE!’ with alarming fervour. This is the second furiously enthusiastic speech the Prime Minister has given in as many days, and it represents a significant shift in his tone after accusations of a boring and lacklustre campaign. Boring is, of course, the way Lynton Crosby would rather have it. In 1992,

Steerpike

Did David Cameron take a dig at the BBC's Robert Peston?

After Mr S’s colleague Camilla Swift revealed how the BBC misquoted David Cameron as saying he loved foxhunting when he appeared on the Andrew Marr Show, they were accused by some of showing ‘left-wing bias’. Now a new row is brewing between the Tories and the BBC. Perhaps still angry about the BBC’s behaviour two weeks ago when Marr interrogated Cameron about his ‘favourite’ sport, this morning the Prime Minister appeared to take a dig at the corporation’s economics editor. Speaking at the Conservatives’ small business launch, Cameron told small business owners: ‘You are responsible for turn around. Small businesses, entrepreneurs, the grafters. A really big thank you for what you’ve done. 5,000 businesses wrote in to

Steerpike

David Cameron admits he cries at the Sound of Music

This morning the PM turned on the passion in a shouty performance in front of a room full of accountants. Complaints from the lower orders about a lack of zing to the campaign have clearly reached the top of the Tory tree as the new emotional Prime Minister was not done there. Cameron went on to admit in an interview with Classic FM that he cries when he watches the Sound of Music, when those brave Austrian patriots declare their love for their national flower: ‘I do cry in films, The Sound Of Music. As soon as we get on to Edelweiss I’m reaching for the Kleenex.’ With the songs lyrics including the line ‘Bless

James Forsyth

Note from Mandelson's firm warns that SNP will drag Labour to the left

Peter Mandelson and Ed Miliband appeared to have been undergoing a certain rapprochement during this campaign. Mandelson declared recently that Miliband has ‘way exceeded my expectations‘. But a briefing note from Global Counsel, of which Mandelson is chairman, is bound to be seized on by the Tories. The note is entitled ‘Why the SNP will win whatever happens on May 7th’ and goes on to discuss what might happen if the Nationalists end up holding the balance of power in a hung parliament. It warns that ‘English dissatisfaction is likely to grow over time with the consequences of Labour government being sustained in power by the SNP’. It also predicts

Sunday

James Forsyth

Cameron's answer to the passion question

David Cameron has been bugged in this campaign by the question of whether he’s passionate enough, of whether he really wants it. When Fraser and I asked him about why so many people aren’t sure of whether he has the passion for it a few days back, he replied, ‘I don’t know. There is something about me—I always manage to portray a calm smoothness or something.’ He then went on to explain why as a Conservative he wants to know what the plan is, not just what the passion is. As he quipped, ‘plan plus carrying out a plan equals dream. Dream plus rhetoric equals chaos.’ But in a speech

Molly Guinness

It's more important than ever for conservatives to appeal to hearts as well as minds

The Conservatives always do a lot worse than Labour in polls that ask about how proud voters feel of their party. They’re hoping that ‘shy Tories’ might still win them the election, but it’s pretty pathetic that more than 20 years since the phenomenon was first identified, Conservatives still haven’t found a way to remove the stigma and convince the electorate that right-wing politics is about making people’s lives better. Social justice, compassion and coolness are now strictly the domain of the Left in the public consciousness, which makes it all the more baffling that the Tories decided to leave principle and passion out of this election campaign to fight

James Forsyth

This election will be decided by the undecideds

The polls could hardly be closer than they are at the moment and the parliamentary arithmetic looks like it is going to be remarkably tight, there’ll be only a few seats in it as to whether it’ll be Cameron or Miliband as Prime Minister. Yet, campaign aides on both sides have been struck by one thing: the large number of undecideds. One recent poll suggested that as many as one in five of those who intend to vote are still undecided. How this group breaks will determine the result. As one close Miliband ally put it to me, ‘The defining moment of this campaign hasn’t happened yet’. The Tory hope

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron insists Tory campaign has 'the most positive vision there could possibly be'

There’s nothing wrong with negative campaigning in an election. If you think your opponents would damage the country, then you should point it out. What’s wrong with negative campaigning is when it’s the only sort of campaigning you’re doing, or when the balance appears to be tipping in its favour in terms of your key messages and big attention-seeking posters. The Tories are currently facing accusations that they are doing too much negative campaigning, and so today David Cameron tried to defend that campaign when he appeared on Sky’s Murnaghan programme. He said: ‘And to me, people talk about this campaign, there’s nothing more positive than saying to people: let’s