David cameron

Ed Miliband's spin doctor Tom Baldwin has been rather quiet since Labour's disastrous election night results. Now the former Times journalist has explained his radio silence in an article for the Guardian. He says he has been avoiding the news after the Tories had 'a win they did not fully expect or really deserve'. However, the appointment of John Whittingdale as culture secretary has caused him to resurface: 'But one story has finally made me stumble out of bed. The Tory newspapers have welcomed the appointment of John Whittingdale, an old Thatcherite, as culture secretary with gleeful headlines about the government “going to war” with the BBC.

The Tories are already putting some clear blue water between the coalition and the present majority government. Firstly, the new Business Secretary Sajid Javid has promised new tougher strike laws — ensuring that a minimum turn out of 50 per cent turnout is required for all strikes, while 40 per cent of all members will need to back a strike affecting essential public services. The TUC's Frances O'Grady has already hit back, arguing the new rules will make 'legal strikes close to impossible'. Secondly, Theresa May and David Cameron are promising to tackle our ‘passively tolerant society’.

Jim Messina is the American elections guru who got the general election right. Hired by the Conservatives as a strategy adviser in 2013, the Tories hoped he would emulate Barack Obama's 2012 re-election strategy. And so he did. Whereas British pollsters consistently missed that the Tories were moving into pole position, Messina’s internal numbers showed for weeks they were on course to be the largest party. Speaking to The Spectator from Washington, D.C, he reveals that he was not at all surprised when the BBC exit poll showed the Tories were going to trounce Labour. ‘We predicted 312 seats that morning to Lynton [Crosby] and 316 was right in line with that, so it just kind of validated what we’d been seeing,’ he says.

David Cameron has said the Conservatives will govern as a party of one nation. The phrase was apt at a time when part of the country seems to be pulling away with all its might, and after a bad-tempered election campaign, where class warfare was actively encouraged in some quarters. For a time, the phrase ‘One Nation’ was Conservative code for wanting to spend more, but that’s not what Cameron meant on Friday. This is how he put it: 'We must ensure that we bring our country together…We will govern as a party of one nation, one United Kingdom. That means ensuring this recovery reaches all parts of our country, from north to south, from east to west. And indeed it means rebalancing our economy, building that northern powerhouse.

News has just broken that Iain Duncan Smith is to remain as Secretary for State for Work and Pensions. Now, normally a Cabinet Minister remaining in post would not be news but there had been repeated rumours that IDS would be shuffled out of this job. The fact that IDS is staying tells us, I think, two things. First, that even with £12 billion more of welfare cuts needed, Cameron wants the policy to be as much about saving lives as money. Second, the decision not to shuffle IDS shows a sensibly cautious approach to party management. Moving IDS, a former leader, from the job he loves doing would have caused upset. By keeping him in place, Cameron ensures the continued loyal presence round the Cabinet table of someone trusted on the Eurosceptic right of the party.

Up until Thursday night, everything that David Cameron and George Osborne had done in government had had to be agreed by the Liberal Democrats. Every policy had to go through the ‘Quad’, the coalition government’s decision making body made up of Cameron, Osborne, Clegg and Alexander. That doesn’t have to happen anymore. As one Downing Street figure says: ‘It is all completely different now, we can power forward with what we want to do. There’s no need for everything to be watered down. It’s invigorating’. Not having to manage a coalition, also frees up huge amounts of time for both Cameron and the Number 10 operation. It would be well advised to spend a good chunk of this time, say half, on managing the party.

David Cameron has 'reshuffled' his Cabinet. George Osborne has been re-appointed as Chancellor, and will also be First Secretary of State, as were William Hague and Peter Mandelson. The title implies that he is the most senior minister.  https://twitter.com/David_Cameron/status/596701353289846786 Theresa May will remain as Home Secretary. https://twitter.com/David_Cameron/status/596704917374525440 Philip Hammond will also remain in his role as Foreign Secretary, and Michael Fallon will keep his job as Defence Secretary. https://twitter.com/David_Cameron/status/596707531520610304 https://twitter.

All of the results of the 2015 general election are in and we have a result: the Conservatives have a major of 12 seats. Here is a breakdown of the results for each of the parties: [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/PifSa/index.html"] And a few other figures you might find interesting: Turnout was 66.1 per cent, up from 65.1 per cent in 2010 19.4 per cent of MPs in the new parliament will be female, up from 15.