David Skelton

If Boris Johnson does call a snap election this year, his fortune will be decided in the same places that swung the referendum for Brexit. Britain's forgotten towns, places like my home town of Consett, perched high in the hills of north-west Durham, will determine the Prime Minister's fate. In Consett, there is little sign now that this was a place once home to one of the world’s biggest steelworks. Steel from here was used to build great structures, bridges and battleships for the whole Empire, from Blackpool Tower and bridges in far-flung places to Britain’s fleet of nuclear submarines. But Consett went from being a symbol of industrial might to an emblem of industrial decline.

If you walk around our great northern cities, you’ll see stunning examples of civic pride. Albert Square in Manchester and Leeds Town Hall reflect resurgent local confidence. Old narratives of northern decline are out of date. When Guardian writer Andy Beckett launched a hatchet job on the north-east a few weeks ago, claiming that the region was the ‘next Detroit’, the response was visceral and immediate. Beckett managed to write an entire article about the north-east without mentioning Nissan – the most productive car plant in Europe. The North is home to new tech hubs, advanced manufacturing, superb universities and world-leading culture, from sport to music to art. The north-east was the fastest growing economic region in the Lloyds index last month.

The Chancellor’s announcement that he’s recommending an above average increase in the minimum wage is very welcome news. It’s something Renewal has been campaigning for since our launch in July. Wages have fallen behind prices for almost a decade now. The prosperity of Blair’s boom didn’t reach the low paid and it was the working poor who were hardest hit by the recession, meaning that the minimum wage is worth £1,000 less now than it was in 2008. Now that the economy is firmly on the road to recovery it’s the right time to raise the minimum wage. We have to ensure that prosperity and the benefits of the free market reach everybody in society and this increase is an important step towards that goal.

When Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 election, she was helped into Downing Street by what many of today’s politicians would regard as an unlikely group of Tory voters. The votes of trade unionists were crucial to Margaret Thatcher beating Jim Callaghan in 1979. And this didn’t happen by accident – Mrs Thatcher, the one-time President of the Dartford branch of Conservative Trade Unionists had made active efforts to appeal to those moderate trade unionists who felt let down by their leaders. After becoming leader in 1975, she set out to revive Conservative Trade Unionists. By the 1979 election, the organisation had 250 branches and was able to hold a pre-election rally at Wembley. Of course, this wasn’t the first time that Conservatives courted trade unionists.

Equal marriage has provoked anguished internal discussions in the Tory Party. Twenty  Association Chairmen have asked the Prime Minister to backtrack on the proposals and up to 180 MPs are rumoured to be considering voting against the proposals today. But opponents of the Bill should rethink their position, given that our research and international evidence shows that gay marriage would be good for gay people and good for the institution of marriage, as well as being firmly based in conservative thinking. The conservative tradition isn’t that of stern, unbending reaction that its critics often caricature it as.