If a Tory majority is unlikely should Cameron double down on his alliance with the Liberal Democrats?

By Tim Montgomerie
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Stephan Shakespeare, CEO of YouGov and ConservativeHome columnist, was one of three speakers at last Wednesday evening's How Can The Conservatives Win The Next Election? panel event. I have already briefly reviewed the contributions from Chris Grayling and Matthew Elliott.

Stephan began by arguing that, while there was much uncertainty, he thought the most likely scenario was that David Cameron would still be Prime Minister after the next election. He reprised the main message of his column from last Tuesday and its conclusion that the Tory willingness to make tough decisions - in which Cameron enjoys a 5-to-1 advantage over Ed Miliband - "could be a very valuable perception if at election time people still feel as insecure as they do now". He urged the party not to worry about being likeable but to focus on level-headed competence.

But if Cameron is, in Stephan's view, lilkely to remain PM he thinks it unlikely that he'll be leader of a majority Conservative government. He points to four factors that may well prevent Cameron from winning enough extra Tory seats:

"1) It is very unlikely that Labour will go backwards at the next election.

2) The boundary changes may not happen.

3) The LibDems are likely to recover at least a little (and in any case will do better in their strongholds than the national vote suggests).

4) Unexpected events are more likely to favour Labour - I simply invoke the principle of mean reversion."

It is, therefore, in Cameron's interest to focus on maintaining friendly relations with the Liberal Democrats rather than taking risky steps that will probably not produce a Tory government but may push the Liberal Democrats into Labour's arms. That is Stephan's assessment of Cameron's calculation but not necessarily the course that Stephan would pursue himself. A factor that may be in Cameron's mind is whether he would prefer to rely on Laws et al or Brady et al for getting his legislation passed.

But let's look for a moment at that word 'risky' and examine which is the riskier option for Cameron - maximising the possibilities for continuing coalition or maximising the possibility of a Tory majority.

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Labour may have lost the election but unions are still getting subsidies and Left-wingers are still running public bodies

By Tim Montgomerie
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On Wednesday evening ConservativeHome held an event to discuss how the Conservative Party might win the next election. Yesterday I blogged the contribution from Chris Grayling. Tomorrow I'll reflect on the contribution of the third panellist, Stephan Shakespeare. Today here's a summary of what Matthew Elliott, CEO of the TaxPayers' Alliance, shared.

First, Matthew Elliott said it was vital that the party got the boundary review passed. Many of us, he said, "took a lot of body blows" to win the AV referendum* and it would be "dreadful" if the political capital from it was "blown". The understanding had been that the Lib Dems got the AV referendum and the Tories got the boundary review in return. There are now mutterings from the Lib Dems that they won't vote for the boundary review if they don't get House of Lords reform. Estimates vary but if the last election had been fought on the new boundaries David Cameron would have won a very small Tory majority. Their passage is not a small matter.

Second, Matthew argued that it was vital that the Coalition cut back the £131 million subsidy of the trade union movement. Add up all of the centre right parties and campaign groups and you only get an annual budget of something like £30 million. The Right is therefore hugely outspent by the unions and that needs to change. The playing field was, perhaps, once levelled by the loyalty of many newspapers to the Tory cause but newspapers are now much more promiscuous with their affections - preferring fidelity to their readers than to a political party. Ending subsidy of the union movement has already been a theme of Majority Conservatism.

Third, Matthew recommended that the Conservatives become a little bit more willing to appoint reliable people to public bodies. When Labour is in charge it 'marches through the institutions'; stuffing those instututions with people of like ideology. Matthew Elliott said that Conservatives didn't need to do exactly the same but certainly needed to understand that appointments were a long-term driver of government - sometimes more significant than policy. He highlighted two key forthcoming appointments - the head of the Charity Commision and the DG of the BBC. Dame Suzie Leather, a Labour member, was stepping down as Chairman Charity Commission at the end of July. During her time in charge she had launched a vendetta against independent schools, attacked the Government on spending cuts and targeted the status of centre-right think-tanks. Matthew also hoped that we could get a new BBC Director-General who challenged the BBC's worldview. He recommended the reforming David Elstein as one sound candidate.

* Matthew Elliott ran the No2AV campaign.

Chris Grayling urges Cameron to find more "EU veto moments" as part of his five point election-winning plan

By Tim Montgomerie
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Yesterday evening ConservativeHome held an event to discuss how the Conservatives might win the next election. The speakers were Employment Minister Chris Grayling, YouGov CEO and ConHome columnist Stephan Shakespeare and The TaxPayers' Alliance's Matthew Elliott. I'll write up the contributions from Stephan and Matthew over the next two days but, today, here's a review of Chris Grayling's contribution.

He began by saying that the aim must be a majority Tory government and that "we should do everything we can to achieve that goal". He then went on to set out five thoughts:

1. First, he said, everyone in the Party needs to keep a level head: "We are two years into a five year parliament. We are in the middle of the biggest financial crisis since the 1930s. We are taking tougher financial decisions here than any Government in modern times. We’ve had a poor, but not disastrous set of local election results. But we are still above 30% in the polls." We don't, he continued, need to win an election today but in 2015.
2. Second more needed to be done to secure the core Tory vote. He suggested Bill Clinton as a, perhaps, surprising role model. "Clinton," Grayling said, "recognised very early on in his career that you can’t win an election without your core vote. So he began by reassuring the labor unions that he was one of them, won their confidence, and then built his message of change upon that confidence."
3. Third talk of the centre ground needed to be rooted in a greater understanding of the striving classes: "I had one of those real lightbulb moments when I read the research that Lord Ashcroft carried out a couple of weeks ago. What we believe to be the centre may not be the centre to a voter in a former council house on an estate in Skelmersdale. Certainly the perspectives on life that I have found canvassing the streets of South Liverpool are very different to those of young professionals in Epsom and Ewell. We really need to understand what the centre ground really means today, and particularly what the centre ground means to voters in the front line of our key marginals. Because the next election will be won and lost on the streets of Skelmersdale and towns like it."
4. Fourth we needed to talk about the practical concerns of voters rather than abstract ideas: "It’s much easier to explain to a voter that we are unhappy with what the EU is doing because, for example, it wants us to allow people to come here and settle and be able to access our benefit system without the safeguards that we have in place today. That’s something everyone can understand."
5. Fifth, focus on jobs as a breakthrough issue: "I know I am biased as employment minister – but I think that jobs and unemployment – and the enterprise culture that we need to create jobs - will be a key challenge in the next few years. It’s already a top priority for us. And I am pushing a simple mantra – particularly in Brussels. If a plan or a policy means fewer jobs in businesses in Britain or in Europe we should not do it. Nothing is more important than making sure that our fellow citizens, and particularly the younger generation, have a decent and satisfying future in a real job."

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David Cameron's five-point plan to win the next election

By Paul Goodman
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Senior CCHQ sources tell me that plans for fighting the next election are already being mapped out.  These have less to do with policies or even delivery (which are presumably covered elsewhere) than with "values" - presumably on the ground that if uncommitted voters don't like or at least respect you, they won't vote for you.

Indeed, "values" is the foundation on which the five points to which I refer above are built.  In this context, the word seems to mean convincing floating voters that David Cameron is "on the side of people who work hard, want to get on and play by the rules", as his post-local elections Daily Telegraph article earlier this month put it.  The other main parts of the plan are:

• Addressing the "wrong track" issues.  This is the sense that Britain's economy and society are getting worse rather than better.  CCHQ recognises that success at the next election is inextricably linked to reversing it.

• Winning support on the NHS.  Never forget the stress that Mr Cameron put in opposition, second only to restoring the party's reputation for economic competence, on trying to establish that the NHS would be "safe in his hands".

• Closing the gender gap.  Traditionally, the Conservatives were propelled into office by women's votes.  New Labour reversed this position; Mr Cameron began to restore it - but has run into problems since the 2010 election.

• Winning non-white support.  The number one driver of not voting Conservative is not being white.  Tim Montgomerie and I have explored the problem here and (for example) here.  So has Lord Ashcroft in a major report.

• Organisation in marginals.  The bottom line ambition is to win roughly 35 Labour seats and 15 Liberal Democrat ones.  This relatively modest ambition seems to be a reflection both of psephological realities and the difficulty of winning seats when in power.

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Ministers mustn't be allowed to park the problem of voter fraud just because Boris won

By Paul Goodman
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The best joke of the London Mayoral election count - with its several-hour delay - came from the Evening Standard's Joe Murphy.  "Let's put Tower Hamlets in charge of count next time," he tweeted. "They'll get it done the day before."  The second best was: "We have the result from Tower Hamlets.  Boris: 49% - Ken: 101%."  But had Mr Livingstone won we would be laughing on the other side of our faces.  Ministers must not be allowed to park the problem of tackling voter fraud just because he didn't.

It is largely South Asian in practice.  Very simply, customs have been imported from countries that aren't liberal democracies, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, and which have no tradition of free and fair elections.  Voting often takes place on the basis of clan loyalty rather than individual choice, and what matters is winning the contest, not simultaenously obeying its rules.  There are three main problems: registering voters improperly, impersonating voters at the polls, and thuggery and intimidation outside them.

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How Conservatives might reach the North and address its "party of the rich" challenge

By Tim Montgomerie
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On ConHome yesterday Paul Goodman dug deeply into Lord Ashcroft's new research and its insights into the Tory challenge among ethnic minority Britons. Today I offer a summary of research undertaken by Policy Exchange (PX) on the North/South divide (one of Majority Conservatism's big themes). Throughout this blog the page numbers referred to relate to this PDF of the Policy Exchange report.

I pay tribute to Neil O'Brien, Policy Excxhange's Director, for putting this important piece of work together. As I've blogged before, in its second decade PX is adopting a very welcome focus on the striving classes. Neil has written about 'Modernisation 2.0' for today's Guardian.

MAIN POINTS

The public sector dimension to the North / South divide

Working class (DE) voters in the South are more likely to vote Conservative than middle class (AB) voters in the North (page 5) but there is an important public/ private sector split to this. In households, for example, where both adults work in the public sector the Conservatives lag by 32%. Where there's one public sector worker the deficit is 18%. Where all workers are private sector the Conservative lead is 9% (page 26).

The problem of being in third place

Three-way marginals have become rare and in their place have emerged a series of different two horse races (largely between Con and Lab, Con and Lib Dem or Lab and Lib Dem - Scotland is obviously different). This has meant when a party falls into third place it falls into a poor third place (page 7). If the Tories are third-placed in a lot of northern cities this can mean the party's overall vote share falls quite steeply:

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"For the rich. Selfish. Rubbish." Lord Ashcroft's new study shows what ethnic and religious minorities think of the Conservative Party. (But it's not all bad news, especially among Hindus and Sikhs...)

By Paul Goodman
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The dismal illustration above is taken from the biggest-ever study of the attitude of ethnic and religious minorities to the Conservative Party - Degrees of separation, commissioned by Lord Ashcroft and published today.

It is a word cloud of associations the party's brand provoked when tested on those who took part in this study.  I read the report yesterday both to read it for itself and to test it against my view on these matters, as previously set out on this site.  My fourfold take is:

• The ethnic minority vote threatens the Conservatives with demographic decline.  Only 16 per cent of all ethnic minority voters supported the party in 2010.  They are more resistant to voting Tory than the white majority.   Ethnic minority votes made up under one in ten of the population in 2001.  By 2050 ethnic minorities will make up a fifth of the population.

• The party leadership has traditionally reacted to the challenge with tokenism and ignorance.  It has assumed that this resistance can be broken down by a few appointments near the top.  By getting policy right.  By assuming that all ethnic and religious groups are essentially the same - and that what may work for one may work for all.

• There is no substitute for hard work from the bottom up.  By all means work on policy, and appoint more ethnic minority members to the top table - if like others they have the capability.  But there is no substitute for a party presence on the ground, in the cities and suburbs where such voters are most likely to be found.

• Target the groups that are most receptive to the Conservative message.  The party has a moral responsibility to take its message to all Britons.  But making a special pitch to those more likely to be won over applies as much here as elsewhere.  For example, Britons of Indian origin are more likely to vote Tory than those of Pakistani origin.

Continue reading ""For the rich. Selfish. Rubbish." Lord Ashcroft's new study shows what ethnic and religious minorities think of the Conservative Party. (But it's not all bad news, especially among Hindus and Sikhs...)" »

Not Woodwind Conservatism. Not Brass Conservatism. But Full Orchestra Conservatism.

By Tim Montgomerie
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One of the most boring, inaccurate and simplistic things that emerges from the commentariat is the sort of thing Peter Oborne said about me and ConHome on Thursday. Apparently this website has a narrow, Right-wing agenda. Others, more generally, insist that the only alternative to Cameronism is a narrow, caveman Conservatism. In today's Sunday Telegraph Matthew d'Ancona writes:

"Anyone who thinks that the party will achieve an outright majority by fighting a campaign dominated by Europe, immigration and aggressive small-state conservatism hasn’t paid much attention to recent political history."

Who thinks this?

C'mon Matt, name names. Please!

Where are the influential Right-wingers who believe in this narrow Conservatism? This is all a caricature. A straw man. A misrepresentation that hinders rather than aids debate. Last Saturday I questioned the claim that any big Conservatives wanted to return to the narrow manifestos of 2001 or 2005 - and I also argued that it was very simplistic to say that the booming economy, the rise of the Left across Europe and, of course, Blair's political prowess weren't much bigger factors in those elections.

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Building a Conservative Majority (16): More political firepower for ministers

By Tim Montgomerie
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This Building A Majority section of ConHome has five component parts:

• Majority - a belief in the need for a Tory majority, not continuing coalition;
• Mountain - it's not going to be easy to win a majority without game-changers;
• Message - the party needs a compelling story to tell the country about ourselves and our programme (summary);
• Manifesto - policies to help win a majority, like yesterday's idea of restoring the 10p tax band;
• Machine - the organisational muscle and sophistication to get out our vote and reach swing voters (eg building an online party and recruiting northern candidates).

Today, in our 16th idea, I recommend that David Cameron ensures that more ministers have Special Advisers (SpAds). Some SpAds are deeply political. One of them briefed against me in a very nasty and personal way after ConHome called for the NHS Bill not to proceed. At their best, however, they help ministers get a grip of their departments. Special Advisers are there to ensure that their ministers' political will is imposed on a department. Among the most successful in Whitehall at the moment are Philippa Stroud at Work and Pensions, Dom Cummings at Education, Nick Timothy at the Home Office, Sheridan Westlake at DCLG and Rupert Harrison at the Treasury.

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Building a Conservative Majority (15): Reintroduction of the 10p tax band

By Tim Montgomerie
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The raising of the income tax threshold may not have been the policy of the Conservative Party at the last election but it's been the policy of the Conservative movement for a long time. Lord Forsyth advocated it when he chaired a tax commission for George Osborne at the beginning of the last parliament. Lord Saatchi recommended it in a Centre for Policy Studies paper before that. Norman Tebbit has always been a big advocate of lifting the low-paid out of the income tax system. Other supporters have included Janet Daley, Charlie Elphicke, Robert Halfon and, on ConHome's own pages, Edward Leigh.

Unfortunately, however, the Lib Dems can justifiably claim the lion's share of the credit for it being part of the Coalition Agreement. As we go forward the Tory leadership needs to craft its own tax policy that appeals to the blue collar Britons who don't currently think that we're on their side.

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