By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter The Birmingham Post's Jonathan Walker posted a report yesterday on the Conservative Party's 40/40 strategy to win the next election. Jonathan's report stems from a members-only briefing that was given at Party Conference by Stephen Gilbert, the PM's Political Secretary. Here's what I know about that briefing: At the […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter George Osborne is ready to attack the Labour brand In my column for The Times (£) I argue that if David Cameron and George Osborne could have designed an opposition party then it would look a lot like that which is led by Ed Miliband. The Labour leader's ratings […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter I've been running a mini-campaign to get one of our Welsh MPs appointed as Welsh Secretary (should, as is expected, Cheryl Gillan move on in the looming reshuffle). Unlike Scotland where the party continues to struggle the Conservatives have done well in Wales and must continue to do so […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter On last night's World Tonight I claimed that the loss of boundary reviews was the single worst political event to hit the Tories since 1992 and Black Wednesday*. Was I exaggerating? When the Parliamentary and Voting Constituencies Bill was passed I celebrated the moment, noting that the introduction of fair-sized […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Over the last few days we've been publishing your rating of 23 ideas to win the next election. 1,419 Tory members were asked to rate the ideas listed below on a scale of minus five (least helpful to winning a majority) to plus five (most helpful to winning a majority). […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter This is the fourth instalment of a series of blogposts examining which of 23 ideas to win the next election tested best among Tory members. I've already blogged about the popularity of a blue collar message, members' lukewarm interest in a change of leader and the need for a bolder […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Borismania hits a new peak today with a Sun/ YouGov opinion poll suggesting that the Tories might be more competitive if he was Conservative leader: "Labour’s current poll lead would be slashed to one point if Boris was Conservative leader. It revealed 34 per cent of people would vote for […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Last night I listed ten big takeaways from Lord Ashcroft's latest megapoll on the Tory path to a majority. This morning I want to focus upon the central conclusion of the report and Lord Ashcroft's four tests for electorally successful policy. He writes: "Everything the Conservatives do between now […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Lord Ashcroft has just published the third edition of his 'Project Blueprint' polling* – polling which seeks to examine the snakes and ladders between where we are and the Tory majority we desire at the next election. It contains a mountain of evidence but in this post I highlight […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter One of the Conservative Party's most important and under-used assets is its MPs. Within the parliamentary party there are a range of brilliant thinkers and campaigners. In the party's past there were elaborate and sophisticated backbench and other voluntary party structures that made good use of them. In today's […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter The Liberal Democrats: now closer to their Coalition partner on economic matters… I studied the durability of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition as the last election campaign drew to a close. Three points quickly became clear. First, changes made to the Conservatives under David Cameron's leadership had drawn the parties […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Every voter complains that they hate negative campaigning but every political party engages in it. Are these parties stupid? Are they flying blind? Or do they understand us better than we know ourselves? I fear the answer to the third question is ‘yes’. But before thinking about negative campaigning at […]