Hamish McFall: CCHQ’s inquisitorial approach to council candidates risks deterring good people

Sitting councillors and aspirant candidates alike have been irritated and offended by the new process.

James Morris: Introducing Conservative Academy, our new training tool for members

From campaigning to recruitment to compliance, our new online toolkit will help new recruits and seasoned veterans alike do their bit for the Conservative cause.

Andrew Gimson’s Conference Sketch: Javid on how Enoch Powell lost a generation of ethnic minority voters

The Home Secretary also spoke of the vital need to fix the housing crisis.

Tim Bale: How the Conservatives can turn new members into activists

A national membership system is a good start, but it must be accompanied by pro-active engagement from local associations.

Sixteen Parliamentarians appointed to the Conservative Policy Commission taskforces

The chairs of the 1922 Policy Boards are joined by a range of MPs and peers, all of whom will aid Skidmore’s work.

Alistair Lexden: Commemorating Baldwin, the Prime Minister who pioneered ‘One Nation’

The Conservative Party’s official historian was speaking at the unveiling of a new statue to the former Party leader in his home town of Bewdley today.

Rebecca Lowe: The Conservatives and women. The Tory electoral challenge has more to do with age than gender.

Rather than wasting time with forays into positive discrimination, the Conservatives should weight the merits of various forms of increased flexibility at work.

Skidmore establishes five new policy task forces, from Global Britain to democratic reform

Seven MPs and three peers will oversee the work of policy innovation.

Line Kristensen: To win next time, the Conservative Party must make recruiting and training activists its priority

A focused and accountable drive to build the grassroots is required. It can be done, but it requires difficult questions and honest answers.

The Conservative infiltration debate is all the wrong way round

The Party’s main problem isn’t having too many applicant members – it’s having too few present ones.

Who does the Conservative Party belong to?

The task of choosing the final two runners must remain with MPs, who know them better than the members do.

Grayling needs to show he is not just in charge of the clattering train, but is modernising it

The Transport Secretary’s announcement this week about price indices sounded timid and technocratic.

Luke Evetts: We need a radical and robust review of how the Welsh Conservative Party is run

Look at how the Scottish Conservatives gained from the 2010 Sanderson Review. Now is the perfect time to do the same in Wales.

Joshua McMullan: To effectively fight antisemitism, the Conservative Party must address its own troubled history on race relations

The sooner we deal with our Party’s past, however difficult, the easier it will be to drive out the hatred emerging on the Left today.

How should our electoral law change to work in the digital age?

From ‘fake news’ to micro-targeting, crowd-funding to data rights, we explore the key areas of focus for an overdue review of the rules of our democracy.