A recent Conservative conference for the area found eagerness to discuss radical policies and to embrace innovative campaigning techniques. An encouraging sign for the local elections.
Local decision-making must be respected if communities are to be confident in embracing development. We need these principles in urban areas too.
Tactical newspaper articles are necessary but insufficient. She should make a series of speeches to set out her stall and try to change the weather.
But the collapse of the Tory manifesto social care plan, plus the Government’s lack of a workable Commons majority, all but rule out radical change to the system.
In the short-term, throwing everything at target seats makes sense. Over the longer, it is a recipe for weak outreach, social media failure and falling membership.
Is there a national collection of staff ideas? Are Whitehall teams working together? What conversations are being held with housebuilders? There’s so much to be done.
Futhermore, the Government needs to sharpen up its sense of mission. And there is a heap of talent on the Tory backbenches.
Some would-be rebels switched sides at the last minute, while at least three others abstained.
Then come Redwood and Tugendhat to make up the top five. Four of the top ten have been in the Commons for less than three years.
While the responsibilities of government must be shouldered, there’s no doubting the need for a time of renewal – one as profound as in any period of opposition.
Councils could encourage more schools to specialise and give more children in care the chance to attend boarding schools.
The 1997 experience of Downing Street keeping the manifesto process to itself was unhappy. The Party needs to draw on wider talent to reinvent itself in government.
The Chancellor needs to help deliver the sense of direction so strikingly absent in Manchester last month, and indeed since last June’s election.
What about those who worship different gods, those who delight in civil rights movements, those mothers who want to go out to work?
May’s damaged authority is having a beneficial side-effect – namely, freeing Tory MPs to think aloud about the Party’s future.