By Tim Montgomerie In her speech to the Tory Conference, her first as Party Chairman, Sayeeda Warsi listed Labour's key failures in office: "In the mills, my Dad was told that Labour was the party for him. They said that Labour looked after the poorest. That it looked after the vulnerable and minorities. But Conference, […]
By Tim Montgomerie Lots of Left-wing visitors have been filling LeftWatch threads in recent days alleging that our focus on the new Labour leader is a sign that we are scared of him. I've been careful to say that we should not underestimate Mr Miliband but attempting to define a new leader in his/her early […]
By Tim Montgomerie In the original tax bombshell campaign – watch the brilliant video here – the warning was of a £1,250 tax rise under Neil Kinnock. Eighteen years later, the new Neil Kinnock has a £1,373 per household black hole in his tax plans. Dogs bark, ducks quack and Conservative politicians accuse Labour politicians […]
by Paul Goodman Two red bottles standing on the wall. And if one red bottle should accidentally fall… David Miliband's decision to jump ship from the Shadow Cabinet comes as no surprise, and as a stroke of fortune for the new Labour leader. There'll be one more day of the Brothers Karamazov, sorry Miliband, in […]
By Tim Montgomerie It was a speech that contained many clichés – such as a commitment to a "new politics" and to oppose "irresponsible" strikes. Who, exactly, is in favour of "irresponsible" strikes? It was most notable, however, for committing Labour to a slower pace of deficit reduction and for disowning Tony Blair on Iraq […]
By Tim Montgomerie Last night's YouGov tracker poll gave Labour its first lead. It put the Conservatives on 39%, Labour on 40% and the LibDems on just 12%. Net approval for the Coalition was minus 5%. Labour Tweeters were jubilant. This morning's Times splash (£) should pour some cold water on their feverish heads. Only […]
By Paul Goodman It should go roughly like this – "Conference, my election as this Party's leader was the greatest moment of my political life. But we have to face the facts – namely, that two out of three parts of our electoral college voted for someone else. And not just any old two parts. […]
By Tim Montgomerie CCHQ have had a good few days. The machine has purred over the last 72 hours as it sought to win the early and vital battle to define Ed Miliband in the public mind. Publicly there was Matt Hancock's identification of a £67bn black hole in Ed Miliband's economic plans. Once he […]
While David Cameron was Mr Statesman, congratulating Ed Miliband on his victory, Sayeeda Warsi fronted the first Tory critique of the new Labour leader yesterday. Today, the second round of the Tory attack was fronted by Michael Fallon MP. My headline to this blog doesn't capture the measured way the new Deputy Tory Chairman – […]
By Tim Montgomerie Last night ConHome published Lord Ashcroft's warning that the Labour movement could be a significant drag on Ed Miliband's chances of becoming Prime Minister. Using polling and focus groups Lord Ashcroft (the co-owner of this website) noted that there was a big gap between Labour activists and swing voters on (1) the […]
By Tim Montgomerie I'm grateful to the Observer for highlighting this envelope that the GMB used to send its members ballot papers for the Labour leadership election: Labour rules forbid the inclusion of a candidate's literature being put inside an envelope containing ballot papers. What the GMB appears to have done is send their members […]
by Paul Goodman If there was a better result for CCHQ in its dreams, I don't know what it could have been. This is a woeful result for Labour, for two – no, let's say twin – reasons. First, because Cain's slain Abel by the narrowest of margins. Second, because the trade unions backed the […]
By Tim Montgomerie Overnight we'll be updating the LeftWatch masthead – dropping Brown and his pork pies and adding in the new Labour leader. David Miliband and his banana or Red Ed. Should we make any other changes? I'm inclined to keep the dead LibDem bird because – although Coalition partners – we're still political […]
By Tim Montgomerie ConservativeHome's first and proudest act was to defend party democracy. Michael Howard wanted to end the decisive role that grassroots members play in the election of Tory leader. This website started a campaign that with others – notably IDS, Theresa May, Michael Ancram and Barry Legg – defeated Mr Howard. We still […]
By Tim Montgomerie During the Labour leadership race the Tories kept their guns quiet but, as I blogged before, they were watching closely: "A senior campaigner at CCHQ was telling me that all of the Labour leadership candidates have significant weaknesses that he is looking forward to probing. The initial plan is to contrast Cameron […]