By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter What are we to make of the latest YouGov poll in The Sun which suggests that Labour's lead over the Tories would just about vanish if Boris was Tory leader? What hypothetical polls cannot measure is what would happen if a bloody and acrimonious leadership election was necessary to […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy On the margins of the Olympics David Cameron has talked to US television about the up-and-coming presidential election. The British PM diplomatically declined to back Obama or Romney but his words about the current resident of the White […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter If you want some optimism this weekend I recommend Matthew Parris' Times column. There's no Times paywall for the Jubilee weekend and he argues that, despite the media froth, the Coalition is actually doing quite well. Most Eurozone leaders would, he writes, give their eye teeth for the troubles that […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter I got a stern lecture from a Tory MP last night about my "Tory MPs are at war" blog of yesterday evening. The Government is fundamentally sound, I was told, the party's biggest problem is its "crazy Right". If only everybody could get behind the leader, she said, all would […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter In a speech to Policy Exchange later today Chris Grayling, Employment minister, will define the enemies of this Government's mission. (1) The Polly Toynbee Left: "I’m afraid that too many people still just don’t get it. Like the “Polly Toynbee left” who rail with outrage against the idea of a […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter There seems to be some better news in recent opinion polls. Labour's lead that had grown to 10% after the Budget has dropped back to about 6%. The underlying numbers are also comparatively good for the Conservative Party with more voters seeing the Conservative Party as willing to take tough […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter There's a difference between modernisation… Don Porter wrote in yesterday's Daily Telegraph that at the last election "the Tories not only failed to win over new voters but failed to win back more than three million who supported us in 1992". I have news on that score. Many of […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter It's been a bleak fortnight for the Conservative Party as the weaknesses of the Cameron project came home to roost. Warnings about (i) the structure of Downing Street, (ii) the lack of narrative, (iii) the choice to put cuts rather than growth at the heart of the economic programme and […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Earlier this week we asked 1,898 Tory members to assess the danger that 25 factors represented to the Tory chances of winning the next election. Members were asked to rate each factor on a zero to ten scale (zero for no danger to Cameron getting returned to Number 10 and […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter A number of issues are revealing – once again – the fundamental differences between the Conservative Party and the leadership of the Coalition. Before Cameron exercised his Christmas veto the Tory party and centre right press were getting restless, even rebellious. The veto then came and suddenly the situation looked […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Here is the full text: "This will be the year Britain sees the world and the world sees Britain. It must be the year we go for it – the year the coalition government I lead does everything it takes to get our country up to strength. The coming months […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter "At a certain point in a political leader’s career, a national idea of what they are and what they’re there for can snap into place. Thereafter — however absurd a caricature of the leader’s personality, whatever violence the simplification does to the ambiguity of any human story — the legend […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Three things in this morning's media attracted my attention. Item one is Fraser Nelson's column on the summer's riots. They seemed so seismic at the time. For some they were a wake up call to a criminal underclass. For others they were a sign of a very unequal society – […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Over the last couple of days Bruce Anderson has been doing exactly what I hoped he would do when I asked him to join ConservativeHome. He's been defending David Cameron from right-wing "belly-achers" (like Iain Martin and, I think, like me). He's been telling us all that we should "revel […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter With the exception of "the grand bargain" and the idea of a Bruges-sized EU speech today's 'Rebooting series' has been focused on the mechanics of governing, especially personnel matters. Let me end, however, by returning to the big picture from which every thing else flows. The biggest barrier between the […]