Later today David Cameron will mark the day on which Gordon Brown had planned to hold a General Election with a big picture speech. There’s nothing dramatically new in it – just a skillful bringing together of key themes including the idea that we are seeing a change in the tide of ideas every bit […]
Praise for David Cameron’s immigration policy from an unexpected source this morning; former Labour GLA member and the new chief of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips: "For the first time in my adult life I heard a party leader clearly attempting to deracialise the issue of immigration and to treat it like […]
The day started with that encouraging opinion poll. Let me start the weekend with three more pieces of good news: (1) Conservatives won last night’s Cambridge Union debate on ‘This House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government’ for only the second time since 1997 and for, I think, the first time in seven years. […]
David Cameron gave a press conference earlier today and promised to hold them regularly from now on. He suggested about once a month. He began by joking that we should be just nine days from polling day. We should be walking the streets of Bury or Bolton or, if things were going particularly well, Wigan! […]
A few opinion polls are due in the next few days and they’ll give us a clue as to whether the Conservatives have done enough to "stave off the election" – in the words of this morning’s Telegraph. What the headlines won’t tellus is the position in the marginals. According to The Independent, Labour polling […]
Lots of good policies are now tumbling out of the Tory cupboard and that’s hugely to be welcomed. I plan to make a list of my favourite ten doorstep pledges by the end of the week. I think the Conference still lacks a big theme, however. I’m not convinced that ‘It’s time for change’ quite […]
[Not verbatim]. The party is ready for a General Election: Refusing to discuss the "fluctuating" opinion polls Mr Cameron said that the Conservative Party was ready to go to the country whenever Gordon Brown made the decision. Lots of policy review ideas will be junked this week: The policy reviews were excellent but this week […]
Last night’s by-election results may produce further ammunition to those Labour ‘greybeards’ who are urging Gordon Brown to be cautious about an autumn General Election. We listed other risk factors on Monday. On the basis of yesterday’s results the Conservatives would have a 6.2% lead over Labour – a very different picture to the national […]
Interviewed by Fraser Nelson for this week’s Spectator (not yet online), the Shadow Chancellor distances himself from what he calls the über-modernisers and embraces ‘the politics of and’: "I don’t take the kind of über-modernising view that some have had, that you can’t talk about crime or immigration or lower taxes. It is just that […]
At last night’s Carlton Political Dinner over £250,000 was raised for target seats. Tory donors mixed with shadow cabinet ministers and listened to remarks from Simon Woolfson, David Cameron and Boris Johnson. Speaking confidently, without notes, David Cameron attempted to answer four big questions. My summaries of his answers to his own questions are not […]
The Gummer-Goldsmith report has, as ConservativeHome feared, done the party a lot of damage. It risks making us look like a high-tax party out of touch with ordinary families. And for what benefit? Nothing Britain does on its own will make a difference to climate change. As the Copenhagen Consensus powerfully argues: there are many […]
Samuel Coates and I are currently on the 29th floor of Millbank Tower waiting for David Cameron to speak to an assembled audience of CCHQ staff, candidates and journalists. According to PA this will be Mr Cameron’s main message: "He will tell an audience of candidates and activists in central London that to win power […]
David Cameron has written to Gordon Brown to challenge the Prime Minister to an election debate: "Yesterday you made a speech in which you stressed your commitment to a new kind of politics. In particular, you laid great emphasis on the need to find ways to re-engage young people. I have long believed that a […]
Peter Riddell writes the following in his Times column this morning: "The main recent event that could influence Tory prospects in the long term is George Osborne’s decision to accept Labour’s spending plans for the next three years, in the hope of countering claims about “cuts”. That — along with yesterday’s interesting report from the […]
I’ve written an article for Comment is free arguing that David Cameron is not ‘lurching to the right’. I argue that the issues of Europe, tax, crime and immigration cannot be crudely characterised as right-wing issues. I also say that David Cameron’s approach to these issues is very different to that pursued by Michael Howard […]