What we've all waited 13 years to see

The day after my 19th birthday, Tony Blair swept into Number 10 with a silly grin on his face and the nation hypnotised by the promise of hope, panache and plenty. I didn’t think he’d deliver any of these as no Labour PM had ever done so before and six months later, I joined the Conservative Party. I made it my aim as a student activist to try and get rid of Labour but I found a Tory Party unwilling to learn lessons or change and so followed a different path - but the events of May 1, 1997 politicised me in a moment that everyone active in politics experiences.

Today, Labour has finally gone. But unlike 1997, there is no sense of positivity and little hope for short-term prosperity. In 13 years of borrowing from the future, Labour has brought the country to its knees financially and failed to address any of the social issues that people believed it would. Yes, there have been some difficult circumstances not all of its own making but Labour has ruled recklessly – and, worse, in its own self-interest. It has expanded the public sector to bring more people into state pay, opened our borders to bring in voters likely to boost its standing and declined to address benefits dependancy and a lack of social mobility to keep whole sections of society locked into a sense of victimhood.

What has happened since 1997 has been an undermining of our nation far exceeding anything that happened under Margaret Thatcher. Almost every aspect of our daily lives has been made worse by Labour – and that is quite an achievement. From our economy to our overseas interests – our health service to education, Labour has failed to stem decline in all of these areas through a woeful addiction to political dogma and a determination that the country should serve it rather than the other way round.

The Conservative Party needs to accept its share of the blame for the 1997-2005 years. It was a shambles of an opposition during that time, fighting among itself and moving decisively to the right in the wake of John Major’s defeat. William Hague is a fine politician but if Ken Clarke had been appointed leader in 1997, it is quite possible that Labour’s spree of destruction would have ceased in 2005. DC is the person who has turned that situation around – but it is only the beginning.

I long imagined that the sight of DC entering Number 10 would fill me with joy but it gives me no pleasure that a Conservative Prime Minister should be in power once more faced with the bleakest, leanest and most difficult times since the Second World War. But at least at last, at long last, the shadow that the wretched and devisive New Labour project cast over this nation of ours has been lifted and the process of finding our place in the world once more can begin.

But I envy neither the new PM nor our coalition colleagues the Liberal Democrats for the work that has to be done.

Labour’s manifesto yesterday gave a pretty clear message – we are tired and incompetent but we’ve got a few bottom-of-the-barrel ideas left to promise you that we haven’t got around to during our 13 years in government; and more to the point, aren’t you worried about what the Tories will do?

I don’t feel it’s worthy of serious analysis - from the 1930s Soviet-era cover design to the misguided drafting in of @BevaniteEllie to introduce the whole shower, the journalists in the room gave it a cool response. After three terms, a government should either be ready to head off in a clear new direction building on past successes or it should be booted out. In all honesty, that’s what should have happened in 1992 to us.

So today was the Conservatives’ chance to deliver the killer formula for government. My only only real bone of contention with the manifesto is that succinct it ain’t – at 131 pages, it’s going to test the staying power of all but the most political of animals. What Labour did better than us yesterday was to make clear pledges – I still search in vain for the simplified version for use on the doorstep. I refute the idea that there is anything patronising about that and I don’t understand why we’ve dressed the content – which I think is great – up in such a florid and frankly inaccessible way.

Once you get past the presentational difficulties, I’m really excited about what we are promising to do. I like the idea that “Britain needs a new economic model” and that “we need to boost enterprise and creat a low-carbon, hi-tech economy” – we have to adapt to global economic changes and accept the world is never going to be how it was before the recession. The Benchmarks for Britain are a brilliant idea and spell out very strongly our economic priorities, cutting the deficit quicker through a freeze on public sector pay and an end to tax credits for those who don’t need them. The advantage of the detail is that no-one can say we haven’t spelt out our economic policies – not, that is, if they’ve read the manifesto.

I love the idea of the UK being the “number one hi-tech exporter in Europe” and I believe that we can do it. This passage, more than almost anything else, convinces me that I’m fighting for a party concerned about 20 years into the future and not just the election in 2014/5. It won’t be picked up in the media, but I think it is worthy of great credit and re-modelling the economy could sow the seeds for prosperity in the next 20 years.

On employment, “a hand up, not a band out” is the middle ground and where we need to be and improving the skills of the workforce is key. There’s pledges for small businesses and a section on immigration that I know will please the right of the party but that I can live with as well; based, as it is, on getting people who already live here into employment and reducing the state welfare bill.

We are pledging to ensure that the whole of the UK shares in the proceeds of economic prosperity and that is a really important message. Under previous Conservative governments, the south east and London have disproportionally benefitted and while there will inevitably be some inequally favouring the capital in particular, the gap has been too large. “Better and more reliable infrastructure” will help this.

The Big Society is the cornerstone of the social agenda, with funding for those groups “that strengthen communities in deprived areas”  and using the state to “remake” society. “Our ambition is for every adult in the country to be an active member of a neighbourhood group”, says the manifesto – it’s big stuff, strong stuff and “new ways to increase philanthropy” is another thing that really speaks to me. When I joined the Conservative Party in 1997, we were all about Europe, saving the pound and carrying on hunting. I couldn’t see how we would ever get back to the centre ground and so I left in 2001 to concentrate on journalism and give the party the time it needed.

It is so good now to see that we have finally learned we must harness the economic liberalism that we believe in to achieve self-empowerment, opportunity and the fulfillment of aspiration for all of society. I didn’t join the Conservative Party to preserve the privileges of the super-wealthy or protect the interests of any one section of society. I joined because I want to see – and I want it to deliver – a Britain that doesn’t choose between excellence or equality as it has in the past.

I am delighted to see “we have a reform plan to deliver the changes the NHS needs” and that “improving our schools system is the most important thing we can do to make opportunity more equal” (excuse the dodgy grammar there). These are the issues that the 2010 Conservative Party holds dear and when I think about 1997, I cannot help but feel as if DC’s reform of the party is a process that will define politics in this century. A Conservative Party that understands the link between economy and society – who’d have thought it?

The Changing Politics section is interesting – 100,000 signatures on a petition will secure it a debate in Parliament and there is a promise, unsurprisingly, to redress the bias to Labour in the parliamentary boundaries. That’s only equitable, as I’m sure they’d agree; A Future Fair For All political parties. In making politics more local, there is some great reform of the planning system to get more money into infrastructure and some delegation of powers to the local level  that were blindingly obvious when I was a journo.

All in all, it’s a platform to be proud of. My only regret is that there is nothing more manageable for people to digest in their own time. Very occasionally, you will get people on the doorstep saying that they haven’t made up their mind who they will vote for until they have read all the manifestos. Usually, that’s a polite way of saying that they won’t vote for you, or of sounding as if they are discerning voters when they can’t think of anything else to say, or of getting rid of you if they are busy.

For any that do try, they’ll be a while with ours – but, mercifully, it more than rewards the investment.

A little while ago, the PM liked to remind us how the recession started in America and wasn’t really the fault of anyone in the UK (even the bankers). He also assured us that the UK was best placed to deal with the recession and that we would come out of it strongly, ahead of other less well-prepared economies.

Yesterday’s announcement that the UK is still in recession while the Americans are now growing at 2.2% won’t damage Labour politically any further because their economic incompetence is already reflected in their current poll rating. But it will make it more difficult to hold an early election in March because the Conservatives will be able to argue on these figures and no further ones are due before a March campaign would be well underway.

There again, if the PM wants to wait until May – and his indecisiveness makes this the most likely option – he will have to deliver a gloom-filled budget that will overshadow any official news of recession exit and a small overall growth in the economy. The real damage of this recession was never going to be fully apparent during its duration but rather in the years that will follow.

In all fairness, I don’t think the PM and this Labour government have earned the right to manage the recovery and believe that voters will see it that way during an election too. It remains for DC and George Osborne to convince that they have the approach to see the country onto a even footing and the imagination to maintain growth in the face of the crippling debts that Labour have left to us.

The debt is the price of the PM trying to force an early recovery – increasing spending and refusing to exercise restraint. In addition, all the money that has been printed is a serious inflation risk in 2010/11 and the public and private sector have to show moderation and pay restraint during the first years of recovery. Working for a company that provides support services largely to government clients, I include myself in that too.

The dishonesty of the PM in misrepresenting the UK’s strength to fight the recession has been one if its most unedifying features.

Could Gordon be gone by April?

There appear to be loudening whispers around Westminster at the moment that a March election could be on the cards. March 25 seems the most likely date for it if the PM wants to go early as it gives more time.

Evidence to suggest that this is at least an option being considered is increasingly stacking up. Firstly, there were the Labour Party staffing advertisements, which have been appearing in greater numbers recently. Secondly, it would offer the PM something of an advantage of surprise. It could also allow him to fight on the basis of Christmas-boosted economic figures and allow him to postpone the pre-Budget report until after an election.

It has certainly caught the minds of journalists at very high-placed political news outlets such as the Spectator, New Statesman and Daily Telegraph. Things don’t just pop into so many journalists’ minds at the same time on the same subject by chance – someone is briefing them. It could be Alistair Campbell, brought back to feed the PM with some snide one-liners about class war. Alternatively, it could be coming from the Conservative side, talking up a March election to get activists focussed and make Brown look scared if he waits until May.

It could be both but it’s certainly an interesting Phoney War. My own feeling is that the election will be on May 6 because Labour simply doesn’t have the money to run two separate campaigns. But then the PM could go on March 25, spend everything on the general election and leave the local elections to dangle – it’s not like Labour’s local government presence could get much worse anyway.

Polls at the moment seem to be narrowing slightly to Labour’s advantage – or more accurately, since the Labour vote is static – to the Conservatives’ disadvantage. A lot of that I think is the fall out from the Lisbon Treaty and Eurosceptics switching to UKIP. Hopefully, by the election time they will understand that a vote for Lord Pearson and his merry crew is a total waste of time and actually helps the PM stay on for another five years. I am confident that many of these UKIP waverers will stay within the Conservative Party but there is a huge amount of work ahead.

The most important thing is not the opinion poll figures but getting your supporters out to vote for you. If Labour thinks they have more chance of doing this in March, so be it.

John Redwood addresses the Woking Conservative dinner

I have just got back from a superb Annual Grand Dinner for Woking Conservatives that was not only fantastically well-attended by councillors and party members alike but where there were some star turns too. Obviously none of them were on the record so it would be most remiss of me to report their words on here but it wouldn’t be much of post to talk about nothing so I’ll make some observations to which I’m sure none would object.

I’ll be honest, John Redwood (now added to blogroll) is a very able man but quite a bit to the right of me generally. His views on Europe are very well-documented and it’s no surprise that he kicked off his remarks on this subject. What I was pleasantly surprised at though was the time he took to speak about social issues; perhaps not something he is generally noted for. He spoke about the work Iain Duncan Smith (who spent this evening addressing Harlow Conservatives according to @halfon4harlow) has done and I think has a genuine committment towards opportunity and advancement for people. He’s not quite ready to join the Tory Reform Group yet, but I’ve seen another dimension to his hard-nosed image.

I sat on a table with Nirj Deva MEP and spoke to him and his political assistant at some length about Europe and European issues. I was pleased to discover that he is a big fan of Woking but also to understand a little more about the Conservative stance on the EU within the European group, which often gets overshadowed by Westminster debate. It would be unfair of me to recall the conversation in detail but needless to say the question of committing ourselves to a given position within or outside the current European “bloc” is a good deal more nuanced and sophisticated than perhaps I imagined.

And last of all, there was a very confident and concise speech from Jonathan Lord, who I saw address a large group for the first time since his selection. A few months ago, I said I would never work for a parliamentary candidate who was not local because I couldn’t see how they would know the area well enough to know its people. Apart from the fact that Jonathan is hardly an outsider anyway coming from Guildford, he has totally convinced me that not only is he working hard but enjoying it.

Apart from an engagement last night at Winston Churchill School, the Conservative Dinner tonight, he is at the Horsell and Woodham Branch coffee morning tomorrow morning followed by campaigning in the afternoon. He is getting every bit as stuck in as I hoped our candidate would – and I had pretty high expectations. Keep going Jonathan, you have really spurred on our enthusiasm with your infectious commitment, diligence and clear enjoyment of getting to know Woking and its people. As someone who went through that process myself abeit in a difference capacity seven years ago, I promise that both repay such an approach with interest.

Stephen Phillips - a good Conservative for a good seat

A belated congratulations to Stephen Phillips, who was a candidate in our Open Primary in Woking, on his selection in Sleaford and North Hykeham in Lincolnshire.

Stephen was a superb candidate and I voted for his passage through the selection process up until the primary itself. We had a good chat before proceedings got underway that evening – Woking probably wasn’t quite the right seat for him but I’m delighted he has been selected elsewhere. He has a first-rate mind, a great sense of humour and will be a huge asset to both his constituents and the Conservative Party if, as I expect, he is elected. The majority there is more than 10,000, so it should be a bit easier than Woking would have been!

As a mark of the man, I emailed a brief note to him at his chambers in London and got a reply within 20 minutes despite what must be a hugely busy working and family life for him. Don’t lose the common touch, Stephen, when you arrive in Parliament (I’m sure you won’t) and I look forward to seeing you rise to prominence early in a first Cameron term.

Both the Ipsos/MORI and ICM pollsters have the Conservative lead back to a pretty decisive 17 points, which is fairly well exactly where we were before the conferences began. The good news for DC is that the Conservative figures of 43% and 44% are where he needs to be for a serious majority – 45% would be ideal. The bad news for him is that the big set-piece Conservative conference, which always follows last, hasn’t permanently impacted in a positive way.

On the other hand, you can say that maintaining a 17-point lead is hard enough, let alone extending it. In response to Denzil Coulson’s questions, I did some research (albeit brief) into how the polls might act in May 2010 based on previous elections and the polls seven months before the polling day.

It showed that the Labour votes usually goes down, the Liberal Democrat vote normally goes up and the Conservative vote stays about the same. If you did that to the current figures, you’d get Con 44%, Lab 24% and Lib 22%. Type that into Electoral Calculus and you get a Conservative majority of 154. From hung Parliament to Tory landslide – now there’s a though to warm a chilly October night.

Of course it depends on where those votes are cast – as usual around 50,000 votes in key marginals will decide the actual result. But that’s the fun!

Jonathan addresses Horsell Conservatives last week

Jonathan Lord’s core campaign team met today formally for the first time, although the campaign has already begun. Although it was by no means the only thing that we discussed, social media is going to be an important focus for me and a new Facebook campaign has been started to get things rolling.

Meanwhile, Jonathan himself was out in Horsell today with good results and I’m sure we will be hearing a lot more from him in the future.

The Camerons after DC's speech

I’ve now had a chance to watch DC today and I’ve got to say that I was pretty impressed overall. To a certain extent, he’s played it safe – no new policy and not too much fire in the belly (no-one likes an angry man) except for poverty, where people will think he’s right to be angry. I was impressed with his fluency as always and also with his humanity and straightforwardness. The voters wanted honest, they wanted straightforward, they wanted transparent. Is DC perfect? No – but I think this is about as close as we’re going to get to any leader meeting those requirements.

So overall I was very happy with his vision and values – he appears to understand that voters want a Conservative government that belives in free enterprise, in wealth creation, a small government and low-tax economy but they will not tolerate that at the expense of social injustice, reduced public services, increasing gap between rich and poor and unfettered corporate greed. I think DC projected that sentiment well today.

But he has got a couple of challenges. Firstly, like any opposition leader he can’t show that he is as good as his word until he gets elected – but he would find it easier to be elected if he could demonstrate he was as good as his word. Trust is an important factor in any opposition leader – and let’s not forget no Conservative has been elected from opposition for 30 years. DC has that trust personally but I don’t think the public yet trust the Conservative Party corporately in the same way; it’s a very fine line to tread and there is opportunity here for PM and the PM to locate inconsistency. And every inconsistency will have a dampening effect on DC’s personal trust level, even if it’s nothing to do with him. We need to stay consistent to maintain trust.

In addition, I still feel that the economy is weak point – unusually – for the Conservatives at the moment. Back in 1998/9, when Tony Blair wiped the floor with us about who was more trusted to run the NHS, the education system etc, the economy was usually the only element on which the Conservatives scored well. Ironically, it’s now the one area where Labour still has a chance – partly because of the above ie they’ve had the opportunity to demonstrate action but also because we have a Shadow Chancellor who’s about as economically literate as I am. Luckily, we also have Philip Hammond and Ken Clarke on board, who do understand economics - but it’s hardly ideal.

Finally, there’s the wealth thing. DC isn’t going to escape the jibes over his privileged upbringing or personal wealth (or that of SamCam). I have to say I find it very strange that Labour and the Liberal Democrats think it’s okay to say someone isn’t fit to govern because of their background or schooling. We don’t say that Labour MPs are unfit because they grew up in poverty on a council estate or Liberal Democrats because they went to third-rate universities – so why should it make a difference that DC went to Eton and Oxford?

Many great PMs have come from Eton and Oxford and most have had comfortable, if not substantial wealth – if he’s up to the job what’s the problem? I don’t believe you have to be on a low income to understand the problems of it – nor do I believe you have to be state-educated to be passionate about state education, nor a user of the NHS to “love” the NHS (as it happens, DC has been a user of the NHS). To my mind, reverse snobbery is just snobbery – and I think people will see through it a la Crewe and Nantwich.

I think the Conservative conference has undoubtedly been the most successful of the three. There is still work to do to cement the trust with voters and DC will be vulnerable to certain lines of attack. But I think he’s done enough to convince people he deserves a chance as the next PM.

Some very interesting polling news from the FT this morning, showing that the Conservatives – despite what the left-wing media will tell you – have done more than enough to cancel out Labour’s majority in the north of England and may even be winning there.

I don’t expect that cities such as Liverpool, Manchester or Middlesborough will be returning many Conservative MPs in 2010 but what this polling shows is that among C1 – classified as “lower middle-class” although I’m not keen on this type of stuff – and C2 (skilled manual workers), the Conservatives are now in the lead.

And both in the north of England, which kept Labour in power in 2005, and in the Midlands the Conservatives now have an overall lead in the polls – in the case of the Midlands, it’s a pretty thumping one too.

Strangely, none of this information appears to have been reported by the BBC, which usually defends itself by saying it doesn’t report “routine polling data”. I seem to remember it gleefully reporting routine polling data when Tony Blair was on the way up and John Major was on the way out – has politics or society really changed that much?

More likely, the BBC has become more aware of the self-fulfilling nature of polls and has come under severe pressure from PM – and the actual PM – to report more serious news - such as the buying out of ConservativeHome by Lord Ashcroft, for example.

For DC, surely this is gold dust ahead of the Conservative Conference – in Manchester. Okay, he’d be a fool to be triumphal about it – but also a fool to ignore the powerful message it sends out to the north of England; that the Conservatives can genuinely be their voice in Westminster.