Counter-attacking on Ashcroft

March 2, 2010 — admin

Michael Ashcroft, as anyone who’s read Dirty Politics, Dirty Times, will know, is made of tough stuff. No-one takes on News International and gets a score-draw without some serious clout behind them. Compared with Rupert, PM is just an amateur and I know that the chance to finally nail their bogeyman will get some Lib/Labs very excited – but really they should be stepping outside their glass houses before lobbing things at him.

Lord Ashcroft has announced that at the moment he doesn’t pay tax on his overseas income in the UK. Him and thousands of others. Labour has had 13 years to close that loophole had they chosen and have failed to do so. Why? Because of pressure from people like Lord Paul and their own donors, who told them very firmly that if the loophole was closed, the donations cashpoint would be too. So what Lord Ashcroft’s tax dealings actually boil down to is him perfectly legally taking advantage of a loophole that Labour left open in order to benefit themselves.

When he received a peerage in 2000, he gave assurances that he would pay tax in the UK. I think it is unfortunate that he chose not to do so and that he strung several Conservative leaders along on that basis. But the truth is that we don’t exactly know what the reasons for the delay were, as they are entirely his own business and the House of Lords has told Lord Mandelson – whose own financial dealings and peerage have been the subject of some considerable comment – to go and sling it. In fact, Mandelson is the leaver-in-chief of loopholes, having been the major figure involved in the wooing of big bussines over to Labour in the 1990s.

So it’s a bit rich that he’s the one doing most of the talking now!

And the Lib Dems shouldn’t feel as though they’ve got away from this, either. Chris Huhne said that the party had been bought like a “banana republic”, clearly forgetting in his rush to get the words out that Liberals don’t use phrases like that anymore. He probably also forgot that his leadership campaign was financed by money from a non-dom and that he has held investments in companies based in tax shelters. Never mind.

I’m sure that the Grauniad, whose newspaper today was oozing saliva from four pages of coverage and whose website almost has an Ashcroft section rtaher than a politics one, and the BBC will lap up the government’s follow-ups and keep the story running for a couple of days. But in the end what’s done is done.

Lord Ashcroft should have made good his undertakings to friends and colleagues. But he has every right to spend his money, in this country or another, how he pleases. And I’ll bet that Labour and the Liberal Democrats would accept his cash on exactly the same terms.

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Keeping the faith

March 2, 2010 — admin

Time for a decisive, DC - what's it to be?

It all seems as though it could go terribly wrong after a YouGov poll found that the PM was on course to claim another five years in power, something unimaginable even four weeks ago. DC gave his speech on Sunday in Brighton to a generally good reception but couldn’t avoid a look about him that was rather too close to someone living out their nightmares. I thought it was a solid speech and nothing more – designed to steady the ship and motivate the crew rather than inspire a nation through new discovery. But I remain confident that Cameron the performer will outshine either of his rivals whenever he gets the chance.

What he needs to start to do is give people a reason to vote Conservative – something I’ve been telling the party locally for a number of months now. Gordon Brown remains our biggest asset and I have no doubt that whatever the polls say, he will not win the election. But that doesn’t mean a Conservative victory – as the Times put it, it is isn’t that people don’t think DC is capable of being a good PM, it is that they don’t understand why he wants to do the job.

I know that DC feels the desire to reform our country, he is deeply interested in social justice, cares hugely about health and education and wants to address Britain’s copious social problems. He wants to foster an economy that allows people to reach their potential and steer a dignified course on the world stage. Why? Because it’s the British Way – fair play, compassion, reward for the successful and support for the struggling. I think the term “patriotic duty” was taken out of context by the press but it wasn’t the most wise; I know what he meant but I’m not sure it was the best way to express it. He needs to express it how the man on the street would ie the country at the moment is in a mess – unfair and injust after 13 years of Labour failure. DC wants to be the person to put that right.

But we need to spell out in practical terms what the Direction of Travel is and how that’s done. And we need to give people some reasons to vote Conservative as opposed to reasons to vote against Gordon. I think DC’s policy of attacking the PM has reached its optimum effectiveness and has now started to decline. I want to see less barracking and more focus on what a Tory government will deliver. Cllr Richard Lowe, an emminent Tweeter, collated the following:

1. A cut in net immigration of 75%

2. No more early release for convicted criminals

3. A two year freeze in council tax

4. The abolition of inheritance tax for all families except millionaires

5. Cutting politics with 10% cut in the number of MPs and 5% cut in pay

 6. Headteachers to be put in charge of school discipline

7. Restoring the link between the basic state pension and earnings

8. New laws that will give householders more rights against burglars

9. The budget deficit cut in half by 2014 so future generations don’t live in debt

10. Abolition of Labour’s expensive ID cards

I’m more comfortable with some things than others on that list but politics isn’t an all-or-nothing craft. These would be 10 reasons that if nothing else explain to a public fed up of waiting what the Conservatives stand for. And most of them represent current policy - not that you’d think it from our reticence in coming forward. So come on DC, let’s hear about them and let’s have a bit of fearlessness. Ignore those who say that we are losing support because we’ve gone to the left and keep to the centre ground. Stop bashing Gordon – tempting though it is – and start selling yourself, selling the party and its promises and selling a Conservative Britain as a place that has voted for change and is fairer for all.

I don’t believe that Labour will win the election, the polling in key marginals is still heavily in our favour. But we must show some mettle, some work ethic and a willingness to let people into our confidence if we are to finally summit the mountain we have struggled for so long to conquer.

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Winterton of discontent

February 18, 2010 — admin

Another day, another Conservative MP rolls up to the Stephen Nolan show on Five Live to commit political self-immolation. This time it’s Nicholas Winterton on trains and Pete Waterman he ain’t.

Just so he knows what it’s like in second class these days, I went into the City earlier on South West Trains and had to stand next to the toilet due to the volume of people aboard. It’s pretty difficult to get your laptop out or start leafing through reports when you’ve go no seat to use, despite paying the same fare as the people who have got seats. So I hope he’ll forgive me if I don’t share his “outlook on life” when on the train, it’s just that usually I’m having to listen to kids noisily playing I-spy or someone sitting across from me using a personal music device that’s anything but personal.

I’d love to have a “business environment” in which to work, but sometimes you just have to share your world with other human beings and make the compromises that that inevitably entails. He should try it sometime. My company doesn’t pay for me to travel First Class – and neither should taxpayers pay for MPs to do the same. Give them the regular fare – if they want to top it up from their considerable wages, so be it. But I suspect that some of them could do with a bit of second-class travel.

On the way back, I did manage to find a seat, open my laptop and do a few emails before the train pulled into Woking. You see, Sir Nicholas, some of us carriage-classers are capable of doing work on the train, despite being a different type of person. There’s no reason that MPs can’t do the same at certain times of the day.

There are many issues with our trains and overcrowding and punctuality are just the surface of a deeper problem, which the Wintertons might like to look into and lobby Andrew Adonis about. The fact that the most pressing problem in Sir Nicholas Winterton’s mind is that he wants to travel first instead of second class just demonstrates how much better off Parliament will be without him.

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Lurch to the right

January 25, 2010 — admin

DC has plenty to think about - but voters still don't want Gordon Brown as PM

There’s no mystery as to why the Conservative lead in the polls has narrowed. In fact, reading PR Week this morning, it was quite refreshing to see Alex Hilton spelling it out for any reading Conservatives who may not have realised yet. And if we look at the polls, we don’t really see any massive increase in Labour’s polling – they are steady at just under 30% – but a decline in support for the Conservatives.

The tipping point was the Lisbon Treaty being ratified by President Klaus of the Czech Republic. For the first time, DC and his team looked like they’d been caught out – like they had thought that the wily old Klaus would hold out for them and they didn’t look as though they had really thought through what would happen next. Or perhaps they underestimated the level of opinion within the Tory grass roots and had expected them just to swallow the whole debate being kicked into the long grass.

In reality, there wasn’t much alternative, as I argued at the time. A referendum on the treaty is a totally pointless waste of time and the activists’ posturing on it just that. But the question of whether to put Tory grass roots ahead of country as a whole was a particularly poignant one for him because voters see that question as the benchmark as to what kind of PM he will be. In the end, he chose neither and pleased neither.

Since then, we’ve had some cracking grass roots-pleasing policies. Punishing people for not being married is one. For goodness’ sake, we’ve had 13 long years of a government telling us how to live – from the beef we can eat to detention without trial, people want a Conservative government that will leave them alone, not tell them they’ve got to march to the Register Office or else. Marriage doesn’t automatically equal childhood bliss as we’ve seen in Edlington; please DC, just let it go.

Next we’ve had the Tories arguing about strengthening the law to allow people to defend their homes. The simply fact is that we have to have some kind of trust in the rule of law and the police to distinguish us from the animals. You are already entitled to use reasonable force – which may include deadly force – to defend yourself and your loved ones in your own home; there is no for any further “clarification” of this fact. By banging on about it, Chris Grayling and everyone risk succinct exposure by the legal profession.

Then DC had a pop at teachers and told them that they would need to be cleverer in future. I happen to agree with his view on this but saying such a thing was never likely to endear him to the NUT, BBC, or the many parents who are potential Tory voters that have a healthy respect for the teachers at their childrens’ school. There is an issue with teaching standards in this country but he’d have been better leaving it to Michael Gove to say so.

He’s also playing a risky game engaging the government over the raising of the UK Terror Threat to “severe”. The public do not like to see politicians making political capital of national security. Yes, DC means well but he needs to engage his PR brain a bit more to see how these things may be perceived. Is Andy Coulson on holiday?

DC’s greatest political achievement has been to drag a tired old party kicking and screaming into the 21st century. I and many others waited 10 years for someone to do it and it remains a great achievement – but it’s only a starting point. And with Lisbon, he has been a victim of circumstances trying to do the right thing – but hey, that’s politics. Now is the time for DC to be fitfully stubborn and stand his ground – the centre ground.

He must, must not allow the party to do what many of its activists want and move back to the right. He needs to focus back onto the left of politics – to talk the language of inclusion, of accessibility and of aspiration. He must ignore the threats of UKIPper defections – he needs to stay focussed on the mainstream of society, the probables, the Liberal waiverers, the people who are looking for him to uphold their vision of a small-c conservative society that celebrates success and achievement but makes this possible for everyone. I’ll fight and fight for the party forever – but I’ll feel a lot better about it if I hear more of this and less Monday Club rhetoric.

Labour won’t make it easy – they are focussing on Gordon Brown the statesman with the War on Terror, the Northern Ireland process, they are talking about banking bonuses again and tax will be an issue too. There are probably brighter economic figures to come. DC needs to stay strong, to regain confidence in his ability to be the Prime Minister of everyone, not just his own party.

The time for him to become PM is approaching fast and his margin of error is narrowing. It’s now or never and he needs to get a grip once more.

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We’re going to the chapel

January 17, 2010 — admin

Back in the spring of 2007, I watched Francis Maude give one of the most unimpressive performances on Question Time that I’ve ever seen. The background for this was the announcement that the Conservative Party intended to commit to the idea of rewarding married couples through the taxation system. His answers were defensive and and a little condescending and I held my head in my hands as the Conservative Party once again went back to basics.

Even back then, I knew that just as the original back to basics had started the decline of John Major’s government, so the new version – despite its different presentation – could seriously damage a future Conservative challenge; people don’t want to be told how to live. And now the issue is back in the news - not because it’s new but because given everything that has happened since St David’s Day 2007, Labour feels that the Conservatives are vulnerable on this issue – and they are dead right.

I’m not against marriage – heck, I’m getting married in June. I’m not even going to argue with the fact that marriage is a preferable institution from which to create a stable family unit. I’m not arguing that kids from married families statiscally don’t do better at school and stay out of trouble. Marriage is the most important building block of our society and we disregard it at our peril.

But marriage is not a magic wand – it is a means to an end. Marriages create stability, continuity and an environment of care, which is why it is so good at nurture and creating stable and balanced households. But it doesn’t have a monopoly on love, stability and care. There are plenty of co-habitees, single parents and same-sex relationships that provide exactly the same environment. Equally, there are plenty of marriages that provide very little in the way of any of these positive things.

My problem with the Conservative policy of rewarding marriage in the tax system is that it alienates people who don’t fall into this category, many through no fault of their own. The break-up of any marriage is always a tragic and deeply traumatic event, particularly when there are children involved. But it happens – sometimes people who fell in love with all good faith simply fall out of love, or fall more in love with someone else. It’s one of the most difficult things about being human – but being human is all that it is.

I feel very uncomfortable about levvying a financial penalty against those involved in such a sad chapter of their lives – even though to them it would no doubt pale into insignficance compared to everything else. To me, it smacks of kicking people while they are down, of turning our backs on them when they need support most and of keeping a whole lot of other people, many of whom will be relatively vulnerable, off a list of “the favoured” because they – for whatever reason – cannot or don’t wish to embrace a formal marriage arrangement.

I understand what the Conservative Party is trying to do here – but it’s all wrong. It allows our opponents to paint us as an exclusive party – as if we didn’t have enough trouble with that already. I seriously don’t want the Tory Party to be the party of the rich – I want it to be the party that leaves the rich alone, looks after the poor and increases mobility from poor to rich. But it’s difficult to get that inclusive idea across when you illustrate it with policies like this one.

And the party only has itself to blame. By trying, in the spring of 2007, to impose its grass roots’ preferred way of living, we have been overtaken by circumstances to a point where we are left with a policy that DC would probably reverse in an instant if he could – he’s already tried and then had to go back on himself - but can’t. Despite the recession, despite the sensitive issue that taxation policy has now become, he cannot go back on the marriage promise for fear of losing grass roots votes and another Lisbon-like U-turn. On one side his better judgement, on the other ConservativeHome and the Daily Mail. Rather him than me.

It’s what happens when you announce things three years ahead of an election. Okay, there’s nothing wrong with supporting marriage but I’ll bet that if DC could choose something now that he’d announced in 2007, it wouldn’t be this.

The Conservative Party must support people, not institutions if we wish to remain on the centre ground.

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Which is it, Gordon?

January 5, 2010 — admin

The PM spent most of last year talking about how the Conservatives were going to cut their way out of recession. Now, with the publication of the first part of the Conservative manifesto, he has decided to try and say that we are planning to splurge our way out of it with a £34bn black hole.

Labour has form on dodgy dossiers - as we all know - and the compendium of lies that they released in response to the manifesto certainly fell into that category. But they succeeded in one way – the central message of the manifesto, the draft plans for the NHS, did not get an airing on the news. DC has to brush aside this silly question about how much of a promise is a promise and make sure that people know about our ideas and innovations for the future of the country.

As Stephanie Flanders points out, we should be mounting a two-pronged attack here – one with our own ideas and one with some serious hay-making about Labour’s own planned cuts. Where I think she is slightly off the mark is in saying that by talking about the nature of the promises rather than the content, the first day was a Labour success – DC made the point well that the promises are only tentative because of the economic mess Labour has bequeathed.

But he needs to start being more ruthless about ignoring journalists’ questions and getting his own message out. Tony Blair was a master of this art and it contributed a significant part of why he was able to seal the deal in way that DC has yet to. And Nick Robinson is as good a place as any to start.

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Sky is the limit

January 1, 2010 — admin

Only class war to offer voters

No such slacking over at Sky News, where clearly the fact that the company doesn’t get a £3.5bn windfall from the government every year means that journos have to be in over the New Year period.

It doesn’t seem to have made them any less subservient to the PM though as they dutifully report his pitiful whingeing about what he thinks the country would look like under the Conservatives. I’m happy to quote:

“The Prime Minister says he was resolved to delivering “radical” public service reform, “a new, cleaned-up politics” and tackling terrorism as priorities in the new year. Mr Brown also promises to publish the first part of a “prosperity plan for a successful, fairer and more responsible Britain” later in the week. The proposals include investment in high-speed rail, aerospace, the digital economy, clean energy and other “industries and jobs of the future”.”

Radical public service reform went out of the window with Frank Field in 1998, his talk about cleaning up politics would be more believable if it were backed up with action and, er, I thought that we’d been tackling terrorism since about 1969. And we know that Labour tackling terrorism is code for taking away more civil liberty.

As for his prosperity plan, we’ve had stories about high-speed rail before, aerospace is anyone’s guess, clean energy is nothing new and the “other” stuff is just bluster. Investing in all of these things is easy to announce – far more difficult to deliver on time, to specification and to budget. Government, particularly during the Labour tenure, has a dreadful record on overspend and delayed capital projects from the MoD to IT systems across all government departments.

And where is all this investment going to come from by the way? It’s just nonsense. Labour has nothing new to offer apart from class war and divisive rhetoric. I hope the public votes for an alternative  – and frankly that includes the Lib Dems in northern inner-city seats where the Conservatives won’t win – to deliver a strong verdict against this shambles of a government that has led Britain to the brink of bankruptcy and hastened our decline.

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Tracking the story

December 8, 2009 — admin

There’s been quite a bit in the nationals recently about the narrowing of the polls, with some putting the Labour lead in single figures. It’s not hugely surprising, I think we are see the Eurosceptic Conservative contingent flipping over to UKIP, which are votes I don’t necessarily think will stay there at the polling booth. In addition, I think there are a couple of other things happening.

People forget that polling is a highly subjective craft that can be made to go one way or the other. Back in the summer of 2008, DC was regularly polling 15 to 19 point leads and the race was on in the press to rubbish the PM and publish the poll with the most ridiculous possible lead. Now the race is on – led by the Observer a couple of weeks ago, to follow the line that the general election is going to be a very close-run thing and publish the “breakthrough” poll that suggests a hung parliament is more or less certain.

I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing for the Conservatives – people will shy away from a hung parliament and where they shy to will more likely be David Cameron than Gordon Brown. These polls are focussing activists and reminding them success is not, nor ever has been, certain. We’ve been here before during the Brown bounce, during the weeks following the collapse of Lehman Bros (about this time last year) and yet the PM has been hammered in subsequent local and Euro elections.

There is no doubt that a sense of optimism about the economy is helping Gordon Brown. But that sense of optimism is totally misplaced because the truth is that he hasn’t been straight with people in this country about how hard it will be after the election to pay off the cost of recession.

And I think that is where DC needs to go next. The economy may feel better, but it’s going to get worse again once those votes in 2010 have been cast. While Labour patters on about Eton and tried to get everyone interested in class warfare, the Conservatives should be sticking with the change argument and the feeling that whatever the apparent green shoots, the party to deliver change and steer the recovery competently is the Conservatives. I think that message will stick.

We also need to take on Labour about it’s appaling record on poverty and wealth creation. A Conservative strategy for poverty alleviation is a vital tool in the governmental box. By getting people into work, we lower the welfare bill and get debt paid off quicker. On the other hand, Labour’s attempts to get people into work have been spectacular failures because they aren’t serious. Far better to leave people on benefit and voting Labour for fear of the Conservatives, they reason.

By taking on Labour over poverty, aspiration and the real cost of recession, we’ll get them busy clearing up after us rather than standing still while Labour plays dirty with the politics of envy. It’s positive message from us about change; and a negative one from them about fear of change.

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On the March

December 6, 2009 — admin
Could Gordon be gone by April?

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.

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Something Astor give

December 1, 2009 — admin
Nancy Astor

Nancy Astor

It is 90 years ago to the day that Nancy Astor became the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons. It’s fair to say that her political career was a good deal less significant than her electoral achievement – given the accounts of the time, not something that can entirely be explained away by the difficulties she faced in a house full of men.

Ninety years on, we have 125 women out of 646 members of parliament, which is better but represents only one fifth of parliament representing more than half the population. Needless to say, the worst offenders are we Conservatives, with just 18 out of 193 seats (less than one in ten), then the Liberal Democrats (one in six) followed by Labour, which actually does rather well with 98 out of 349 (two in seven). 

There are those who say that all of this is the fault of women for not coming forward in greater numbers, that women don’t want to be MPs. I suspect the truth is that women don’t feel an environment that continues to be male-dominated is an attractive prospect and while they would like to be active in politics, they take the decision to do something equally constructive in another field of life.

I don’t think that helps parliament or the country. We have come a certain distance in statistical terms since Nancy Astor but depressingly little has changed in the corridors, stairways and offices where the real power to make decisions lays.

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