Can the Wizard of Oz solve the Tories’ 2015 problem?

How is David Cameron planning to get re-elected? If he couldn’t win a majority against Gordon Brown in 2010 then why should he do so much better after five years of flat growth and shrinking living standards? The Police Commissioner elections have been another reminder that, for all their other merits, the Cameroons are not very good at fighting elections. So what to do? James Forsyth reveals their strategy in his political column this week: the  40+40 strategy. It involves love-bombing 20 LibDems out of their seats. But how to make this strategy work?

At present, Lynton Crosby is the obvious solution to avoid history repeating itself. He’s the Australian mastermind behind Boris Johnson’s two victories in London. Janan Ganesh’s new biography of George Osborne offers a good précis of Crosby’s contribution to Michael Howard’s doomed 2005 campaign:

‘Crosby’s performance in the second of these missions still evokes unprompted praise from veterans of the 2005 campaign. He established a clear chain of command at CCO, which he renamed Conservative Campaign HQ, with himself at the summit.