James Forsyth James Forsyth

Getting the Tories back on track

At the beginning of this week the key figures in the Tory election campaign gathered together in Notting Hill to try and work out what was going wrong with the Tory campaign, why the Tory lead has halved since December. Our cover this week attempts to answer this question. My take is that the problem is largely caused by the structure of the campaign.

Successful campaigns tend to have a chief strategist and a campaign manager. The strategist’s job is to work out what the election is about and the campaign manager’s role is to implement that vision and take charge of day to day tactics. The Tory problem is that they have no campaign manager and four men – Steve Hilton, George Osborne, Andy Coulson and George Bridges – who appear to be vying to be chief strategist.

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