Conservative party

Few modern-day political speeches need to be read in full, but Michael Gove’s today does. The speech to Policy Exchange’s Education Conference contains what must be the moral core of modern-day Conservatism, that disadvantage must not be destiny. Though, the speech does take a very Blairite approach to means. Gove declares that ‘what’s right is what works’. The headlines have been grabbed by Gove’s argument that illiteracy can be ended in a generation. This is a noble aim and there’s no reason why this country should be so accepting of educational failure as it is. It is hard to dispute this part of Gove’s argument: ‘How can it be right

Here’s a clever way to get more exposure for your political slogan. You say it so often in speeches, press releases and planted questions from the whips that it seeps everywhere, you start dreaming it, and your opponents get very cross indeed. Then your opponents accidentally say your political slogan while all mithered. Then they get a bit jealous that it’s popping up in every single piece of government literature so they complain about this political slogan, which they mention, again, thus ensuring it reaches more and more and more people. Bravo to an opposition that stays calm in the face of a barrage of ‘long-term economic plans’ designed to

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_5_June_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”James Delingpole and Michael Heaver debate whether Ukip stands for anything” startat=1222] Listen [/audioplayer]There are many words that you might associate with Nigel Farage, but moderniser probably isn’t one. Yet the Ukip leader is embarking on the process of modernising his party. He has concluded that it cannot achieve its aims with its current level of support. So he is repositioning it in the hope of winning new converts even at the risk of alienating traditional supporters. If this sounds similar to what David Cameron did after winning the Tory leadership in 2005, that’s because it is. Interviewing Farage during his triumphant European election campaign, I was struck

‘There are three stages to any coalition,’ House of Cards creator Michael Dobbs told me at Tuesday’s annual Macmillan Lords vs Commons tug-of-war in the grounds of Westminster School. ‘First there is the seduction, tearing off each other’s bodices over five days of negotiations. Then came the consummation in the Rose Garden, followed later by a period of sober reflection.’ And which stage are we in now? I asked the Tory peer ‘The “sod off” stage.’

The Conservatives have accidentally emailed a database of their activists’ details to other members, Coffee House has learned. The database, called ‘volunteer record NEWARK’ was accidentally attached to a generic thank you email for those campaigning in the by-election, and contained the email addresses of activists and MPs who had signed in at a certain station in the constituency. Sent from a generic email address belonging to the Tory chairman, the email thanked activists for visiting Newark, and asked them to continue campaigning by visiting the constituency again on polling day or making calls to voters from home or CCHQ. The database was attached at the bottom. This isn’t a

The Tories are looking ever more likely to hold Newark in Thursday’s by-election. In a new poll from Lord Ashcroft this afternoon, the Conservatives are now on 47 per cent of the vote, compared to 36 per cent in the last week’s Survation poll and 53 per cent at the 2010 general election: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/OevDw/index.html”] As you can see from the chart above, Ukip have dropped behind slightly their position last last week, but will certainly do better than their 2010 result. By-elections are notoriously hard to predict but this ultra-local poll doesn’t offer any indications that Roger Helmer has the momentum to take Newark. Labour’s vote continues to be

Tory Eurosceptics from the Cabinet down have long made clear that David Cameron will only be able to get a sufficiently different deal from the EU if he’s prepared to threaten that Britain will leave if it can’t get what it needs. Many have assumed that Cameron, who has been clear that he would prefer Britain to keep in the EU, would not be prepared to do this. But it seems that he is. The German magazine Spiegel reports that Cameron told his fellow EU leaders that if Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg federalist, became president of the Euroopean Commission he could not guarantee that Britain would stay in the EU.

I have consistently maintained that the Liberal Democrat party is an anachronism, a perversion and general waste of political space. So imagine my joy in recent weeks at discovering that the remaining members of the Liberal Democrat party are starting to agree with me. First there was the Lib Dem MP Jeremy Browne saying in April that the party had become ‘pointless’. And now there is the Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott saying that under Nick Clegg the Lib Dems have become a ‘split-the-difference centre party, with no roots, no principles and no values.’ I am relieved to see this, and look forward to welcoming similar statements of support for

If you are a lobbyist looking to access a government minister but want to circumvent the tedious checks enforced by civil servants, then Newark-on-Trent is the town for you. This corner of Nottinghamshire is packed with reshuffle hopefuls and Tory big-wigs ‘doing their bit’ for the by-election bid. Education minister Liz Truss had taken her mum and kids along. George Osborne was milling about while wearing his favourite high-viz jacket. And Theresa May brought her characteristic sparkle to the stump: the Home Secretary told assembled arm-chewing hacks that the Tories’ “excellent candidate” would secure the future for the hardworking people of Newark, you will be glad to hear. Said candidate,

Tax Freedom Day, which falls today, is cause for celebration. It marks the point in the calendar when someone’s income stops paying for their tax bill and they start keeping the money they have earned. It is an annual reminder that people who work hard and play by the rules deserve to keep their hard won earnings. It is why cutting tax has always been a priority for Conservatives. Four years ago we inherited a tax system that was designed to be as complicated as possible. Gordon Brown’s stealth taxes doubled the revenue the Treasury raised through taxation and National Insurance. In total, Labour put up taxes 178 times, and

For more than year Westminster has assumed that David Cameron would have a Tory crisis to deal with after the European Elections. Whenever anyone remarked on the Tories unifying, someone would say ‘well, wait until after the Euros’. The conventional wisdom was that the Tories coming third would lead to a slew of senior Tories pushing for more robust policies on immigration and Europe and more and more Tory MPs calling for a pact with Ukip. But this morning, Cameron has fewer problems than either Ed Miliband or Nick Clegg. The fact that the Tory party has responded so calmly to coming third in a nationwide election for the first