David cameron

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

How the televised leaders’ debates will work

The various parties involved in the televised leaders’ debate have finally come to an agreement on how they will work.  You can read full details here, courtesy of Sky.  But the main points are: i) Topics and locations. The first debate will be hosted by ITV’s Alastair Stewart, in Manchester, and will cover domestic affairs.  The second will be Sky’s Adam Boulton, in Bristol, and will cover foreign policy.  And the third will be the Beeb’s David Dimbleby, in Birmingham, on the economy. ii) Structure. The rather rigid structure of each programme will be as follows: “Each leader will make an opening statement on the theme of the debate lasting

Peter Hoskin

Who should be the Tory attack dog?

A persuasive passage (complete with a spiky, ministerial quote – highlighted) from Rachel Sylvester’s column this morning: “There is growing concern among some Shadow Cabinet ministers and strategists about the increasingly aggressive tone Mr Cameron uses against Mr Brown. It is, they believe, no coincidence that the poll gap has narrowed as the Tory leader launches a series of increasingly vitriolic personal attacks on the Prime Minister. Last week, for example, by turning the bully into the victim, Mr Cameron seems to have simply solidified support for Mr Brown. There was a similar backlash to the Conservatives’ misleading ‘death tax’ poster campaign. Although ministers admit privately that ‘even I couldn’t

Monday

James Forsyth

Are the Tories over the worst of the wobble?

We are expecting at least one poll tonight, the YouGov tracker, and I think there will be one other. If these polls show the Tories ahead by six—a level that just last week was seen as rather disappointing—they will add to the sense that the Tories are over the worst of the wobble. Significantly, the Lord Ashcroft story, an irritating one for the party and particularly so today, is not being depicted as part of a Tories in crisis story. (One does wonder why Ashcroft didn’t choose to get the news out earlier after the Information Commissioner ruled at the beginning of February that the Cabinet Office should reveal what

Peter Hoskin

The morning after the speech before

So, what did the newspapers make of Cameron’s Big Speech?  A brisk stroll through this morning’s coverage, and you’ll come across the whole gamut of responses: from wholehearted enthusiasm in the Sun, to wholehearted scepticism in the Independent.  But the general tone is somewhere in between: the mitigated praise of, say, the Times or the Guardian.  Which is, I think, fair enough.  The speech struck me as effective, perhaps elegant, without ever quite hitting the heights. But the Tories should only be concerned by the media response insofar as it’s a conduit for their own message.  What bits of that message have cut through?  Will that message resonate with voters? 

Sunday

James Forsyth

The no notes speech does the trick for Cameron again

Whenever a sense of crisis is building around him, David Cameron delivers a speech without notes. This has the effect of bringing things to a head, of creating a moment which, if Cameron can make it through, the situation is defused. Today’s speech did that. It has, I suspect, moved the story on from Tory wobbles. This strategy is, obviously, not without risk. If Cameron had dried up on stage or mangled something beyond repair then the crisis story would have been escalated. The intensity with which George Osborne and Michael Gove, Cameron’s two closest shadow Cabinet allies, were listening to the speech showed how much was at stake. The

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron to speak ‘from the heart’

There is only one topic of conversation here in Brighton, the shrinking Tory poll lead. The optimistic take is that a poll suggesting Labour would be the largest party actually makes the prospect of five more years of Gordon Brown real to people and so lets the Tories emphasise that this election is choice between them and Labour. As Cameron’s spokesperson jokes, ‘Labour’s underdog strategy has been blown apart’ The poll does give David Cameron’s speech today a whole new level of significance. Cameron will reprise his walking and talking technique that served him so well in 2005 and 2007 today. He will speak ‘from the heart’ for about half

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Hammer blow or gift from God?

Is the Sunday Times poll a hammer blow to the Tories, or a gift from God? It sounds a weird question, but think of the logic. So far, Cameron’s big mistake was to allow the campaign to become a referendum on him. He was desperate to turn that into a basic question: do you want five more years of Brown? Until now, the voters’ response would be “yeah, right. Brown is going down. The question is whether I’m enthusiastic about you lot, with your fuzzy green tree logo and your lack of any discernable agenda, and the answer is no”. As James said, the message “five more years of Brown”

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

A tonic to dispel doubt

If any CoffeeHousers have been feeling despondent about the Tores, I have the perfect tonic: Cameron’s YouTube video released today. In my News of the World column last week, I listed five messages I thought he should give. And he ticked all of them off – and then some. It was one of those biannual events: where Cameron gives a speech that he obviously wrote himself, and put a lot of energy into it. And the result is always great. Now, this may be a wavelength thing: some CoffeeHousers may see a whole load of cliches. But I see in here an agenda for change – plus some clever debating

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Telling tales of his mother and father

Gordon Brown does not have much of a personal “backstory” but he does talk about his family. When he’s feeling guilty about something, he mentions his father. But today, speaking to the Welsh Labour Party, he again talks about a figure we heard about a few days ago: his grandfather. “Like so many here I come from a family whose grandfather went without work during much of the 1930s. A grandfather whose small savings gave his son, my father, the chance of an education, the first in our family to go to university. And the lesson of those days is that even in the worst of times families helped each

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The Tories need to hammer home that tax cuts will stimulate growth

George Osborne saved the 2007 Tory conference with a tax cut. He’s recalling that mood today, elaborating on the plans to cut corporation tax which – as James detailed a while ago – will be the backbone of his first budget. Now, you may think: we know all this. Osborne has said he’d cut corporation tax from 28p to 25p and cutting the small companies rate to 20p. He had promised to go lower still, telling the CBI  last April that Britain “will need to go further if we are to keep pace with an increasingly competitive global economy” – and we have heard no more of this since. But

Friday

James Forsyth

The election speculation has given Cameron an opening

Tory spring forum gives David Cameron a chance to regain the momentum. The media will be there in numbers and I suspect that the rumours of an early election mean that it will get more attention than it otherwise would have done. Cameron’s speech is a real chance to show what the Tories are going to fight the election on. The speech isn’t as important as the one he gave at the 2007 conference when Brown appeared set to call an election, but Cameron would be well advised to reprise a couple of tricks from it. He should speak without a text—Cameron is just such a better speaker that way.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories need to talk about immigration

As the Tories prepare to head to the seaside, Tim Montgomerie has published a ten point plan to get the Tory campaign back on track. The plan is already causing much discussion in Tory circles. His main points are that the Tories need to sharpen their economic message, use William Hague more, sort out the structure of the campaign, warn of the dangers of a hung parliament and ram home to voters just how badly Labour has failed.   What is getting the most attention, though, is Tim’s suggestion that the Tories should talk about immigration. I tend to agree with Tim on this point. It was a strategic mistake

Thursday

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

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 24 February 2010

Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200. 1200: Alistair Darling is sat next to Brown. How cosy. 1201: And we’re off.  Brown starts with condolences for fallens soldiers – sadly, seven names to read out. 1202: Labour MP Jamie Reed asks Brown for reassurances that the public will one day see the taxpayers’ cash that’s been pumped into the banks. He gets in a dig at George Osborne’s public shares plan.  Brown responds by banging on about the G20. 1204: Cameron now. He leads off with a question about the deaths at the Stafford Hospital – asking whether a private inquiry is sufficient to tragedy and the public interest. 1206:

David Blackburn

Ashcroft has unleashed hell in the marginals

Alistair Darling’s sudden and poetic ejaculation is sure evidence that the government is a rabble of warring tribes. Against such opponents, the Tories should win, and win big. Daniel Finkelstein is adamant that they still could. He states the obvious: polls are general and do not account for specifics in key marginals. In-built boundary bias created the assumption that Cameron needs an 11 percent swing to win a majority of one. Finkelstein rubbishes that thesis; parties that win by 11 points win landslides: ‘In 1997 Mr Blair’s Labour built a new coalition, winning support across social classes. They therefore won in suburbs and prosperous towns that had always voted Tory

Monday

Daniel Korski

A Cameron-Clegg government

With even Michael Portillo predicting a hung parliament, what would Britain’s post-election government actually look like if the Tories did not secure an over-all majority.   The Tories could form a minority government, hoping to persuade enough MPs from other parties, but principally the Liberal Democrats, to vote with them on the key issues. Such a government would be inherently unstable, lurching from vote to vote and dependent on the relationship between a Prime Minister Cameron and Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, as well as between George Osborne, the would-be Chancellor, and Vince Cable, who many think is a more qualified potential occupant of No 11. Party leaders would

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Some reasons to be cheerful about Cameron and the Tories

By way of a response to the comments on my post yesterday, here are some reasons to be cheerful about Cameron and the Tories. The poll lead dropping to six points is indeed a wake-up call, and Cameron probably worked out a while ago that things were going a bit Pete Tong. Indeed (Short the UK), there are signs that he has already started to act. Look at last Monday: three strong election videos, without a politician in sight. The perfect remedy to the Tragedy of Cameron’s Head poster. The policy of allowing management buy-outs of government departments is bold, radical and entirely in keeping with Cameron’s general policy of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron’s first response to the bullying question

Cameron just got the question on Brown and bullying. His reply was well pitched, right tone of voice and all that. But it contained the suggestion that Sir Phillip Mawer, who polices the ministerial code, should be asked to investigate. This is the last thing No 10 wants, it just wants this to go away. But I suspect Cameron has just given the story a nudge along.

Peter Hoskin

Cameron kicks off the transparency agenda

Here I am, in a cavernous “space” in East London, for a conference on the Post-Bureaucratic Age – or  “See-Through Government,” as Guido more evocatively put it. David Cameron has kicked things off with a speech on the issue, and there’ll be talks and panels throughout the day. It’s like Glastonbury for policy wonks. So how was Cameron? Well, he’s normally at his snappiest and most persuasive when he talks about all this tech stuff – and today was no exception. All the usual lines about “handing power to the people,” and eroding “the dull, stultifying presence of state control,” made an encouraging appearance. And he outlined what this would

David Blackburn

How should the Tories respond to the Rawnsley allegations?

As James predicted last night, the ‘Bully boy Brown’ story is now at full steam and will speed on as phone-ins discuss bullying in the workplace. The National Bullying Helpline’s intervention, ethically dubious in view of the charity’s supposed confidentiality, has negated Labour’s damage limitation strategy. Both Peter Mandelson’s line that Brown is a passionate and demanding man and the PR campaign to soften Brown’s image have been blown clear out of the water. Brown has made significant progress recently: David Cameron’s personal ratings have halved since September. That brief resurgence will be reversed as this story rolls. The Sun’s hot-headed frontpage says it all.   Now is the time