Grant shapps

Ken Livingstone’s remarks about the motives of the Boston bombing suspects have been widely condemned for suggesting that American foreign policy ‘fuels the anger’ that drove such young men into acts of terrorism. Tory chairman Grant Shapps has demanded the former Mayor of London apologise for causing offence: ‘These are irresponsible, insensitive and thoughtless comments which show why Ken Livingstone is not fit to hold public office. He should unreservedly apologise for the distress he has caused’ Brooks Newmark MP has gone one step further and written to Ed Miliband this afternoon, asking the Labour leader to also condemn the remarks and remove Livingstone from Labour’s National Executive Committee. Coffee House has seen a copy

It is one of the paradoxes of modern British politics that in the post-war era the power and hold of political parties have declined and our system has become more presidential. But the two most electorally successful leaders of this era have both been deposed by their respective parties. This has created problems for both parties, as today’s Sunday Politics with Andrew Neil demonstrated. After John Reid had been on to discuss Tony Blair’s comments on Ed Miliband, Grant Shapps was up to be questioned on Margaret Thatcher’s legacy for the Tories. Shapps was reluctant to declare that the Tories are a Thatcherite party. Trying to suggest that it is

An impressive turnout in the Churchill Room of the Carlton Club last night for Liam Fox’s New Year drinks. My eyes in the room reports that a smiling Liam claimed he had ‘invited 180 people’ and 162 had turned up. Interestingly, the big beasts came out for the former Defence Secretary, who is said to be eyeing a political comeback. Chancellor George Osborne stopped by, as did Party Chairman Grant Shapps, and Chris Grayling joined the party together with ‘a smattering of Whips’. Though he was left high and dry by colleagues during the scandal that ended his frontbench career in October 2011, his friends were back for the free

The battle-lines over the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill — which faces its second reading in the Commons this afternoon — have been drawn. Labour has tied its opposition to the Resolution Foundation’s analysis showing that the bulk of the policy will hit working families. As Ed Balls put it last week, ‘Two-thirds of people who will be hit by David Cameron and George Osborne’s real terms cuts to tax credits and benefits are in work.’ They’ve labelled the move a ‘strivers’ tax’, a continuation of the divisive rhetoric from both them and the Conservatives that seeks to pit ‘hardworking families’ against ‘people who won’t work’ (as a recent Tory ad

If the Tories are to win a working majority at the next election, they are going to have to take seats off Labour. Even if the Tories won every single Liberal Democrat seat they are targeting — something that is highly unlikely to happen, they would still only have a majority of one. Doing this after five years of austerity government is going to be extremely difficult. The Tory strategy for it, involves boosting the party’s vote among groups that the party traditionally underperforms with. Tellingly, Grant Shapps is launching the Tory target seats campaign today in a Hindu temple in Harrow West, a seat where the Tories underperformed last

There’s long been a sense on the Tory side that the party’s campaigning isn’t as sharp as it should be, that CCHQ isn’t up to the job. The Ashcroft target seats campaign was so valued not just because of the money but because of the organisational and management muscle behind it. The new Tory Chairman Grant Shapps was sent to CCHQ in the reshuffle with instructions to address the place’s institutionalised incompetence. The early signs are encouraging. When Labour announced that it was launching a campaign in the 60 seats where the number of people on working tax credits, which are only going up by 1%, was larger than the

I’ve just spoken to Grant Shapps, who was pretty unequivocal about the chances of the Tories and UKIP teaming up in 2015. ‘No,’ he told me. ‘There will be no pact with UKIP.’ Michael Fabricant might have thought he was being helpful when he suggested the Tories engineer a pact with UKIP, but his discussion paper (which you can read in full here), has now been rejected by both parties. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage and his deputy Paul Nuttall have been doing the rounds on the airwaves, and have rather upped their price for any co-operation between the two parties. Nuttall told BBC News: ‘It would be difficult for UKIP to talk to the

Grant Shapps, the perky new Tory chairman, has just been grilled on The Sunday Politics by Andrew Neil about the Tories’ majority strategy. In a sign of how tight the next election will be, Shapps stressed that you don’t actually need 326 seats to have a majority in the Commons because Sinn Fein don’t take their seats. He said he was able to “reveal” the Tories’ 40/40 election strategy:  “We’re going to defend our [40] most marginal seats, and we’re going to go and attack the 40 seats that we will need to win. We’re going to focus and target on those seats in a way that we’ve never done

If warm white wine and dodgy canapés are your thing, then party conferences will be your heaven and I urge you to gate-crash them before the parties become extinct. Gate-crashing is an innate skill. Mr Steerpike crashed a members-only do for constituency bigwigs at the Tories’ tempestuous conference in Birmingham, and found himself in good company: Tory party chairman Grant Shapps revealed that he is an expert gate-crasher. Back in the nineties, ‘a strong young Conservative, who was never going to be a real security threat’ swiped John Major’s schedule and invitation list for an entire party conference in the loos. While a flustered member of the prime minister’s security detail scoured

Grant Shapps used his speech this afternoon to the Conservative party conference to encourage Tories to not be shy. It’s not a charge you could level at the Conservative party co-chair himself, especially after he devoted the first section of his speech to talking about himself and his own election battles. He also revealed to the conference ‘exactly’ what David Cameron had told him on reshuffle day: ‘The day of the reshuffle I went to see the Prime Minister in Downing Street, and today I can reveal precisely what he said. “Grant, you’ve got one task as chairman, get out there and kick-start our campaign, rally the troops, take the

New Tory Chairman Grant Shapps has taken the dramatic step of reinstalling the general election countdown clock in CCHQ to remind staffers that there are only 959 days until voters deliver their verdict on the Conservatives’ time in government. Shapps has also got something else planned, which is to rearrange the desks. I understand that he told the 1922 committee last week that he wants to make Tory party press officers sit next to the researchers who cover each specific policy area so that they can feed one another information effectively. Currently they sit on different banks of desks. One CCHQ veteran points out to me that Shapps’ exciting desk

Grant Shapps, the new Tory chairman, has been addressing the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers this evening. Shapps appears to have gone down fairly well. MPs are glad to have a Chairman who is in the Commons after two and a bit years with a peer doing the job, though Andrew Feldman remains a co-chair. Shapps told MPs that he was keen for CCHQ to offer them every assistance it can. He announced that he would be placing a CCHQ staffer in the whip’s office several days a week so they could handle MPs’ requests. I also expect that there will not be the usual by-election edict for the Corby

The wettest drought on record has made work for idle thumbs on Twitter this afternoon. There is a smattering of reshuffle chatter about, prompted by the ‘omnishambles’ as much as the rain. The gossip is inspired by this report in the Mail, which tells of more rumours that Ken Clarke and Caroline Spelman are for the chop, together with Baroness Warsi. Meanwhile, as James reported a couple of weeks ago, Andrew Lansley has ingratiated his way back into the safety of the inner sanctum. Promotion has been complicated by the allegations engulfing Jeremy Hunt, who has, of course, been tipped for the very top. The names among the favoured Tory ministers remain fairly

Ed Miliband is nothing if not persistent. Party funding has been a running theme of his leadership, necessitated by his cosy relationship with the unions. He has returned to the subject today, with a blog post and an appearance on the Andrew Marr Show. The news is that Miliband wants to cap donations from individuals, organisations and companies at £5,000. That is £5,000 less than was recommended by Sir Christopher Kelly, and £45,000 less than the Conservatives propose. Miliband claimed that this would dramatically reduce Labour’s funding from the trade unions, forcing his party to diversify its revenue sources. Obviously, it would also reduce the Tories’ funding sources. This is

It’s a day for growth initiatives. In addition to those described earlier, George Osborne has announced that Whitehall’s annual underspend will be reinvested into capital spending projects. The emphasis on infrastructure echoes Danny Alexander’s statements during the Lib Dem conference, when the Treasury secretary disclosed that existing programmes would be brought forward and funded by recalibrating budgets. So there seems to be agreement between the two parties about bolstering the coalition’s growth strategy in a certain way, which may explain why the Tories are so determined to resist pressure to introduce politically awkward tax cuts. Grant Shapps has also been elaborating on the changes to the Right to Buy. He