Conservative Party: towards 2015

A partisan stump speech is a sign of Owen Paterson’s growing popularity on the Tory right. Others take a more moderate and cautious view of the next election.

Owen Paterson spent the first day of the Thatcher era behind the Iron Curtain. That morning, a business trip took him to Prague and the day ended with a conversation with a Czech bartender. “You’re English and you have seen the light,” Paterson was told. “You realise that socialism cannot work. It’ll come here. It’ll take ten years.” The Velvet Revolution brought down the Czech communist regime in 1989.

Any comparison between communism and Labour is extreme, but also to be expected from a highly partisan Thatcherite such as Paterson.

The story, related to 200 grassroots activists, has probably been told many times. One of Paterson’s trademarks is a stock of anecdotes, sound bites and numbers repeated into the audience’s memory. The event was organised by the ConservativeHome blog.

One year after leaving the Northern Ireland brief, he is now a high profile leader on the Tory right – much closer to the Iron Lady’s legacy than Cameron.

“The vast majority of people, in my gut opinion, are small-c conservatives,” he commented before lamenting the “misery” of Labour in government. Britain was the “most successful economy in western Europe” in 1997; Paterson omits the commodity boom that was driving all western economies at the time.

Blair and Brown were “cretinously incompetent” with Balls and Miliband in the backroom before their rise as MPs, ministers – and now potential Prime Minister and Chancellor. The “shameful” deficit would leave a bill for the next generation and, more immediately, a hard legacy for the Coalition Government.

Paterson’ blunt tone continued: “It would be a screaming indictment, it would be wicked to a degree if we let a totally unreformed Labour Party come back.”

Welfare reform was “working with the grain” of middle income families in his Shropshire constituency. Academy schools were providing more opportunities and Paterson emphasised his admiration for Michael Gove “taking on the educational establishment.” David Cameron got one mention, for his “strength” on the back of recent opinion polls.

One Nation

Currently a backbencher, Andrew Mitchell is tipped for an early return to the Cabinet. Mitchell had missed Paterson’s speech and, unwittingly, was more candid on the economy and the Tories’ weak spots. The Conservative Party, in his view, had “lost its reputation for economic competence” on Black Wednesday in 1992 and it was only now being restored.

The Tories also needed to overcome their “very weak performance” among ethnic minority voters who ironically had conservative values. Working with respected community leaders could build more trust here.

Most importantly, jobs and opportunities for young people had to be an “absolute top priority for this party” e.g. through job-related tax breaks. Mitchell believes that the Government “cares deeply” about youth unemployment but that message “doesn’t always come across.”

Tackling youth unemployment would also raise support among concerned mothers. Likewise, international development was far more popular among women than among men and the Government had a strong record on this.

The Ashcroft effect

Hushed tones greeted Lord Ashcroft as he outlined slide after slide of detailed polls, conducted just before conference season. Ashcroft’s tax arrangements come in for regular press criticism but he held a commanding presence in the room.

“Comrades!” he commenced. “Sorry, that was last week. What I mean to say is: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Conservatives.’” Recounting the Labour conference, he declared that Ed Miliband made “no real attempt” to deal with his party’s negatives: a “party of welfare” which could not be trusted with the public’s finances.

In marginal seats, his polls showed the Tories performing well on unity and competence. The party, he admitted, was making “very little progress” on being “on the side” of ordinary people.

David Cameron was viewed as standing up for Britain and determined but out of touch. Ed Miliband: out of his depth and weak but closer to the man on the street. Nick Clegg “has all the negatives of Cameron and Miliband but without any of the positives.”

Tories came across as strong on immigration, welfare reform and crime but Labour held a clear lead on the NHS. Improved economic optimism increased trust in Cameron and Osborne. UKIP supporters included some disillusioned Tories but were essentially “none of the above” voters. They were interested in immigration, Europe and defence – but little else.

Praise for Ed

Next up was Tim Montgomerie, founder of ConservativeHome. The next election would firstly be “incredibly hard to win”. In a reverse from the Thatcher era, the right was divided and the left united. The last point was “probably the most important fact in British politics.”

The left’s unity, though, was also under strain. Working class blue collar voters backed a liberal middle class in the good times but that support could not be guaranteed when money was in shorter supply.

For all the right’s divisions, David Cameron presided over a more united party than in mid-2012. The EU referendum pledge went down well, promoting Paterson and Grayling pleased the right and Lynton Crosby was adding a “tougher edge” to the Tory message.

Tony Abbott’s right-wing Liberal Party won the Australian general election on three slogans: stop the boats (illegal immigrants); scrap the carbon tax; cap taxes. Repeating them again and again “bored journalists but they did cut through to the electorate.” Message discipline therefore mattered.

Montgomerie – the least partisan speaker – commended Ed Miliband for focusing on the cost of living, which worried voters than the deficit.

He also commended the Lib Dems for their putting in hard work on the doorsteps to win (and keep) their seats.

A declining membership made this harder for the Tories. Anecdotally, the trend was well-known but Conservative Central Office only released the numbers after a ConservativeHome campaign. The party’s size has almost halved since Cameron took the leadership: down from 253,000 to 134,000.

Photo credit: Andrew Parsons / i-image (for Andrew Mitchell)