:: Conservative Revival ::

:: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 ::

Looking for England's Sword?

I am currently unable to post to the blogspot site. However, never fear. England's Sword has moved to my new movable type site at http://www.iainmurray.org/MT.
:: Swordsman 6/24/2003 08:39:00 PM [+] ::
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Use the tools we have
As of last week the Conservative Party is the largest party in local government. The raw figures understate our strength in some ways and overstate it in others. While we are only slightly ahead of Labour in terms of the number of councillors we are well ahead in terms of the number of councils. However, at the same time we are overwhelmingly a rural and suburban party, lacking strength in metropolitan areas (which is important as we need to capture about half the metropolitan seats to have a chance at forming a government). The large number of councils and councillors will give us a useful tool for campaigning at the next election (simply in terms of the increased number of volunteers) but we should also be looking between now and then to use it for other goals, namely:

1. Setting the scene for advancing into the metropolitan areas (for example, there are elections in some boroughs next year and some of these might yield some breakthrough results (e.g. in Swindon where I live, we are one seat short of an outright majority)

2. Providing a degree of opposition, that we are currently unable to do at Westminster.

The first point needs to be got across to those now in charge of the councils we have just gained: we will only be able to spread further if people start to identify Conservative Councils as well run and low tax. We therefore must avoid Tories being elected on a low tax platform and promptly putting up taxes. By ringing metropolitan areas with successful and well-run councils we strengthen our hand for campaigning in those areas.

The second point is controversial, but I believe will feed into the rehabilitation of our party, the ability to achieve the first goal and enable us to score some hits on Labour that our Westminster party is incapable of doing (whether simply by dint of numbers or by a lack of will).

I want to be clear that I am not advocating the sorts of nonsenses that loony-left councils got up to in the 1980s and that we regretably used as the excuse for the emasculation of local democracy (i.e. opposing national level policies at the local level, cf "nuclear free zones"). What I mean is that where Central Government is damaging local government or harming its ability to do its job, we should not just be complaining, instead we should be fighting back. To take an example:

One of the causes of this year's ridiculous Council Tax rises is that the Government deliberately changed the funding formula to redistribute money to the Labour heartlands, thus cutting the amount of central funding well run councils could rely on. This was a blatant bit of corruption, but our potests barely registered. When this continues next year, a group of Tory Councils should go to court to try and stop the change. They won't win, but the very act of going to court makes it a bigger story and will guarantee wider coverage of the issue in the media. (And ensure that the government gets the blame when people's taxes rise after the councils lose in court).

Another example:

One of the causes of increased local costs is the increase in pointless public sector jobs, such as Boris Johnson's famous dead sheep collector. Very well, it may be a requirement of the law that these of meaningless jobs are created, but the law can't force them to be filled. Save council tax payer's money by advertising them at ridiculously low salaries. Combine two or three of them into single positions, thus guaranteeing better value for money and ensuring that no one is able to do them "properly". (An extra win since these "jobs" quite often have a net negative effect on the local economy).

There are plenty more strategies like that available to us should we decide to adopt them. This idea will be criticised for being obstructionist, but when we have so few avenues of attack open to us we shouldn't pull our punches.
:: j 5/06/2003 02:02:00 PM [+] ::
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Tom Burkard has a very interesting column in the Spring 2003 Salisbury Review on what the Conservatives can learn from President Nixon's 'Southern Strategy', which converted the overwhelmingly Democratic few decades which preceded it into the overwhelmingly Republican few decades that followed. More at Conservative Commentary.
:: Peter Cuthbertson 4/27/2003 04:41:00 PM [+] ::
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Let's get the ratchet effect working for us - my ideas on how the Conservative Party can decide policy in a more long-term, politically calculated way.
:: Peter Cuthbertson 2/26/2003 12:50:00 PM [+] ::
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Another miracle cure merchant offering nothing that works

As John Bercow writes off any chance of Labour losing the next election, I am forced to wonder where this genius gets his intimate knowledge of the British people from. How does he manage so effortlessly to work out exactly how to get the Tories back to power, something that has eluded so many for so long? If only the Tories listened to him, we would be home. And what does he recommend? Blairism. That's it - that's the strategy. A social agenda lifted from the pages of the Guardian plus an economic agenda much to the left of Ken Clarke's. His approach can't even be called libertarian, because however soft they may be on drugs and homosexuality, he and his Tory modernisers certainly wouldn't go near libertarian issues like gun ownership, tax cuts and letting people work at wages below the state-approved minimum.

I've never understood how someone who saw how pointless it proved electorally for William Hague to chase good headlines in the Sun and Daily Mail (combined circulation 5.96 million) can believe Iain Duncan Smith will do any better chasing good headlines in The Guardian and Independent (combined circulation 0.63 million). Nor can I see why Bercow thinks that people will vote for a Tory imitation of Blairism when they can have the real thing. If things go well and people are happy, they will keep voting Labour. If things don't, they will want something noticeably different. A straight copy won't please either group.

It is time everyone in the Conservative Party accepted that there are no easy answers to the current Tory plight, and pulled together in fighting this government, whose failure will come sooner rather than later, presenting us with the necessary opportunities. This country needs a coherent, united opposition that offers a forward-looking, radical and conservative alternative to Blairism. All Tories must work for that, ignoring the sniping of the Heseltines and Bercows, whose magical panaceas will only increase our problems and aid Labour and the Liberals no end.
:: Peter Cuthbertson 1/05/2003 03:17:00 PM [+] ::
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The dreaded E word
I know that we're all supposed to change the subject when the matter of Europe comes up, but there are occasions when it just has to be dealt with. The forthcoming EU constitution is not going to be pleasant, and if we aren't careful we aren't going to be able to stop it. The only way it can be stopped is if Blair is forced to promise to hold a referendum on it like he has with the Euro - that way it will either be voted down or he will be too scared to actually go to the public with the question. I think the only way we are going to get him to promise that is if we start asking questions now. Just matter of fact, non-frothing questions like:

"Will the government promise that if / when an EU treaty establishes an EU Constitution the matter will be put to the people in a referendum?"

If we keep returning to this topic at appropriate points and start to establish a head of steam behind it, we might be able to "persuade" Blair to agree. This needs to be established policy well in advance of the next Euro-elections. If this doesn't happen, then the Blair will return from the meeting of the European Council at which this is agreed, and ram it through parliament (probably saying something like "we called for the EU to draw up a constitution and here it is") at which point, whether we are in the Euro or not becomes pretty much irrelevant.
:: j 11/12/2002 02:18:00 PM [+] ::
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Fight fire with fire
I keep forgetting to post my Tory-centred thoughts from The Edge here. Anyway, here's an example:

Public safety alert as firefighters decide to strike is the Tories' wet reply to the fire brigades' strike. Not a mention of the fact that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is not allowing the troops who are deputising for the striking firemen to use the fire brigades' equipment, as that would involve crossing picket lines. News for you, John, no-one in the public remembers the 1926 general strike anymore. This is not "echoes of strike-busting" or anything like that.

Anyway, here is what I would say in David Davis' shoes:

"The government calls these strikes Scargillite. Well, we knew exactly how to deal with Arthur Scargill. We put the good of the country first instead of trying to appease the Labour Party's financial backers in the unions. We faced up to the threat head on and broke the power of the people the Prime Minister has called wreckers. But it looks like the DPM doesn't have the courage to face down these people, even with the threat of innocent lives being lost. At the very least, I call on the Deputy Prime Minister to give up his archaic, doctrinaire, Scargillite view that you can't cross picket lines and allow our troops to use the modern equipment of the fire brigades. If he refuses to allow this, I say that every life that is lost to fire while this strike goes on is on his hands. I hope the relatives of the victims will forgive him, because I won't, and nor will anyone on these benches."

Go on, put the boot in, David.
:: Swordsman 11/12/2002 12:17:00 PM [+] ::
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Are the Tories the "Know Nothing" party for the 21st century? If Michael Howard's performance at an "in-the-round" session last night is anything to go by, it is the new party policy. Despite being at an event with party activists (ie: onside), the Shadow Chancellor managed to annoy most if not the entire room. Instead of listening to the points being offered, he instead mouthed centrist platitudes and non-committal statments. Michael Gove echoes my sentiments with his impassioned call for politicians to stop looking at their navels and pay attention.

His waffle was so bad that a party activist and funder of long standing, who gives £5k a year, pledged not to give a penny more. The entrepeneur was looking for policies that help small businesses; instead he got nothing. What was most interesting about the evening is the strong desire in the room for radical policies. It seemed that, like me, many in the room believed the way back to power is to continue the work Thatcher had started (and Major pissed away) and drive towards a much smaller, more accountable state. Amoungst the younger attendees there was a cry for more "classical liberal" (end to inheritance tax, streamlining of the tax system, more privatisation, de-centralisation, etc) policies and less centrist rubbish.

Howard continued to state that his desire was to do things "better", but he never made any commments to do things differently. He was described by one attendee as a "big government fiscal conservative." An apt description, if this discussion was anything to go by. Despite repeated attempts to deny it, it is clear the current Tory policy is to wait for Blair to fail. It is a high risk policy that may well, in fact, be doomed to failure.

As the attendees wandered off into a coolish London night, many of them wondered aloud why they had bothered. If a senior member of the Cabinet cannot convince his party members of the correctness of the party's policies, what chance does he have to convince the country, as a whole, to vote Tory.

:: Andrew Ian Dodge 10/27/2002 08:29:00 AM [+] ::
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