Tagged with Conservatives

Ed Miliband needs to challenge the UKIP surge

At the time of writing (15:47) UKIP has won 78 seats and is averaging 25% of the vote in the wards where it is standing. That is quite something. Not only is it making the Tories look stupid and the Liberal Democrats look irrelevant, it makes Labour look like they haven’t the nous to be an effective opposition.

This is to change. As Rafael Behr has written in his New Statesman column this week politicians have two choices; they can yield or defy. The Labour leader clearly has an eye, at least, to the latter.

Continue reading →

Can David Cameron ignore the Right of his party for much longer?

A new set of results from a Guardian/ICM poll has found that the Conservatives would be more appealing to the electorate if they took more hardline positions on social affairs, which will come as a great disappointment both to the political left, as well as loyalists to David Cameron who take a more liberal stance on issues such as gay marriage.

By a ratio of 69%-24% those who took part in the poll said that Tories could boost their appeal by supporting the traditional family. 67%, compared with 25%, said that Tories would be more appealing if they took a harder line on Europe, while 88% of Tories and 98% of Ukip voters believe that a harder line towards immigration would help the Conservatives.

This comes after an embarrassing by-election in Eastleigh where the Conservatives finished third behind their unpopular coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, and their close political rivals the United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip). Continue reading →

The left are more realistic about the working class vote than some think

Since the publication of Progress’ Class edition, and the polling that has been done through YouGov, there seems to be some confusion about how the left perceive the voting behaviour of working class people in Britain.

Reading Luke Akehurst’s fair piece on LabourList, aside from the harsh reality-check that working class voters in this country are not all egalitarian socialists, one gets a sense that the Labour left ignores this reality and pursues wrongheaded politics regardless.

I would like to challenge this myth, while exposing the dangers of going too far the other way and pursuing only a politics based on the polls of the day. Continue reading →

Progressive Conservatism 2005-2012

David Wooding, the political editor of The Sun, said during reports of the cabinet reshuffle that for him two things were at play: firstly moves were being made in order for the Tories to be more in touch with the public, and secondly Cameron wanted to temper the rabble on his backbenches.

To be sure, it looks as though the backbenchers have finally won their battle.

The rebels were always doing damage to Cameron and acted as a constant thorn in his side. Tim Montgomerie, writing excitedly in the Guardian, noted that this indeed was the era of the Tory supercharged backbencher. Continue reading →

Do UKIP put the dash in the Tories’ “Pebbledash people”?

During the 2001 election, which Tony Blair went on to win securing a second term, pollsters from ICM came up with the phrase “Pebbledash people” as the group the Tories had to woo in order for them to have a fighting chance of winning. They were married couples aged 35 to 50, white-collar workers and professionals, who lived in semi-detached, often pebble dashed, homes in the suburb.

The group is just one example of cohorts, conveniently congealed together, that political parties feel they need to fight for in order to win an election. With Thatcher, the “Basildon Man” or “Essex Man” explained her electoral success, while with Tony Blair he fondly remembers “Mondeo Man” who went on to be the face of New Labour’s new constituency. Continue reading →