Wednesday, February 25, 2015
By James Forsyth for The Mail on Sunday
Published: 23:01 GMT, 4 October 2014 | Updated: 23:48 GMT, 4 October 2014
What a turnaround. The Tories arrived in Birmingham reeling from the double body blow of a sex scandal and another MP defecting to Ukip. But they left with one Cabinet Minister confidently crowing: ‘We’re going to win the next election, and we’ve just shown you how.’
To the delight of Tory MPs, they now have something to sell on the doorstep: a promise to cut taxes for the low paid and the aspirational middle classes, while increasing the NHS budget.
Cameron has long known how important this speech was going to be. This conference address was, according to a close aide, ‘the culmination of nine years of work’. He worked on it, one No 10 insider says, ‘every spare moment’ he had in planes, trains and automobiles. To preserve their dramatic impact, the tax cuts were even kept secret from the Cabinet.
Prime Minister David Cameron during his keynote speech to delegates at the Conservative Party conference
But it was not tax that gave this speech its emotional power, but Cameron’s angry denunciation of Labour’s claims that he is dismantling the NHS. With its moving reference to his late son Ivan, this passage was so personal he didn’t even deliver it at the final run-through in the conference hall.
This was Cameron’s best chance to speak to the country before the General Election as the leader of the Conservative Party, rather than a coalition Prime Minister. By announcing his tax cuts now, the Tory election team hope he’s avoided the problem ‘of trying to fatten the pig on market day’ – that, the party’s election supremo Lynton Crosby complains, doomed its 2005 effort.
‘Getting the message out, keeping the party united and avoiding distractions’ is what one insider lists as the challenges now facing the Tories. In a sign of how worried the Cameroons remain about further rebellions, he warns: ‘We won’t win if we are divided.’
Ukip is the biggest potential distraction. It will gain its first elected MP in the Clacton by-election on Thursday; the Tories have privately conceded that the seat was lost ever since a Mail on Sunday poll showed defector Douglas Carswell 44 points ahead. But Tory blood is up since Nigel Farage tried to derail the party’s conference, although this presents a new problem. As one Cabinet Minister frets: ‘The danger is thinking Ukip are the enemy, forgetting this is a straight choice between Cameron and Miliband, Tory and Labour.’ Miliband’s team are adamant little has changed. One confidant quips: ‘No one knows better than Ed that one good or bad speech doesn’t change the fundamentals.’
By offering tax cuts without saying where the money’s coming from, they believe the Tories have undermined their own fiscal credibility. ‘By throwing the kitchen sink at it, they’ve thrown the baby out with the bath water,’ argues one Miliband aide.
But perhaps the best news for the Tories is that Cameron seems to have found another gear. The question is whether he can keep this momentum going. Those closest to him are confident he won’t stall. Why? As one puts it: ‘He might be the essay crisis Prime Minister. But between now and the election, it’s exam season.’
Lib Dem Tessa gets Cameron on her side
What is a Lib Dem doing putting pictures of David Cameron in their leaflets? Tessa Munt, the Lib Dem MP for Wells in Somerset, has a big picture of her beaming with the PM in Downing Street on page three of her magazine, delivered to 42,000 homes in the area. As for Nick Clegg, he has to settle for a little thumbnail snap on page six.
Tessa Munt meets with the Prime Minister, David Cameron, in Number 10 Downing Street
Munt’s decision to feature Cameron in her leaflet is even more surprising when you consider she’s on the Left of the Lib Dems. She used to be a Labour party member and is an ardent opponent of nuclear weapons. But with polls showing the Tories on course to win back her seat of Wells and voters there massively preferring Cameron to Miliband, perhaps this is not so great a gaffe after all.
Get ready for a leaner, meaner Nick
People in Glasgow being rude about the Tories is nothing new. Except this week, it’ll be the Tories’ partners in Government dishing out the insults from their annual conference there.
I’m told we can expect a ‘robust’ response from the Lib Dems to last week’s Tory conference in Birmingham. One Clegg confidant says: ‘We started the Parliament in coalition with the compassionate Conservative moderates. But we’re ending it in coalition with the nasty party.’
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg listens to delegates at the Liberal Democrat conference
The Liberal Democrats are keen to play up their differences with the Tories ahead of the General Election. The more they can attack the Tories for having moved to the right, the better it is for them. That’s why one Clegg aide reports that ‘Nick felt buoyed up by Tory conference’.
The Lib Dems’ real aim is to discredit the idea of single party government. To that end, they will liken the two main parties to two drunks wrestling over the steering wheel in a car… and the Lib Dems need to be on board to keep the vehicle on the road and the country on the straight and narrow.
Clegg himself is unburdened by poor results in the polls and fears of losing seats. He is a far happier figure than he was early in the Parliament and a slimmer one too; a ban on biscuits and playing lots of tennis is keeping his weight down.
Straight after David Cameron’s speech, the Cabinet filed past him backstage to leave the auditorium. There were handshakes and pats on the back, but George Osborne gave Cameron a hug. It was a reminder that these two have not, unlike nearly all other modern Prime Ministers and Chancellors, fallen out.
Some Ministers carp that this Cameron/Osborne axis means that all the major decisions have been taken before they even sit down at the Cabinet table. Tellingly, Osborne had been involved in the tax discussions from the start, unlike most Cabinet Ministers who were deliberately kept out of the loop. Indeed, Cameron’s promise of tax cuts had only been made possible by Osborne dishing out all the economic bad news on Monday.
One grateful Cameron aide purrs that Osborne had delivered Cameron ‘the perfectly weighted cross’ to slot home.
But, perhaps, the key to this relationship is that Osborne is self-aware enough to know who the star striker is.
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Great British Bake Off star Ruby Tandoh
Quotes of the week
Scottish comedian Billy Connolly
‘Here’s a thought – on May 7 you could go to bed with Nigel Farage and wake up with Ed Miliband.’
David Cameron warns at the Tory conference that a vote for Ukip could hand the keys to No 10 to the Labour leader.
‘First chuck Salmond overboard and then eat the Kippers for breakfast.’
Boris Johnson raises the mood of the party faithful with a quip about the Tories’ new ‘fisheries policy’.
‘You know what they say about Yorkshiremen: they’re like Scotsmen with all the generosity squeezed out of them.’
Comic Arthur Smith, gives a tongue-in-cheek response to a survey revealing people in the county are less likely to laugh at jokes about sex or politics.
‘I have never been to a country more ill at ease… nothing works and worse, nobody cares about it.’
John Lewis boss Andy Street causes a furore with his comments about France. He later apologised.
‘Those who try to avoid tax should hang their heads in shame. That comedian… what’s his name? Carr? No, he’s not getting away with it.’
Actor Robson Green attacks celebrities such as Jimmy Carr who seek to shelter their earnings from HM Revenue & Customs.
‘It’s not designed to be done because you and your husband thought 30 was the new 20.’
TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp criticises women who delay having children and then turn to IVF as a ‘lifestyle choice’.
‘There isn’t even John Prescott to make their weaknesses entertaining.’
William Hague says he’s never seen a more woeful Labour front bench
‘You’re lucky I am here at all. Have you not read the papers? I’m nearly dead.’
Comedian Billy Connolly’s response to a heckler.
‘We should champion the soggy bottom: I can see nothing not to love about pastry sodden with fruit juices.’
Bake Off star Ruby Tandoh says there’s nothing wrong with a tart where the base isn’t crisp.
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Published: 23:01 GMT, 4 October 2014 | Updated: 23:48 GMT, 4 October 2014
What a turnaround. The Tories arrived in Birmingham reeling from the double body blow of a sex scandal and another MP defecting to Ukip. But they left with one Cabinet Minister confidently crowing: ‘We’re going to win the next election, and we’ve just shown you how.’
To the delight of Tory MPs, they now have something to sell on the doorstep: a promise to cut taxes for the low paid and the aspirational middle classes, while increasing the NHS budget.
Cameron has long known how important this speech was going to be. This conference address was, according to a close aide, ‘the culmination of nine years of work’. He worked on it, one No 10 insider says, ‘every spare moment’ he had in planes, trains and automobiles. To preserve their dramatic impact, the tax cuts were even kept secret from the Cabinet.
Prime Minister David Cameron during his keynote speech to delegates at the Conservative Party conferenceBut it was not tax that gave this speech its emotional power, but Cameron’s angry denunciation of Labour’s claims that he is dismantling the NHS. With its moving reference to his late son Ivan, this passage was so personal he didn’t even deliver it at the final run-through in the conference hall.
This was Cameron’s best chance to speak to the country before the General Election as the leader of the Conservative Party, rather than a coalition Prime Minister. By announcing his tax cuts now, the Tory election team hope he’s avoided the problem ‘of trying to fatten the pig on market day’ – that, the party’s election supremo Lynton Crosby complains, doomed its 2005 effort.
‘Getting the message out, keeping the party united and avoiding distractions’ is what one insider lists as the challenges now facing the Tories. In a sign of how worried the Cameroons remain about further rebellions, he warns: ‘We won’t win if we are divided.’
Ukip is the biggest potential distraction. It will gain its first elected MP in the Clacton by-election on Thursday; the Tories have privately conceded that the seat was lost ever since a Mail on Sunday poll showed defector Douglas Carswell 44 points ahead. But Tory blood is up since Nigel Farage tried to derail the party’s conference, although this presents a new problem. As one Cabinet Minister frets: ‘The danger is thinking Ukip are the enemy, forgetting this is a straight choice between Cameron and Miliband, Tory and Labour.’ Miliband’s team are adamant little has changed. One confidant quips: ‘No one knows better than Ed that one good or bad speech doesn’t change the fundamentals.’
By offering tax cuts without saying where the money’s coming from, they believe the Tories have undermined their own fiscal credibility. ‘By throwing the kitchen sink at it, they’ve thrown the baby out with the bath water,’ argues one Miliband aide.
But perhaps the best news for the Tories is that Cameron seems to have found another gear. The question is whether he can keep this momentum going. Those closest to him are confident he won’t stall. Why? As one puts it: ‘He might be the essay crisis Prime Minister. But between now and the election, it’s exam season.’
Lib Dem Tessa gets Cameron on her side
What is a Lib Dem doing putting pictures of David Cameron in their leaflets? Tessa Munt, the Lib Dem MP for Wells in Somerset, has a big picture of her beaming with the PM in Downing Street on page three of her magazine, delivered to 42,000 homes in the area. As for Nick Clegg, he has to settle for a little thumbnail snap on page six.
Tessa Munt meets with the Prime Minister, David Cameron, in Number 10 Downing StreetMunt’s decision to feature Cameron in her leaflet is even more surprising when you consider she’s on the Left of the Lib Dems. She used to be a Labour party member and is an ardent opponent of nuclear weapons. But with polls showing the Tories on course to win back her seat of Wells and voters there massively preferring Cameron to Miliband, perhaps this is not so great a gaffe after all.
Get ready for a leaner, meaner Nick
People in Glasgow being rude about the Tories is nothing new. Except this week, it’ll be the Tories’ partners in Government dishing out the insults from their annual conference there.
I’m told we can expect a ‘robust’ response from the Lib Dems to last week’s Tory conference in Birmingham. One Clegg confidant says: ‘We started the Parliament in coalition with the compassionate Conservative moderates. But we’re ending it in coalition with the nasty party.’
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg listens to delegates at the Liberal Democrat conferenceThe Liberal Democrats are keen to play up their differences with the Tories ahead of the General Election. The more they can attack the Tories for having moved to the right, the better it is for them. That’s why one Clegg aide reports that ‘Nick felt buoyed up by Tory conference’.
The Lib Dems’ real aim is to discredit the idea of single party government. To that end, they will liken the two main parties to two drunks wrestling over the steering wheel in a car… and the Lib Dems need to be on board to keep the vehicle on the road and the country on the straight and narrow.
Clegg himself is unburdened by poor results in the polls and fears of losing seats. He is a far happier figure than he was early in the Parliament and a slimmer one too; a ban on biscuits and playing lots of tennis is keeping his weight down.
Straight after David Cameron’s speech, the Cabinet filed past him backstage to leave the auditorium. There were handshakes and pats on the back, but George Osborne gave Cameron a hug. It was a reminder that these two have not, unlike nearly all other modern Prime Ministers and Chancellors, fallen out.
Some Ministers carp that this Cameron/Osborne axis means that all the major decisions have been taken before they even sit down at the Cabinet table. Tellingly, Osborne had been involved in the tax discussions from the start, unlike most Cabinet Ministers who were deliberately kept out of the loop. Indeed, Cameron’s promise of tax cuts had only been made possible by Osborne dishing out all the economic bad news on Monday.
One grateful Cameron aide purrs that Osborne had delivered Cameron ‘the perfectly weighted cross’ to slot home.
But, perhaps, the key to this relationship is that Osborne is self-aware enough to know who the star striker is.
Quotes of the week
Scottish comedian Billy Connolly‘Here’s a thought – on May 7 you could go to bed with Nigel Farage and wake up with Ed Miliband.’
David Cameron warns at the Tory conference that a vote for Ukip could hand the keys to No 10 to the Labour leader.
‘First chuck Salmond overboard and then eat the Kippers for breakfast.’
Boris Johnson raises the mood of the party faithful with a quip about the Tories’ new ‘fisheries policy’.
‘You know what they say about Yorkshiremen: they’re like Scotsmen with all the generosity squeezed out of them.’
Comic Arthur Smith, gives a tongue-in-cheek response to a survey revealing people in the county are less likely to laugh at jokes about sex or politics.
‘I have never been to a country more ill at ease… nothing works and worse, nobody cares about it.’
John Lewis boss Andy Street causes a furore with his comments about France. He later apologised.
‘Those who try to avoid tax should hang their heads in shame. That comedian… what’s his name? Carr? No, he’s not getting away with it.’
Actor Robson Green attacks celebrities such as Jimmy Carr who seek to shelter their earnings from HM Revenue & Customs.
‘It’s not designed to be done because you and your husband thought 30 was the new 20.’
TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp criticises women who delay having children and then turn to IVF as a ‘lifestyle choice’.
‘There isn’t even John Prescott to make their weaknesses entertaining.’
William Hague says he’s never seen a more woeful Labour front bench
‘You’re lucky I am here at all. Have you not read the papers? I’m nearly dead.’
Comedian Billy Connolly’s response to a heckler.
‘We should champion the soggy bottom: I can see nothing not to love about pastry sodden with fruit juices.’
Bake Off star Ruby Tandoh says there’s nothing wrong with a tart where the base isn’t crisp.
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