Conservatives – winning the next election

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I was present at a fascinating debate between Nick Boles MP, Stephan Shakespeare (Yougov) and Tim Montgomerie (Conhome). They were debating what it was the Conservatives needed to do if they are to win the next General Election outright - and implement the things that the Lib Dems are preventing us from doing.

Stephan Shakespeare's view is that there only two ways of gaining a full majority because the electoral reality is that the two main parties now only attract some 65% of the vote and given this it is difficult for any party to get an overall majority. His first route to victory is that we annihilate the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems deserve to be annihilated and their poll ratings tend to suggest they have annihilated themselves but even at the levels they are polling now they would still deprive us of seats that should normally be ours for the taking. His second view was that we needed to broaden our appeal to take votes from across the spectrum. There was little division that this was the correct thing to do but it was how we achieved that. Interestingly Stephan was pointing out that this is not a simple 'right' v 'left' divide where we nibble at our left fringe to take votes. He says this because he knows that the majority of voters are not at all political and they tend to pick policies from both left and right. They form a smorgasbord of party support that is balanced by the experiences they have and the people they have as circles of friends and families.

Nick's view was that we need to deepen the modernisation process by applying two tests to every announcement and policy we make. Test one would be 'is this policy relevant to people now', is it going to put right something that matters to people - is it in the top five issues that they tell pollsters are important.

His second test was is it going to relieve financial pressure on very hard pressed families. When challenged about whether this would include green policies (something Nick is very much in favour of) he said that it probably meant 'no', because green policies were costing people more and

Tim's view was that we needed to ensure that we were appealing to a broader number of people and that the 'left' should not be able to pretend they are somehow for the poor and we are not, when the evidence is very much different. He agreed we needed to appeal to the issues that matter although he felt that it was not as simple as using polling information.

The fact is that for the Conservatives to win the next election we need to broaden our appeal and ensure that we attract back those Lib Dem voters who are naturally Conservative. To do this is not about the 'lovebombing' we tried before the last election - that did not work because we could even get rid of Chris Huhne on a wafer thin majority - but it does mean doing more to point out what it is the Lib Dems are for and what they stand for that is so at odds with the voters thinking.

We need to tell people that had they had their way we would have been in the Euro and facing rising unemployment and home repossessions as borrowing rates soared and our public services were slashed.

We need to tell them about the raft of taxation that would have penalised the middle classes, their local income tax and their duplicity over so many areas of policy. But we equally need to ensure that in Lib Dem seats they are reminded of the cost of a Labour Government. BY doing both things together we can start to edge back Lib Dem voters and secure seats.

I do not doubt that the Lib Dems have done the nation a great favour by allowing a minority Conservative Government to sort out the nation's mess, but the nation needs the radical reforms that only a Conservative Government can deliver. The real danger is that a divided Lib Dem party whose leadership is so at odds with its members over so much of what we are doing is a brake on the future success of the country.