Damian Green MP on the lessons of Newark
I didn't quite get to speak to Damian Green in Newark, though I did spot him pounding the streets of the town about ten minutes drive from the campaign HQ when I was on my way there to do the same.
However, he gave an excellent speech at a Tory Reform Group meeting yesterday about the lessons of the Newark by-election.
Here are a few extracts.
"One of the lessons from Newark is that the temptation to become UKIP-lite should be firmly resisted. Ed Miliband, our main opponent, would love the Conservative Party to move that way.
"The political battle of our times is between optimists and pessimists. Conservatives should be optimists, believing that free markets and a strong society are the basis for a successful country in the 21st century.
"Nigel Farage hankers after the 1950s, when people knew their place. Ed Miliband, to be fair, is a slightly more modern figure. He prefers the 1970s, with mighty trade unions and high taxes.
"They are both relying on a sense of despair about Britain. They are wrong to despair about this country, which is great and getting better.
"The Newark campaign was important not just for the energy displayed. It was run on the basis of a straightforward Conservative message. Trust us on the economy; we are the only party with a credible long-term plan, and you can see that it is beginning to work. And by the way, we have by far the most credible Prime Minister among all the party leaders. All the literature was in Tory blue, there was no attempt (as in Eastleigh) to put out tricky purple leaflets, and the whole party stuck to the message.
"What we showed was that even in a by-election where people traditionally take the chance to kick the Government of the day, this orthodox mainstream Tory message is the right one.
"This has to show us the pattern for the coming year. A Conservative-led coalition Government has been in power for four years, so the fact that we can show palpable economic recovery has to be the most prominent feature in the political landscape.
"Of course European policy and immigration policy are important but we were elected to sort out the economy and we are doing so successfully, in a way that makes life easier for millions of people. Why would we not want to focus minds on this?
"If this is the main short-term lesson from Newark there are long-term lessons as well. Moderate Conservatism can win us back the votes of the women who deserted us when Tony Blair was in full cry, and it can also do so for the other groups that will be necessary in the decades ahead to provide Conservative majority Governments.
"In the early days of the coalition, I warned that we should not sub-contract compassion to the Liberal Democrats, since the Conservative message should always be hard-headed but not hard-hearted. It is heartening to observe that, for example, the moral purpose behind the welfare reforms has been widely accepted, especially among young people, so that attempts by the left to portray it as cruel Tory cutting have largely failed. But we need to be vigilant that we do not sound carelessly indifferent to the particular concerns of those who want to be part of a successful Britain, but who are not sure they will make it.
"Though there are indeed reasons to be cheerful, there are absolutely no reasons to think that we are heading inexorably for the sunlit uplands. Both in the short and long term, either side of May 2015, there is work to do to convince a largely disengaged public that we have the answers and that we are on their side."
Hat tip to Conservative Home who give a more complete version of the speech here.
Damian has given one side of the argument about how Conservatives should respond to UKIP and it is an extremely important side which needs to be heard. There is absolutely nothing we can do that will make the hardline "Kippers" listen to us and any attempt to get UKIP's "core vote" to move to the Conservatives will merely hand the election to Miliband on a plate by losing us the mainstream, just as the "core vote" strategy in 2001 cemented Blair's hold on Downing street.
There is, however, another aspect of the debate which also needs to be heard, pointing out that those who voted UKIP last month are not a homogenous mass. Their core vote is unreacahable but there are also plenty of voters who lent their vote to UKIP for one election to "send a message" and were always planning to return to their normal allegiance in 2015. There are also a big group of voters - polls suggest it might be as much as half UKIP's current support - who have not definately decided how to vote in 2015 and those people are open to persuasion if we can show that we will take real action on the issues they are concerned about - the cost of living, the economy, the NHS, and yes, immigration.
And taking real action about immigration does not have to mean adopting extreme positions, let alone inflammatory language. What happened to a certain former Labour prime minister at the polls shows that spouting near-BNP rhetoric in public (e.g. "British jobs for British workers") while in private dismissing anyone who asks about immigration as a bigot is precisely the sort of hypocrisy which British voters are fed up with. They are far more concerned that we take effective action to control the borders and bring numbers down to sustainable levels that to hear unrealistic promises of drastic change which they won't believe anyway.
Conservative Home have two more good articles on the subject here and here, both worth a read.
However, he gave an excellent speech at a Tory Reform Group meeting yesterday about the lessons of the Newark by-election.
Here are a few extracts.
"One of the lessons from Newark is that the temptation to become UKIP-lite should be firmly resisted. Ed Miliband, our main opponent, would love the Conservative Party to move that way.
"The political battle of our times is between optimists and pessimists. Conservatives should be optimists, believing that free markets and a strong society are the basis for a successful country in the 21st century.
"Nigel Farage hankers after the 1950s, when people knew their place. Ed Miliband, to be fair, is a slightly more modern figure. He prefers the 1970s, with mighty trade unions and high taxes.
"They are both relying on a sense of despair about Britain. They are wrong to despair about this country, which is great and getting better.
"The Newark campaign was important not just for the energy displayed. It was run on the basis of a straightforward Conservative message. Trust us on the economy; we are the only party with a credible long-term plan, and you can see that it is beginning to work. And by the way, we have by far the most credible Prime Minister among all the party leaders. All the literature was in Tory blue, there was no attempt (as in Eastleigh) to put out tricky purple leaflets, and the whole party stuck to the message.
"What we showed was that even in a by-election where people traditionally take the chance to kick the Government of the day, this orthodox mainstream Tory message is the right one.
"This has to show us the pattern for the coming year. A Conservative-led coalition Government has been in power for four years, so the fact that we can show palpable economic recovery has to be the most prominent feature in the political landscape.
"Of course European policy and immigration policy are important but we were elected to sort out the economy and we are doing so successfully, in a way that makes life easier for millions of people. Why would we not want to focus minds on this?
"If this is the main short-term lesson from Newark there are long-term lessons as well. Moderate Conservatism can win us back the votes of the women who deserted us when Tony Blair was in full cry, and it can also do so for the other groups that will be necessary in the decades ahead to provide Conservative majority Governments.
"In the early days of the coalition, I warned that we should not sub-contract compassion to the Liberal Democrats, since the Conservative message should always be hard-headed but not hard-hearted. It is heartening to observe that, for example, the moral purpose behind the welfare reforms has been widely accepted, especially among young people, so that attempts by the left to portray it as cruel Tory cutting have largely failed. But we need to be vigilant that we do not sound carelessly indifferent to the particular concerns of those who want to be part of a successful Britain, but who are not sure they will make it.
"Though there are indeed reasons to be cheerful, there are absolutely no reasons to think that we are heading inexorably for the sunlit uplands. Both in the short and long term, either side of May 2015, there is work to do to convince a largely disengaged public that we have the answers and that we are on their side."
Hat tip to Conservative Home who give a more complete version of the speech here.
Damian has given one side of the argument about how Conservatives should respond to UKIP and it is an extremely important side which needs to be heard. There is absolutely nothing we can do that will make the hardline "Kippers" listen to us and any attempt to get UKIP's "core vote" to move to the Conservatives will merely hand the election to Miliband on a plate by losing us the mainstream, just as the "core vote" strategy in 2001 cemented Blair's hold on Downing street.
There is, however, another aspect of the debate which also needs to be heard, pointing out that those who voted UKIP last month are not a homogenous mass. Their core vote is unreacahable but there are also plenty of voters who lent their vote to UKIP for one election to "send a message" and were always planning to return to their normal allegiance in 2015. There are also a big group of voters - polls suggest it might be as much as half UKIP's current support - who have not definately decided how to vote in 2015 and those people are open to persuasion if we can show that we will take real action on the issues they are concerned about - the cost of living, the economy, the NHS, and yes, immigration.
And taking real action about immigration does not have to mean adopting extreme positions, let alone inflammatory language. What happened to a certain former Labour prime minister at the polls shows that spouting near-BNP rhetoric in public (e.g. "British jobs for British workers") while in private dismissing anyone who asks about immigration as a bigot is precisely the sort of hypocrisy which British voters are fed up with. They are far more concerned that we take effective action to control the borders and bring numbers down to sustainable levels that to hear unrealistic promises of drastic change which they won't believe anyway.
Conservative Home have two more good articles on the subject here and here, both worth a read.
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