TAKE PART in the Comprehensive Conservative Survey – CLICK HERE
Here’s a curious thing. When doctors have the terrible task of giving patients positive cancer diagnoses, the most common reaction is ‘At least I know.’
It can feel worse waiting for the test results than actually receiving the bad news. Psychologists call this ‘uncertainty bias.’
Our human brains hate uncertainty. When faced with extreme fear or uncertainty, we want clear answers. And if our leaders do not offer them, we find someone who can. That’s why in times of social or economic turbulence, political extremism and even religious cults explode in popularity. After the Greek financial crisis, over 70% of the country voted for a far left or far right party.
Britain is now facing into the same abyss of extreme uncertainty. And the way Labour have handled the past five weeks, that is going to get much worse over five years. In this environment, voters demand answers from their leaders; and if the they don’t get them, they go elsewhere.
This trend is already well established. At the General Election, the Conservative-Labour duopoly received a collective vote share of just 59% – the lowest since 1918.
Meanwhile, Reform and the Green Party both made enormous gains. Reform did so in spite of being caught off-guard, having no money, and being tainted by unsavoury candidates. Next time, the gloves will be off. And whether you like Reform or not, they will at least be offering answers to our problems.
TAKE PART in the Comprehensive Conservative Survey – CLICK HERE
If the Conservatives ever want to win again, MPs and members need to find a leader with clear answers, and reject anyone who does not have them. We cannot have another leadership contest of meaningless drivel. The signs are already ominous.
If the Conservatives ever want to win again, MPs and members need to find a leader with clear answers, and reject anyone who does not have them.
Tom Tugendhat’s campaign launch was heralded in the morning as ‘I will leave the ECHR.’ By evening it was, ‘I am willing think about leaving the ECHR after a few years more of trying everything else.’
Cleverly too is running away from answers and equally unpopular among members. Spot the pattern? All candidates need to learn from this PR catastrophe.
That is a hard lesson to swallow for the generation of MPs, SpAds, aides and consultants who have grown up in the Blairite world of spin, PR and word games. This was a world where presentation mattered more than action. We all need to accept the world has changed. Consensus platitudes and managerialist fiddling does not cut it anymore; because the public are wise to it.
Cameron, Johnson, Truss and Sunak all talked the talk, promised, hinted and failed to act. Starmer has just carried on the pattern; intimating Labour would not raise taxes, and would toughen up on crime and immigration. Five weeks in, they have done exactly the opposite; and the country has exploded in violence and bitterness.
The backlash we are seeing was predicted over two years ago by the world’s leading political pollster, Dr Frank Luntz:
“What is happening isn’t about alienation anymore. It’s not a public temper tantrum that eventually winds down. It is morphing into permanent rejection of community and society – and the consequences go far beyond populism, wokeness, and the so-called “culture wars.”
“As a Word Guy, my message to the politicos is simple: you cannot talk your way out of what you acted your way into. If you want to replace anger with answers, you need to create a Culture of Encounter.“
This need for answers is not going away. Nowadays, it is not just Dr Luntz. Every poll is expressing the same demand for clear and popular answers.
Back in February, the Conservative Post led the media reporting of the Lady McAlpine / Whitestone Insight polls. These were some of the most comprehensive polling ever conducted on British voters. The results were unequivocal. No conservative leader could win back the trust of the public on personality alone. None are trusted and for good reason.
Mel Stride oversaw record worklessness at the DWP, Kemi Badenoch rowed back on Brexit, while Priti Patel and James Cleverly betrayed us catastrophically at the Home Office.
However, what voters did make clear was that they could be won back in great numbers with clear answers and explicit Conservative policies on issues like Tax, wokery, net zero and especially on Immigration.
However, what voters did make clear was that they could be won back in great numbers with clear answers and explicit Conservative policies on issues like Tax, wokery, net zero and especially on Immigration. Without strong answers, all those Lost Conservatives are lost for good.
These insights were confirmed in the public’s choice for the next Conservative Leader. Among the general public, the most popular choice to succeed Rishi Sunak is Nigel Farage. Meanwhile CP’s poll of Conservative Party members (the biggest poll so far) had Suella streets ahead of everyone else. Spot the pattern: Unlike the rest, Suella and Nigel do not shy away from straight answers.
And yes, we know that many people may not like all of their answers. But as we are now seeing, psychologically and practically, a straight answer and a clear plan is better than complete societal breakdown.
As Labour are now discovering, if you go into power without those clear answers, you will achieve nothing. A government without answers gets swiftly overtaken by Harold Macmillan’s ‘events’. Whether you have five years or fourteen years, without answers you will spend your time firefighting and leave government with no achievements to your name and the country in a worse state.
In recent weeks, Lord Frost – ever the spiritual leader of true Conservatism – has been making just this point. We need clear answers on everything so we can get ready for power now. Because, once we have the answers, it will still take at least four years to prepare. As we have seen again and again, there is no such thing as ‘Mary Poppins’ government. Ministers cannot just click their heels, whistle a tune, and magically hospitals and houses will pop up on the horizon and small boats will turn back to France. This stuff takes years of detailed planning.
For example, if the next leader wants tougher sentences, they have to say so and have a plan for it now: what crimes, how to retrain judges, where will you build the prisons, how will you recruit and train the staff, and how will you pay for it all? That is a five- or ten-year process. You cannot just make it up four years in to an electoral cycle. You have to plan for it now and hit the ground running on day one.
The one advantage of the landslide defeat is that we know we have five years to prepare. There is no way Labour, with its huge majority and collapsing popularity, is going to call an early General Election.
The one advantage of the landslide defeat is that we know we have five years to prepare. There is no way Labour, with its huge majority and collapsing popularity, is going to call an early General Election.
That gives us till Christmas to state our answers to everything: ECHR, Tax, Net Zero, Immigration, policing and so on. Then we have over four years to get ready. On Day One of the next conservative government, those straight answers and comprehensive plans need to kick in like clockwork. Every MP, Minister, Civil Servant and Public Sector worker must know exactly what they are doing.
That is why we are asking you, our party members, for your answers. And that is why we are also asking all the leadership candidates for their answers.
Our message to them is clear. You cannot talk your way out of this. If you cannot give straight answers to straight questions, you should not be running for leader. Period.
We need a leader with answers. In all the uncertainty and chaos, that much is getting clearer by the day. Without straight answers and swift action, Conservatives and Country are toast.
TAKE PART in the Comprehensive Conservative Survey – CLICK HERE
105,077 signatures for a petition to the Labour Party asking for Keir Starmer to resign! Petition is on the change.org website
And then what? Rayner? Miliband? As the above says, Labour won’t call a GE for 5 years.
BE careful what you wish for.
“However, what voters did make clear was that they could be won back in great numbers with clear answers and explicit Conservative policies… ”
An assertion… backed up by nothing whatsoever.
My counter-assertion – and a much more credible and ubiquitous interpretation of the result – is that voters made one thing clear: they do not believe the Conservative party. You can give the public all the utterances on policy you like, if they don’t believe it then they will vote for someone else. That’s what the public made clear.
The so-called “broad church” became far too broad, to the point that the party moved to become a centre-left party (at best). The 121 MPs who remain are largely One Nation wets, so whoever is leader will be leader in name only because the wets will only pay lip service to the new leaders’ policies until they are close to power again.
We saw this after 1997 with the immediate promises to repeal Blair’s IR35. As the Conservatives got closer to power, a change of leader or two… and the promise was to “review” IR35 – and then once in power, the review did nothing. Subsequent leaders made it worse. All the while, the govt nudge unit was spinning via the MSM how these people on zero hours contracts were “tax dodgers” (they weren’t, but only those who understand the abysmal tax system actually know this).
Voters know the pattern now – promise small-c conservative policy and action when in the wilderness, change it later. It won’t work again, it’s run out of road as Project Fear did at the last election (“vote for us because they’re worse”).
So, what can they do? The CP needs to start by reforming its candidate selection. The previous model worked, with associations choosing their candidate and the resulting MPs choosing the leader. If all MPs are sensible choices the associations don’t need to worry, the MPs choose someone they can get behind and they will be a reasonable small-c conservative (because almost all the MPs will fit that description, having been selected by associations).
That still leaves the inherited problem that 80-90% of the MPs are now wets. The new leader would need to smoke them out – similar to Johnson insisting that all candidates (including sitting MPs) sign the Brexit pledge. And then removing the whip from any dissenters, banish them from the party, then select new candidates in their constituencies.
And what if they “do a Wendy Morton” or “a Caroline Nokes” and say whatever it takes, then vote the opposite? Well, you need new rules on associations being able to de-select their MPs. Tough rules that keep MPs focused on doing what they promised.
Of course, all of this means CCHQ is sent the way of the dodo. The old Central Office that helps associations worked and should be reinstated. By empowering associations, you make it more likely that people will join them – reversing the catastrophic collapse in membership over recent decades.
Only then can you start to discuss what policy might look like – because only then can you go to the public and say “We had a problem and we’ve fixed it”. And add “These policies will have legislation ready to enact on Day One of the new parliament”.
Without fixing the structural issues, you will never persuade the voters to believe you and the whole party will go the way of the dodo at the next general election.
Finally, the rules on leadership change have to go. A rump of 200 wets can control the entire party if they become MPs and can easily damage any leader they don’t like with a confidence vote, since it needs only a small percentage of MPs to trigger it. The leader might win, but they are damaged and the wets can ultimately defenestrate them. People don’t like it when they vote for someone they expect to be PM for 5 years and find someone else at the helm, especially if the new leader’s policy change is unwelcome (as it almost always is). That system needs to change for the public to believe that the person they are listening to will actually be allowed to stick around to do what they say they’ll do.
All the discussion on policy misses these obvious points. You’re starting from the wrong place – get the structure right, publicise it, then address policy with a listening public.
According to how angry uk nation is and According to results for GE to be published this Aug 2024. Sunak won 80% uk votes that Labour rigged on. Starmer has no mandate and 34% foreigners abroad voted for Labour. There is no point replacing Sunak for Conservative won GE and Labour will be untenable in a few days this Aug 2024. Our uk didn’t vote for Labour so no mandate too