Birmingham, Conservative Party Conference October 10th 2012

In advance of Cameron’s speech to Party Conference Tim Montgomerie and Peter Lilley launched the Bow Group’s “A Fourth Way: Ideas for a New Conservative Manifesto”.

Editor of Conservative Home Tim Montgomerie argued for a return to one nation Conservatism and a return to a time when the Conservative Party listened to its grassroots members where the Bow Group leads the way.

Former Thatcher Cabinet Minister Peter Lilley said:

“It is time to return from what is politic and what is popular to what is right.

The Conservative Party and political landscape has changed a great deal in the last 30 years, there are certainly not the same issues of intellectual bankruptcy as when I came into politics but, perhaps because of the Coalition, there is equally not the same direction and vision as when I came into Government.

Beyond the Coalition, within the Party itself, “the detoxification agenda” has been problematic. There has been too greater emphasis on electoral calculus and not enough on doing the right thing. The politics of the “Third Way” were more necessary for the left because Labour Party policies were unpopular, they have had to make concessions, but we have less need for it.

Conservative policies appeal to the general public but not the media classes, and we have confused our approach to appeal to the wrong bodies in British society.

Modernisation was important, it always is, but to adopt policies simply because they are modern but not good is quite wrong. Conservative commitments to the “Green Agenda”, Lords Reform and Gay Marriage present a confusion of conservative principles, and are certainly unnecessary distractions.

Right does, in the end, make might, and conservatives are better to stick to their principles and see it through than to concede ground before the results of our policies have become apparent. Thatcher’s government delivered bitter, deeply unpopular medicine, but we can now reflect on the prescription being correct.

Bow Group Chairman Ben Harris-Quinney said:

“Speaking from the grassroots of the Conservative Party, now more than ever, Party members and voters are expecting vision, and vision beyond just the next few years.

The success of the last Conservative government owed in no small to part to the fact that it offered a clarity and sincerity of ideas. Everyone inside and outside of the Conservative Party knew where it stood and what it stood for.

For the present government, strength and conviction is likely to be its best hope of a second term with a majority, but much more importantly the best hope of putting Britain back on the right track. That is the message from the Bow Group and the grassroots to the government; discard the politics of the third way and move on to make your mark. A range of candidates from all sides are already making their case to lead the country, for the Prime Minister and his government it is now or never”

Background:

The Bow Group today released a collection of policy suggestions for the government’s next manifesto. The conference edition of the Crossbow magazine, entitled “A Fourth Way: Ideas for a New Conservative Manifesto”, includes a host of suggestions from top academics and other high profile MPs arguing for a change in direction of policy and government including Peter Lilley, Roger Scruton, Priti Patel, Liam Fox, Bernard Jenkin and Daniel Hannan.

This particular edition of Crossbow is a 2012 equivalent to the “Alternative Manifesto” that was published by the Bow Group in 1973 by then Bow Group Chairman Peter Lilley. The document went on to inform the debate over the following years that eventually culminated in “Thatcherism”. Then, there was a clear feeling that the Conservative Party was “losing the battle of ideas”, Peter Lilley MP explains. He adds that now is “the time for a renewed debate” in the Conservative Party over the direction the party is heading.

The most recent ideological drift from the Conservative Party has been borne out of the fact that Conservative Policies have been subject to the “detoxification agenda”. In a similar vein to New Labour’s Third Way, “too great an emphasis has been placed on electoral calculus, and not on doing the right thing”, writes Lilley. The problem is that, ironically, this pandering strategy is actually losing the Conservative Party support.

In order to stem this loss of support, these is a growing belief- articulated in the lead article “A Fourth Way”, that the Conservative party needs to return to having conviction in its beliefs, combined with an attempt to broaden its base and re-engage with voters. This is rooted in a belief that is becoming all too apparent in that conservative policies aren’t the problem, but the Conservative brand is. Nowhere is this better illustrated than the Conservative experience with voters from ethnic minorities, where Bow Group research has suggested high levels of support and identification for Conservative policies, but a lack of support for the Conservative party itself. Just 16% of ethnic minority voters voted Conservative in 2010.