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‘A Bit Less Bunny-Hugging and a Bit More Bunny-Boiling’? Qualifying Conservative Party Change under David Cameron

British Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

The Conservatives appear to have established a clear and consistent opinion poll lead over the Labour government. Some would suggest that this change of fortunes is connected to the ‘modernization’ undertaken by David Cameron. This article examines the extent to which the Conservative Party can be said to have changed in a manner that political scientists might regard as significant. From the comparative literature on party change, it derives five dimensions and associated indicators of change; it then proceeds to measure the Conservative Party against them. It finds that the extent of change — both actual and perceived — is easily overstated, partly because ‘Team Cameron’ has always had to tread carefully and particularly given significant adjustments made to the Party's course after the difficult summer of 2007. When it comes to the relationship between change and success, only a modicum of the former may be needed to achieve the latter given that elections are as much lost by governments as they are won by oppositions.

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Notes

  1. The plan, announced in December 2005, was for target and Conservative held seats where an MP was retiring, to pick candidates from a centrally approved list containing 50% women and ‘a significant proportion of people with disabilities, and from black and minority ethnic communities’. In August 2006, Cameron announced that from then on the seats would have to ensure that of four prospective candidates voted on, two would be women. For a general discussion of the Conservatives and female representation, see Campbell et al. (2006).

  2. Theresa May, Party Chairwoman under Iain Duncan Smith warned the Tory faithful that they were still seen as ‘the nasty party’ — an epithet that ever since has been used by their enemies. The full text of her speech can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002/oct/07/conservatives2002.conservatives1.

  3. Both the Mail and the Telegraph were, thoughout the latter part of 2006 and the first 9 months of 2007, reported to have warmed to Gordon Brown and cooled on Mr Cameron. Examples of pieces that had alarm bells ringing include ‘Brown offers Britain a moral compass’, Daily Mail, 26 September 2006 and ‘Brown targets Tory heartlands’, Daily Telegraph, 25 September, 2007. For a discussion, see ‘No longer The Torygraph?’, Comment is Free (Guardian), http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tim_montgomerie/2007/05/no_longer_the_torygraph.html.

  4. The six Policy Groups’ reports can be found by clicking through from http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=standup.speakup.page.

  5. A useful primer to the concern expressed in Tory newspapers about the electoral and philosophical dangers of Blueprint for a Green Economy can be found in ‘All so predictable’, ConservativeHome, 14 September 2007.

  6. Many of those working for Hague were convinced that there was an organized faction within Central Office dedicated to seeing their hero, Michael Portillo, snatch the leadership from Hague.

  7. The verbal construction ‘to bang on about’ has passed into common usage in today's Conservative Party and is to imply that an opponent's concern is self-evidently obsessive and old fashioned.

  8. For the hares vs tortoises debate, see ‘David Cameron and the coping classes’, Telegraph, 31 January 2008.

  9. For examples of media criticism over the issue, ‘Why the Tories may pay for ruling out tax cuts despite their lead in opinion poll’, Daily Mail, 17 March 2008 and ‘Tory tax policy alienates traditional supporters’, Telegraph, 18 March 2008. For members' attitudes, see http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2008/03/what-tory-membe.html.

  10. The poster can be viewed at http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2007/10/tory-poster-to-.html.

  11. Thanks to Philip Cowley for refining my thinking on this—and other parts—of this article.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the financial assistance provided by the Leverhulme Trust for the research and writing of this article.

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Bale, T. ‘A Bit Less Bunny-Hugging and a Bit More Bunny-Boiling’? Qualifying Conservative Party Change under David Cameron. Br Polit 3, 270–299 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/bp.2008.7

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