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Original poster

How should the Tories build on their excellent current approval ratings, to position themselves optimally for a 2015 election?

56 replies

longfingernails · 27/12/2011 22:22

Thanks to Cameron's uncharacteristic show of courage, the Tories are ending 2011 in the ascendency.

My first suggestions:

  • Engineer a showdown with the European Court of Human Rights over prisoner voting; if we can leave then all the better.
  • Continue raising the lower income tax threshold.
  • Make any taxpayer funding of any trade union activity illegal.
  • Turbocharge the Gove reforms; the more the NUT and NASUWT squeal the better.
  • Abandon High Speed 2 and invest in dozens of small suburban rail projects in marginal constituencies instead.
  • Put Jeremy Browne in charge of Business (he seems like a genuinely deregulatory Lib Dem who will cut red tape); move the Stalinist Cable to the essentially non-job of the Environment once, as seems likely according to current reports, Chris Huhne gets prosecuted.
  • Get rid of the 50p tax rate for all those who can prove that they generate at least 3 other downstream jobs; they have similar systems I think in America (at least in some states)
  • Sack Ken Clarke and Crispin Blunt, get some real conservatives in the MOJ; a good opportunity to promote some of the 2010 intake.
  • Above all, continue doing things which makes the Guardian, the large Mumsnet contingent who parrot Polly Toynbee's every word, and Guardian TV (aka the BBC) "froth" in Islington dinner party rage.

Any more ideas?

OP posts:
Original poster
longfingernails · 27/12/2011 22:41

Hi tethersend

Drowning kittens will not be popular, unlike pretty much all the suggestions above.

Thanks to the public's utter lack of faith in the economic competence of Ed Balls, and in Red Ed's leadership capabilities in any way, shape or form, whatsoever, the fundamental arguments are all in the Tories' favour. They have made the right strategic start in their first two years (though they have been far too timid in so many ways); they now need to cement this excellent start by creating new conservative voters.

One of the very best ways is to open new Free Schools and Academies. Everyone who chooses such a school will know that the Labour party (now that the Blairites are dead, and despite Steven Twigg's best assurances to the contrary) detests the idea of parents having full choice in their children's education. That means they have a very strong incentive to vote Tory. Free schools have the potential to become the "buy your council house" policy of this generation.

Michael Gove has been, by far and away, the most impressive of the Tory Cabinet, apart from Osborne, perhaps. Iain Duncan Smith will have his chance to claim this mantle over the next few years as the reform of the bloated welfare state begins to kick in though.

The Tories need to find far more "hooks" like the Gove free schools. If you can make floating voters into sticky voters, then you can win elections.

OP posts:
ravenAK · 27/12/2011 22:40

Oooh, it's only another 3 years of them after next week, isn't it? Obviously they can make a right mess of just about everything important in that time, but still a cheering reminder I feel.

SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan · 27/12/2011 22:39

abolish voting rights for anyone who studied social sciences or who works in health, education or care.

ban higher education for the working classes - oh they kind of did that one already.....

SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan · 27/12/2011 22:37

create a super-estate where they can dump all the single mums and disabled people and airdrop a few food supplies in once a month. surround it with armed guards and don't let the scum out.

legalise domestic violence.

abolish women's right to vote or own property.

make reporting rape a crime.

mercibucket · 27/12/2011 22:34

Burn a few foreigners
Flog some criminals
Bring back public executions
Make parking offences subject to capital punishment
Cut income tax just before the election
Abolish voting rights for the under 50s

Ooh I've got loads of ideas

tethersend · 27/12/2011 22:26

Perhaps DC could drown some kittens live on TV?

Good to see you back, LFN. I missed you Wink

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