Message on Europe and immigration disturbs MPs and thinktanks who fear its impact on business and centrist voters
The "nice Tories" are fighting back, but is it too late? Amid all the anti-European Union, anti-immigrant rhetoric of recent weeks, a few Conservative voices now dare to challenge the party's direction of travel as Ukip marches on.
One is Robert Buckland, MP for Swindon South, many of whose constituents work at a Honda car factory which exports half its produce into EU markets. The area relies on many temporary skilled foreign workers to fill key posts.
Buckland cannot be pigeon-holed as an out-and-out Tory "leftie". He opposed gay marriage, saying that it was a step too far. But he is worried about the way his party is responding to the threat posed by Ukip leader Nigel Farage. "We must listen to the concerns of voters, but what we mustn't do is try to shadow Ukip and pander to the latest opinion poll or headline in a red-top newspaper," he said. "A lot of people who come here work hard, they are good for the economy and we need to explain that to people."
He finds it "depressing" that the positive case for immigration is not made and is very worried that those Tories who want to get out of the EU are gaining the ascendancy: "With half of our Hondas going to Europe, I would be mad to argue for that."
David Cameron's former speech writer Danny Kruger, who now runs Only Connect, a London charity working with young people at risk of offending, makes a different but related point, arguing that the "big society", which defined Cameron in the "sunshine" early days of his leadership, is getting lost beneath a grim narrative about "bashing burglars and immigrants".
Kruger is of the view that Cameron still believes in the big society but has let it be relegated because too many people around him want the party to show a harder edge. He thinks the messages from No 10 are too defensive.
Last week Ryan Shorthouse, head of the pro-modernisation thinktank Bright Blue, argued that the Conservatives had become locked into a strategy devoid of the big picture optimism which helped Cameron to win the leadership in 2005.
"The message is quite negative and uninspiring – it's not enough to win voters and gain momentum. We need to be more inspiring and bigger picture than that, and we need a positive vision, not just continue pandering to prejudice and uncertainty and anger," he said.
With the European elections in May, the split among Tories about how to deal with Ukip is widening. Once the tone is set, it will be too late to reverse before the general election in May 2015.
The debate will be intensified, but certainly not settled, by polling released on Sunday by former Tory deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft. It suggests that if the Tory tactic is to shadow Ukip on immigration and Europe it is not working. Ashcroft found that 37% of those who voted Tory in 2010 would not do so tomorrow and around half of these "defectors" said they would choose Ukip instead.
While Tories on the anti-EU right of the party will use such figures to argue that messages on immigration and the EU should be even tougher and closer to Ukip's, the modernisers reply that the more you try to play Ukip at their own game, the more they gain and the more you lose the centre.
Ashcroft says Cameron needs to forge a wider coalition: "This research shows that it is far from impossible for the Tories to win outright. But to do so they will need the votes of everyone who supported them last time, plus practically everyone who is even prepared to think about doing so next time."
Shorthouse says there is a lot of good policy development happening on schools, universities, troubled families and health, among other areas. "But these policies are currently under the public radar, because No 10's main messaging is too narrow and negative, focusing on trying to clamp down on immigration and continuously squeeze the welfare budget," he adds. Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 day ago.
The "nice Tories" are fighting back, but is it too late? Amid all the anti-European Union, anti-immigrant rhetoric of recent weeks, a few Conservative voices now dare to challenge the party's direction of travel as Ukip marches on.
One is Robert Buckland, MP for Swindon South, many of whose constituents work at a Honda car factory which exports half its produce into EU markets. The area relies on many temporary skilled foreign workers to fill key posts.
Buckland cannot be pigeon-holed as an out-and-out Tory "leftie". He opposed gay marriage, saying that it was a step too far. But he is worried about the way his party is responding to the threat posed by Ukip leader Nigel Farage. "We must listen to the concerns of voters, but what we mustn't do is try to shadow Ukip and pander to the latest opinion poll or headline in a red-top newspaper," he said. "A lot of people who come here work hard, they are good for the economy and we need to explain that to people."
He finds it "depressing" that the positive case for immigration is not made and is very worried that those Tories who want to get out of the EU are gaining the ascendancy: "With half of our Hondas going to Europe, I would be mad to argue for that."
David Cameron's former speech writer Danny Kruger, who now runs Only Connect, a London charity working with young people at risk of offending, makes a different but related point, arguing that the "big society", which defined Cameron in the "sunshine" early days of his leadership, is getting lost beneath a grim narrative about "bashing burglars and immigrants".
Kruger is of the view that Cameron still believes in the big society but has let it be relegated because too many people around him want the party to show a harder edge. He thinks the messages from No 10 are too defensive.
Last week Ryan Shorthouse, head of the pro-modernisation thinktank Bright Blue, argued that the Conservatives had become locked into a strategy devoid of the big picture optimism which helped Cameron to win the leadership in 2005.
"The message is quite negative and uninspiring – it's not enough to win voters and gain momentum. We need to be more inspiring and bigger picture than that, and we need a positive vision, not just continue pandering to prejudice and uncertainty and anger," he said.
With the European elections in May, the split among Tories about how to deal with Ukip is widening. Once the tone is set, it will be too late to reverse before the general election in May 2015.
The debate will be intensified, but certainly not settled, by polling released on Sunday by former Tory deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft. It suggests that if the Tory tactic is to shadow Ukip on immigration and Europe it is not working. Ashcroft found that 37% of those who voted Tory in 2010 would not do so tomorrow and around half of these "defectors" said they would choose Ukip instead.
While Tories on the anti-EU right of the party will use such figures to argue that messages on immigration and the EU should be even tougher and closer to Ukip's, the modernisers reply that the more you try to play Ukip at their own game, the more they gain and the more you lose the centre.
Ashcroft says Cameron needs to forge a wider coalition: "This research shows that it is far from impossible for the Tories to win outright. But to do so they will need the votes of everyone who supported them last time, plus practically everyone who is even prepared to think about doing so next time."
Shorthouse says there is a lot of good policy development happening on schools, universities, troubled families and health, among other areas. "But these policies are currently under the public radar, because No 10's main messaging is too narrow and negative, focusing on trying to clamp down on immigration and continuously squeeze the welfare budget," he adds. Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 day ago.