Tories and 2015

This is a highly recommended piece about how the Tories hope to get outright power in 2015. Many Tory MPs will have heard a good part of it as the party’s political strategists have been having MPs in for group chats to tell them how things are going.

The party is pooling its own research on ethnic minority voters with Lord Ashcroft’s work to see what more it can learn about reaching voters from these communities.

It thinks there are early indications that 2nd and 3rd generation hindu and sikh voters are open to the Tory case, likewise some 1st generation black voters who were never part of a community that attached itself to the Labour Party or had resentments towards the Tories.

On those resentments, focus grouping is suggesting that many ethnic minority voters still remember and resent the “cricket test” – you can’t be assimilated and still have a place in your heart for your ancestors’ national squad. Also, the older communities seem to recall the Tories’ unsympathetic approach to the anti-apartheid campaigners back in the 1980s.

Much of the “we can win in 2015” strategy is based on the Tories getting their Boundary Review through and cutting the number of constituencies down to 600.

When I wrote about Lib Dems telling me they would hold that measure hostage until they got Lords reform there was quite a bit of what I think is called “push-back” from senior Tories.

My latest intelligence is that the Lib Dems are still “digging in” on this. They regard a full, proper push on Lords reform as a sacred part of the Coalition Agreement. Break it (as the Lib Dem ministers so painfully didn’t on tuition fees, for instance) and you enter new uncharted terrain.

For the Tories, winning outright in 2015 is one hell of a challenge. Winning without the Boundary changes is, some think, nearly impossible.

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