The Conservative Party and the ‘Centre Ground’ of British Politics
Thomas Quinn
Department of Government
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester
CO4 3SQ
This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in the Journal of Elections,
Public Opinion & Parties, Vol. 18, No 2 (May 2008): 179-199 [copyright Taylor & Francis],
available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17457280801987892.
The Conservative Party and the ‘Centre-ground’ of British Politics
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the claim that the British Conservative Party has been too right-wing and
must shift to the centre-ground if it is to win the next general election. Using data from the
British Election Study and the Comparative Manifestos Project, it is shown that the
Conservatives’ policies since 1997 have not been extremely right-wing. Indeed, both data sets
indicate policy convergence between the major parties in recent years, although New
Labour’s electoral strategy of targeting some centre-right voters created problems for the
Tories. However, the general perception among voters, as evident in polling data, that the
Conservatives were ‘fairly right-wing’ was more indicative of the party’s image problem,
whereby they were seen in the post-1997 period as angry, stuck in the past, and socially
intolerant. ‘Shifting to the centre-ground’, therefore, is more likely to entail softening the
Conservatives’ image, toning down their language, and appearing more socially inclusive,
rather than the wholesale abandonment of policies that were not particularly different from
Labour’s.
KEYWORDS: Conservative Party; centre-ground of politics; left-right; British politics;
David Cameron; party image
1
The election of David Cameron as the British Conservative Party’s leader in December 2005
was widely greeted by media commentators as the first step towards the ‘modernisation’ of
the party.1 Until then the Conservatives had trailed the Labour Party in the polls almost
continuously for 13 years. Two years later, the Tories had established a steady lead in the
polls (after a brief dip when Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as prime minister). Although
part of this reversal of fortunes reflected dissatisfaction with the Blair and Brown
governments, the Conservatives were at last benefiting from Labour’s unpopularity whereas
before, disgruntled voters had defected to the Liberal Democrats or one of the smaller parties
that increased their support after 1997.
The Tories’ electoral problems since 1997 and their tentative revival since 2006 have been the
subject of an increasing quantity of academic analysis. In addition to post-election
commentaries in the major books on British general elections (e.g. Norton, 2002, 2006;
Cowley and Green, 2005), there have been volumes and articles on the party’s lack of
progress under William Hague (Garnett and Lynch, 2003) and the search for lessons from
previous periods of Tory opposition (Ball and Seldon, 2005; Denham and O’Hara, 2007). The
party’s travails have also been the subject of a special issue of the journal Political
Quarterly.2 Figures connected with the party have been engaged in a debate about what its
problems are and how they might be addressed (Ashcroft, 2005; Gyimah, 2005; Philp, 2006).
It is frequently claimed that the Conservatives must ‘shift back to the centre-ground’ of
British politics (see Dorey, 2007 for an overview). This injunction is often accompanied by
comparisons with the modernisation of the Labour Party in the 1980s and 1990s (Portillo,
2007a). In the latter case, party leaders jettisoned Labour’s ideological baggage and adopted
moderate policies that appealed to middle-of-the-road, middle-class voters (see Shaw, 1996:
2
181-205). The implication – sometimes stated and sometimes not – is that the Conservatives
have been too right-wing, and must discard their own ideological baggage if they are to win
elections (see Norris and Lovenduski, 2004; Seldon and Snowdon, 2005). In contrast, a
smaller number of observers have questioned whether the Tories really have been as rightwing as suggested (e.g. Green, 2005).
This paper examines the claim that the Conservatives must ‘shift to the centre-ground’. It uses
polling evidence, British Election Study data and Comparative Manifestos Project data to
question the claim that the Tories’ policies have been too right-wing. It is shown that a major
problem for the party, in terms of policy appeal, has been New Labour’s electoral strategy,
which has entailed adopting policies similar to those of the Tories and initially positioning
themselves to the right of the median voter. However, electoral strategy has been only part of
the Conservatives’ problem. They have also suffered from deep image problems and these too
are examined. It is these image problems that must be rectified before the Conservatives can
significantly improve their electoral prospects.
Were the Conservatives ‘Right-wing’?
Media commentators and Tory modernisers often spoke (and continue to speak) of the party’s
need to ‘shift to the centre-ground’. In his first party conference speech as leader, in October
2006, Cameron told his audience, ‘Our Party’s history tells us the ground on which political
success is built. It is the centre ground… The centre ground is where you find the concerns,
the hopes and the dreams of most people and families in this country.’ (Cameron, 2006) It
was (and remains) common to hear comparisons with the Labour Party in the 1980s and
1990s. The question is whether voters felt the same way about the Conservatives. At first
glance, it appears they did. The pollsters YouGov regularly ask respondents to say whether
3
the parties and their leaders are very left/right-wing, fairly left/right-wing, slightly left/rightof-centre, or in the centre. Figure 1 below shows the results of a poll conducted a few months
before the 2005 general election, when Michael Howard led the Tories. Both the leader and
his party were seen as ‘fairly right-wing’, whereas voters placed themselves (on average) and
Tony Blair in the centre. Gordon Brown, Labour MPs as a whole and the Liberal Democrats
were all deemed ‘slightly left-of-centre’. A word of caution is needed in interpreting this data,
as one-in-three respondents replied ‘don’t know’ to the survey question, possibly indicating a
lack of familiarity with the notions of left, right and centre. Nevertheless, there was enough of
a perception that the Tories were not in the ‘centre-ground’.
Figure 1: Perceptions of Left-Right Positions in British Politics (September 2004)
Proportion of voters (%)
30
25
20
15
Centre
10
5
0
Very leftwing
-100
Fairly
left-wing
Slightly
left-ofcentre
Slightly
right-ofcentre
-50
0
Labour Gordon
Charles
Voters
MPs
Brown
Kennedy
(-2)
(-25)
(-22)
& Lib Dem
MPs (-15)
Fairly
right-wing
Very rightwing
+50
Tony Blair
(+4)
+100
Michael Howard
& Tory MPs (+52)
Source: YouGov, ‘Party Conferences’, poll for the Daily Telegraph, 27 Sept 2004, retrieved 1
December 2007 from <http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL040101019_2.pdf>.
4
Notes: Q. Some people talk about ‘left’, ‘right’ and ‘centre’ to describe parties and politicians.
Where would you place [politician/party/yourself] on this scale? [Options: very left-wing,
fairly left-wing, slightly left-of-centre, centre, slightly right-of-centre, fairly right-wing, very
right-wing, don’t know]
Graph shows distribution of respondents (grey bars) and mean position of various parties and
politicians. Mean scores converted to figure between -100 (very left-wing) and +100 (very
right-wing).
A simple spatial model of party competition appears to capture the Conservatives’ problem.
In Figure 2, Labour (LAB) is much closer to the median voter (M) than the Tories are when
they are positioned at CON1. Those who advocate a New Labour-style modernisation for the
Tories usually have this situation in mind, because Labour did indeed abandon a raft of leftwing policies in its pursuit of the centre-ground in the 1980s and 1990s.
Figure 2: Centrist Versus Right-wing Conservative Policy Positions
LAB
M
CON2
CON1
There is evidence, however, that voters saw the Conservatives differently from the way they
saw ‘Old Labour’. There was certainly no comparison with Labour’s travails in the mid-1980s
when the term ‘Loony Left’ entered popular parlance, in response to the activities of some
5
municipal Labour administrations. Indeed, there was no general feeling that the Tories were
‘extreme’. A series of MORI polls that gave respondents a list of characteristics of the parties
and asked them to select those that were applicable, found that the proportion of respondents
describing the Conservatives as ‘extreme’ never rose above 15 percent between 1997 and
2006, and was usually about 10-12 percent. These figures were about 5 percent lower than
they were under Mrs Thatcher’s leadership and considerably lower than Labour’s ratings in
the mid-1980s (37 percent in 1987).3
For most of the 1997-2005 period, the Conservatives were denounced by their own
modernisers, as well as by many media commentators, as too right-wing and were advised to
shift to the centre. However, another conventional wisdom was that the two main parties were
very similar in their policy offerings (e.g. Green, 2007: 630-1). It was accepted by rightwingers in the Conservative Party, many of whom suggested (and some still do – see Tebbit,
2006) that their party should open up ‘clear blue water’ between itself and New Labour. A
YouGov poll of ordinary Conservative members during the leadership election of 2005 found
that 48 percent believed that ‘The Conservative Party should remain firmly on the Right of
politics and put clear blue water between the Conservatives and New Labour’. In contrast, 45
percent thought the party ‘should move more towards the political Centre, with more
moderate “one nation” policies’.4 The notion of policy convergence among parties in a twoparty system is well known in political science, particularly in relation to the spatial model. In
the simple two-party model, the party that is closest to the median voter in policy space wins
his support and so each party has an incentive to edge closer than its rival to this voter until
the parties straddle the median-voter position in equilibrium. In Figure 2, this conjuncture
occurs when the Conservatives shift to point CON2.
6
Before looking at the evidence for these conjunctures, it is necessary to deal briefly with one
potential objection to this analysis. In the 2005 general election, the Liberal Democrats won
22.1 percent of the vote and 62 parliamentary seats. Even though they are much smaller than
the Conservatives and Labour, their presence complicates the application of the two-party
spatial model. Indeed, Britain is frequently said to have a ‘two-and-a-half party system’ (e.g.
Siaroff, 2003). The existence of a small centrist party can reduce the zero-sum nature of
competition between the two major parties – a lost centrist vote for one is no longer
necessarily a vote gained for the other because it could go to the centrist party instead. It may
thereby be possible for the major parties to adopt slightly more radical policies because the
electoral damage from doing so is lessened – an attractive option for parties whose members
and candidates have non-centrist policy preferences (Adams and Merrill, 2006: 406).
There are reasons for believing, however, that the dynamics of two-party competition still
characterised British politics after 1997. Spatial models tend to assume, for reasons of
simplicity, a single national constituency. In reality, the UK had 659 local constituencies in
1997-2001, and 646 in 2005. Very few were genuine three-way contests. A feature of this
period, especially 1997-2001, was a high level of tactical voting, as supporters of Labour and
the Liberal Democrats voted for whichever of the two parties had the best chance of defeating
the Tories in a given constituency (Curtice and Steed, 1997: 310-11; 2002: 321-2). Thus,
centripetal forces were present at the local level, reinforcing those at the national level, where
Labour and the Liberal Democrats enjoyed a cooperative relationship, at least during the Blair
government’s first term (Denver, 2002). In short, the presence of the Liberal Democrats did
not provide the Conservatives with much leeway for safely adopting right-wing policies. As
such, the use of a two-party spatial model, although a simplification, can still shed light on the
7
Tories’ electoral predicament.5 The question is whether either of the conjunctures presented in
Figure 2 provides an accurate portrayal of British politics from 1997 to 2005.
Party Policy Positions, 1997-2005
Two sources of data are consulted to ascertain the policy positions of the parties since 1997 –
the manifesto data of the Comparative Manifestos Project (CMP) and the panel data of the
British Election Study (BES). After each election, the CMP codifies all sentences in parties’
general-election manifestos as either ‘left’ or ‘right’ before subtracting the percentage of ‘left’
sentences from the percentage of ‘right’ sentences (see Budge et al., 2001; Klingemann et al.,
2006; Bara, 2006). A score of +100 indicates a completely right-wing manifesto, while a
score of -100 signifies an entirely left-wing manifesto. British parties’ manifestos have
usually fallen within a range stretching from +30 on the right to -40 on the left. One drawback
of the CMP scores is that they are unrelated to voters’ preferences: the centre-point of the
scale is rather arbitrary and cannot be taken as the position of the median voter without further
evidence. Indeed, the CMP data is somewhat controversial, with some political scientists
questioning whether it really does capture parties’ policy positions (see Volkens, 2001; Laver
et al., 2003). Therefore, it is best regarded as suggestive, as one indicator of policy, although
as is revealed later, it (often) tells a similar story to the BES data.
8
Figure 3: Left-Right Placement of British Parties’ Manifestos, 1983-2005
RIGHT
Conservative
Alliance/Lib Dem
Labour
40
30
20
10
0
-10
LEFT
-20
-30
-40
1983
1987
1992
1997
2001
2005
Sources: Budge et al., 2001; Klingemann et al., 2006.
Note: Scale: -100 = completely left-wing; +100 = completely right-wing
Figure 3 shows the CMP’s data for Britain between 1983 and 2005. It confirms the
impression that the period 1997-2005 was one of policy convergence between Labour and the
Conservatives (and the Liberal Democrats) – the closest they have been since the 1950s,
according to the same dataset. In 1997 and 2001, Labour even fell on the right side of the
political spectrum for the first time in its history, with only a slight track back to the left in
2005. Under Blair, Labour occupied traditional Tory territory on economic management,
defence and crime, which effectively led the parties to compete for centre-right voters. During
the same period, the Conservatives were shifting towards them and away from their more
9
rightist Thatcherite positions of the 1980s. This closeness was apparent in actual policies. On
taxation, the distance between Labour and the Conservatives was the £4 billion of tax cuts
that the Tories planned to make – these amounted to 0.3 percent of national income, an almost
imperceptible figure. Even on issues such as immigration, where the Tories promised strict
quotas and an Australian-style points-based system, Labour replied with its own points
system. The period 2003-05 also witnessed another major area of agreement between Labour
and the Conservatives: support for the Iraq War, which only the anti-war Liberal Democrats
were able to use to damage the government.
If it were the case that both Labour and the Conservatives were to the right of the median
voter – something it is not possible to discern from the CMP data – the dynamics of party
competition would be somewhat different from either of the conjunctures in Figure 2. In a
two-party setting, a party that were sufficiently ruthless and ideologically mobile could take
advantage of any non-centrist position that its opponent might adopt by siding up next to it so
that both parties were on the same side of the median-voter position. This scenario is depicted
in Figure 4. The Conservative Party is positioned on the centre-right of the policy spectrum,
but the Labour Party, rather than staying to the left of the median voter, has moved past it and
positioned itself slightly to the left of the Conservatives on the right-hand side of the policy
spectrum.6 If we assume there is no (or little) abstention among voters on the left of the policy
spectrum, Labour will win the election because it is closer to the median voter – thus
explaining the paradox that the two major parties can have similar policies but enjoy greatly
contrasting electoral fortunes.7
10
Figure 4: Policy Convergence to the Right of the Median Voter Position
M
LAB CON
Some electoral analysts tend to assume that in spatial models, parties look to locate
themselves as close as possible to the median voter in order to maximise votes (e.g. Whiteley,
et al., 2005: 147).8 In fact, the prediction of two-party spatial models is that the party closest
to the median voter will win the election. Convergence at the median-voter position is an
equilibrium in the two-party spatial model, but if one party, for whatever reason, remains
some distance from the median voter’s bliss point, its rival maximises votes by adopting a
similar policy position, while remaining closer to the median voter, as in Figure 4.
This Labour strategy presents the Conservatives with a strategic problem. The Tories need to
be closer to the median voter if they are to be electorally competitive, but they are blocked by
the presence of Labour. One possibility is to leap-frog over Labour and become slightly more
leftist. Interestingly, Downs (1957: 122-3) ruled out this possibility as one of the constraints
on party behaviour in his spatial model, although as subsequent writers have pointed out,
there is nothing in the logic of the model to justify this move (e.g. Laver, 1997: 112). In the
real world of party politics, however, there may well be such a constraint because a centreright party that tried to pass itself off as more leftist than its centre-left opponent would lack
credibility and not be trusted by voters (see Downs, 1957: 96-113).
11
From this perspective, the main obstacle to a Conservative revival was not their right-wing
policies – according to the CMP data, their last two manifestos have been their most centrist
since October 1974 – but rather the electoral strategy of New Labour, whereby the party often
occupied territory just to the right of centre. This conjuncture somewhat echoes that of the
mid-late 1950s, another time of policy convergence between the parties, but this time it was
the Conservatives who had shifted towards Labour and adopted some of their centre-left
policies, winning three consecutive election victories.9 Then as now, more radical voices in
the opposition party sought to respond to this invasion of their political territory by adopting a
more radical policy position (the Bevanites in the Labour Party in the 1950s and the taxcutting right in the Conservative Party after 1997). Then as now, the more moderate voices
were initially undermined by not having a clear idea about what to do to reverse their party’s
fortunes. Then as now, questions were asked about what the opposition party stood for. This
comparison is perhaps better than the frequently-made one between the Conservatives’
predicament after 1997 and Labour’s travails in the 1980s, when the policy difference
between the parties was huge, necessitating centrist shifts by Labour (see Figure 3).10
The CMP data is based on policies that the parties themselves put forward in their manifestos,
but it does not provide data on voters’ preferences. For the latter we must rely on opinion
polls and large-scale surveys such as the British Election Study. Before and after each general
election, the BES asks a large panel of respondents various questions on their political
preferences and views of the parties. Among them are questions that ask respondents to locate
themselves and the parties on 11-point scales for a number of different policy issues. Figure 5
below plots on a continuum the mean scores for the issue of taxation and spending on public
services, one of the key issues in any election.
12
Figure 5: Mean Voter Placements of Voters, Labour and Conservatives on Taxation Versus
Public Spending (1997-2005)
LAB Voters
(6.37) (6.28)
1997
CON
(3.07)
(Lib Dems = 6.25)
More taxes,
higher spending
Lower taxes,
lower spending
10
9
8
7
6
5
Voters LAB
(6.46) (5.93)
2001
4
3
2
1
CON
(4.61)
0
(Lib Dems = 6.51)
More taxes,
higher spending
Lower taxes,
lower spending
10
9
8
7
6
LAB
(6.07)
2005
5
4
3
2
1
Voters CON
(6.05) (5.00)
0
(Lib Dems = 6.06)
More taxes,
higher spending
Lower taxes,
lower spending
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Source: British Election Study, post-election waves, 1997, 2001 and 2005
Note: Q. (2005) Using the 0 to 10 scale on this card, where the end marked 0 means that
government should cut taxes and spend much less on health and social services, and the end
marked 10 means that government should raise taxes a lot and spend much more on health
and social services, where would you place yourself on this scale? (And where would you
place…) Please take your answers from this card. [BES in 1997 and 2001 used very similar
questions]
13
A number of interesting points arise from this data. First, the biggest perceived gap between
Labour and the Conservatives was in 1997, though the CMP data suggests that the parties had
converged since 1992. This perception may have reflected the widespread belief that public
services had been neglected by the Major government. In 2001 and 2005 the gap between
Labour and the Conservatives narrowed considerably, with Labour shifting slightly to the
right in voters’ minds and the Conservatives to the left. The mean voter shifted very slightly
to the right. Second, in all three elections, the average voter saw himself as closer to Labour
than to the Conservatives, with an almost imperceptible difference between Labour and the
mean voter in 1997 and 2005. Third, in 2001 the mean voter placed Labour somewhat to the
right of himself, with the Conservatives further right. This judgment would have reflected
voters’ views of Labour’s first term in office, when it stuck to tight spending controls in its
first two years. Even the significant increase in public spending in Labour’s second term had
little effect on perceptions of Labour on tax-and-spend.
This data lends some support to the earlier argument about the Conservatives’ strategic
dilemma (Figure 4). By 2001, Labour had positioned itself in voters’ minds between the
Conservatives and the mean voter, presenting the Tories with the problem of how to position
themselves closer to voters’ preferences. This problem had not been fully alleviated by 2005,
when voters and Labour shared virtually the same point on the continuum, although the
Tories were not regarded as being very far from the mean voter.
The CMP and BES data both indicate that party competition was rather unusual during the
years of the Blair government. The CMP suggests that the two main parties were both slightly
to the right of centre in 1997 and 2001, while the BES found that voters placed themselves to
14
the left of both parties on tax-and-spend in 2001. In terms of policy, it may have been the case
that there was little more the Conservatives could have done to make themselves more
competitive in 2001 (Green, 2005: 125). By 2005, Labour had shifted slightly to the left
according to the CMP, while the BES found that voters positioned themselves at almost the
same point as Labour. Labour’s tentative vacating of centre-right territory – largely because
of the need to raise taxes and pour money into the public services – at least offered the
Conservatives the hope of winning the votes of some voters who found themselves positioned
between the two main parties.
Party Competition and ‘Security’ Issues
Although policy on taxation and public spending is vitally important, it is not the only issue
that voters consider at election time. During Labour’s second term, ‘security’ issues such as
crime, terrorism and immigration rose up the list of salient issues, largely as a direct and
indirect consequence of the 9/11 terror attacks (Quinn, 2006: 18-24). These issues roughly
relate to the second major ideological dimension traditionally used by political scientists, that
of authoritarianism-liberalism (see Heath, et al., 1994). The BES collects data on respondents’
views of where the parties are positioned on the trade-off between reducing crime and
protecting the rights of suspects. (Immigration is categorised by the BES as a ‘valence’ (i.e.
competence) issue and so no data is collected on where respondents position the parties,
although they are asked which party would best handle the issue – see below.)
15
Figure 6: Mean Voter Placements of Voters, Labour and Conservatives on Crime Reduction
Versus Protection of Rights (2001-05)
(Lib Dems = 4.84)
LAB CON Voters
(4.93) (3.96) (3.56)
2001
Protect rights >
reduce crime
Reduce crime >
protect rights
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
(Lib Dems = 4.98)
LAB CON Voters
(5.14) (4.10) (3.65)
2005
0
Protect rights >
reduce crime
Reduce crime >
protect rights
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Source: British Election Study, post-election waves, 2001 and 2005
Note: Q. Some people think that reducing crime is more important than protecting the rights
of people accused of committing crimes. Other people think that protecting the rights of
accused people is more important than reducing crime. On the 0-10 scale below, where would
you place yourself? (And where would you place ...) Please take your answers from this card.
Figure 6 shows the mean voter positions and mean party positions, as perceived by BES
respondents, for law-and-order in 2001 and 2005 (this question was not asked in the 1997
BES). In each case, Labour was in the centre of the continuum, with the Conservatives to the
right and voters even further to the right. However, the distances between the parties and with
voters were not particularly great. Labour was largely able to nullify much of the positional
advantage the Conservatives enjoyed on the issue; certainly, Labour was not seen as ‘soft’ on
16
crime by voters as a whole (probably because David Blunkett had been a blunt and vocal
critic of liberals in the criminal justice system when he was home secretary).
The charge that the Conservatives have been too right-wing faces two problems in relation to
the law-and-order issue. First, the Conservatives were seen as slightly to the left of public
opinion on the issue. Second, Labour itself, although seen as to the left of the Conservatives
on crime, was not especially so. Its own policies in this area included flagship measures such
as anti-social behaviour orders, as well as numerous legislative measures to tackle crime.
In summary, the BES data on tax-and-spend and law-and-order suggests that there was a
considerable degree of policy convergence between the two (indeed, the three) main parties.
Sometimes, this convergence was to the right of the mean voter (tax-and-spend in 2001),
sometimes to the left of the mean voter (law-and-order in 2001 and 2005), and sometimes
towards the mean voter, with the parties on different sides (tax-and-spend in 2005). But voters
perceived the policy gap between the Conservatives and Labour to be narrowing, particularly
on tax-and-spend. This story is hard to square with the conventional wisdom that the
Conservatives have been too right-wing and need to move to the centre, if only because this
process has been happening continuously for the last ten years.
The Conservative Party’s Image Problem
The previous section showed that voters perceived policy convergence between the
Conservatives and Labour. However, Figure 1 showed that voters also saw the Tories and
their then-leader, Michael Howard, as ‘fairly right-wing’.11 Clearly, this judgment must have
been based on something other than policies. A clue was provided by an ICM poll for the
BBC’s Newsnight programme in February 2005. It showed that support for strict controls on
17
immigration decreased from 82 percent to 65 percent once voters were told that this policy
was a Conservative policy, while opposition rose from 18 percent to 35 percent. Net support
thus fell from 64 percent to 30 percent.12 In short, the party’s image was damaged: as King
(2006: 166) observes, ‘[i]t was not Tory policies that were disliked, it was the Tories’.
Image, or ‘brand’ as it is sometimes described, is important because it represents what Francis
Maude, a former Conservative chairman, called a party’s ‘personality’ (Philp, 2006: 34). It is
the perception that voters have of a party, perceptions that may be only partly related to
policy. Party image subsumes a number of things. It reflects voters’ views of the public face
of the party, in the form of its leading personnel, as well as perceptions of which social groups
the party represents. It also reflects a party’s language, tone of voice, and general attitude
towards the wider world: it could be optimistic, caring, modern and forward-looking, or the
opposite – pessimistic, selfish, old-fashioned and backward-looking. The same set of policies
could, in principle, co-exist with either of these ‘personalities’, but a party is likely to improve
its electoral prospects with a given set of policies if it enjoys a positive public image.
The Conservatives suffered immense image problems in the post-1997 period. Some of these
dated from the Major government (see Norton, 1998). The events of ‘Black Wednesday’ in
September 1992, when the pound was chaotically ejected from the European Exchange Rate
Mechanism, robbed the Conservatives’ of their long-standing reputation for sound economic
management. It compounded dismay over the recession of 1990-92, in which many people
struggled with mortgage payments. Despite an economic recovery in the mid-1990s, voters
never forgave the Major government, and once New Labour had demonstrated its own
economic credentials, voters were disinclined to trust the Conservative Party on the
management of the economy. A YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph days before the 2005
18
general election found that 52 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, ‘I still hold
against the Conservatives the chaos and hardship of the early 1990s when interest rates went
through the roof and John Major and Norman Lamont couldn’t prevent Britain being forced
out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism’ (just 36 percent disagreed).13 Economic incompetence
can have drastic consequences for the well-being and livelihoods of ordinary people, and if a
party acquires such a reputation, it can poison its overall image in the eyes of voters.
A further problem inherited from the Major years was the Conservatives’ internal divisions.
MORI polls found that when respondents were presented with a list of attributes to describe
the Conservative Party, one of the most frequently chosen was ‘divided’, with 50 percent
using this description in 1997 and 42 percent using it in 2001.14 The divisions in the
Conservative Party were principally over European integration, with long-running factional
disputes between Eurosceptics and Europhiles (see Turner, 2000). The Conservatives’ internal
battles over Europe were different from the factional conflicts in the Labour Party a decade
earlier. Unlike in the Labour Party, the ‘radical’ faction – in the Tories’ case, the Eurosceptics
– was not unpopular among voters. On the contrary, the British public had itself become
increasingly Eurosceptic. The BES found that voters positioned themselves closer to the
Conservatives than to Labour on the issue of Europe. On an 11-point scale, where 0 was the
most anti-European position and 10 the most pro-European point, voters on average
positioned themselves at 5.2, the Conservatives at 4.3, the Liberal Democrats at 6.9 and
Labour at 7.6 (Whiteley et al., 2005: 150). However, despite the Tories’ often intense focus
on Europe, especially in 2001, voters did not consider it especially important. The main
problem that Europe caused the party was not that it made voters consider them extreme, but
that it advertised their divisions (Evans, 1998).
19
Important as these perceived problems of incompetence and division were for the
Conservatives, they do not explain why the party was viewed as ‘fairly right-wing’.
Explaining the latter will reveal what the party must do to ‘shift to the centre-ground’. In fact,
the Conservatives’ major problem was that they did not look particularly ‘mainstream’ in
important ways. Too often, the party appeared to embody selfishness and a socially exclusive
appeal. It was also seen by many people as ‘nasty’ and angry about the modern world. This
sense was reinforced by the party’s sometimes old-fashioned image. Each of these image
problems is examined in turn.
Selfish and Socially Exclusive?
Figure 7 shows the results of a YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph in October 2005 in
which respondents were asked to say whether or not the Conservatives were ‘close’ to various
social groups.15 Large majorities saw the party as close to the rich, big business and rural
dwellers, whereas almost equally big majorities saw them as not being close to the poor, the
working classes and trade unionists, among others. If the latter negative findings were not
particularly surprising, the problem was that the first three groups were the only ones that
respondents associated with the Tories. Being seen as a party of the well-off limited the
Conservatives’ electoral appeal. It fed into voters’ fears about how the party would manage
the public services that most people relied on, with suspicions that they might privatise them.
People will usually be disinclined to support a party if they believe it does not understand
their economic circumstances because it speaks mainly for the wealthy, or it simply wants the
well-off to have the right to get richer while everyone else must fend for themselves. In this
context, ‘shifting to the centre’ would entail being more representative of all socio-economic
groups and banishing the perception that the party represented only the ‘haves’.
20
Figure 7: Conservative Party’s Perceived Closeness to Social Groups
The rich
Professional and business people
People who live in the country
Women
Old people
People who live in large towns and cities
People like myself
Gay people
Members of ethnic minorities
Working-class people
Trade union members
Young people
The poor
-90 -80 -70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10
0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Source: YouGov, ‘Iraq, Conservative Party’, poll for the Daily Telegraph, 4 October 2005,
retrieved 1 December 2007 from
<http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL050101044_1.pdf>.
Notes: Q. People often see political parties as being close, or not close, to various sections of
society. How close do you see the Conservative Party as being to each of these kinds of
people?
Graph shows proportion of people saying the Conservative Party is very or fairly close minus
the proportion saying they are not very or not at all close to various groups.
21
The ‘Nasty Party’?
It was shown earlier that the Conservatives were in tune with public opinion on law-andorder, a key issue on the authoritarianism-liberalism dimension. The BES also found that the
Tories were seen as the best party to deal with the issue of immigration and asylum (Table 1).
According to the BES, immigration/asylum was the most salient issue in the 2005 election. It
would seem unsurprising, therefore, that the Conservatives chose to put immigration at the
forefront of their election campaign in 2005. The party’s manifesto focused on five key policy
areas, of which one was immigration. The relevant section was headed, ‘It’s not racist to
impose limits on immigration’, a slogan that also adorned a large campaign poster (Kavanagh
and Butler, 2005: 76). Research commissioned by the Conservative donor, Michael Ashcroft,
found that the Tories’ stance on immigration was the theme that voters most remembered
from their campaign (Ashcroft, 2005: 34-43).
Table 1: Most Important Issue and Party Best Able to Handle It (2005)
Best Party
Labour
Conservative
Liberal
Democrats
Asylum/immigration (20.7)
22.2
37.3
4.8
NHS (15.3)
49.9
19.5
6.3
Law and order (11.9)
34.4
31.7
4.5
Economy/unemployment (7.7)
60.2
18.6
5.2
Education (6.4)
50.4
15.7
17.9
EU/EMU (5.7)
42.1
19.9
13.2
Source: British Election Study 2005 (post-election wave)
Note: Figures in brackets in first column show percentage of all respondents thinking this
issue is most important one. Figures in columns 2-4 show percentage believing each party
best able to handle issue, among those who cited issue as most important.
22
The danger of this focus was that the Conservatives risked being seen as unsympathetic and
even ‘nasty’ – the latter being the description offered of the party by its own chairman,
Theresa May, in 2002. Although Labour was also keen to emphasise its tough credentials on
security issues, it nevertheless retained a more ‘caring’ image because of its association with
public services and ‘social justice’. The Conservatives did not have this image to fall back on,
so they risked appearing merely angry. The Tories’ tone of language on crime and
immigration, as well as their perceived antipathy to other social groups such as the poor,
single mothers, ethnic minorities and gays (see below), crystallised their ‘nasty party’ image
(see Cowley and Green, 2005: 51-2; Lynch and Garnett, 2003: 260-1; Norton, 2006: 46). It is
what most critics probably meant when they said the party was ‘too right-wing’.
William Hague and Michael Howard regularly succumbed to the temptation of using
authoritarian rhetoric when talking about crime and immigration. Hague gave a notorious
speech in 2001, referring to Britain becoming ‘a foreign land’; even if he did not explicitly
relate this image to immigration, his spin doctors briefed journalists that he was indeed
referring to this issue (Lynch, 2003: 191). He also expressed sympathy with a farmer who had
been jailed for shooting an intruder in his home (Seldon and Snowdon, 2005: 255). During the
2005 election campaign, there was much talk in the media of the Conservatives’ ‘dog-whistle
politics’: couching speeches and slogans in language that appeared benign but which
contained coded words whose hard-line intent would be understood by right-wing voters
(including the party’s election slogan, ‘Are you thinking what we’re thinking?’). Even when
Howard’s Conservatives spoke about public services, they tended to play on people’s fears:
the manifesto section on health emphasised anxieties about contracting superbugs in hospitals,
while the section on education focused on bringing discipline back to unruly classrooms
(Conservative Party, 2005).
23
This language and issue focus might have helped the Tories had their target voters found it
attractive, but the evidence is that they did not. The BES survey for 2005 confirmed the
findings of polling reported by Ashcroft: the most anti-immigrant segments of the population
were the working classes, i.e. the social group least likely to support the Conservatives. In
contrast, the electorally crucial salariat (professional middle classes) tended to be more liberal
on immigration. In 1992, the Conservatives led Labour by 56 percent to 20 percent among the
salariat, but by 2005, the gap had shrunk to 2 percent, with the Tories winning 36 percent to
Labour’s 34 percent; the Liberal Democrats’ support among the salariat rose slightly, from 21
percent to 23 percent during this period (Sanders, 1993: 189; Bartle and Laycock, 2006: 82).
It seems likely that the Tories’ image as the ‘nasty party’ cost it dear among a group whose
support is indispensable if the party is to win an election (see Portillo, 2007b). In this sense,
‘shifting to the centre-ground’ would entail softening the party’s tone and rhetoric on
immigration, even if the policies themselves were modified only marginally.
Some political scientists argue that issues such as immigration and race relations should be
separated from the old authoritarian-liberal ideological dimension because they entail
attitudes towards something else, namely, the ‘tolerance of difference’ (Sanders, 2006). Hardline views on crime can co-exist with liberal views on immigration. ‘Shifting to the centreground’ thereby involves becoming more tolerant of difference, partly in relation to race and
immigration, but also in relation to other aspects of modern life, as shown in the next section.
Old-fashioned and Stuck in the Past?
One of the major problems facing the Conservative Party after 1997 was the perception that it
was old-fashioned and ill at ease with the modern world, a feeling compounded by the
24
resolutely modern New Labour government of Tony Blair. A YouGov poll shortly before the
2005 general election offered respondents a series of statements and asked whether they
applied more to the Conservatives or Labour. The Tories had large leads on negative
statements such as, ‘It seems to appeal to one section of society rather than to the whole
country’ (48 percent cited the Tories, while 20 percent cited Labour); ‘It seems stuck in the
past’ (45 percent to Labour’s 11 percent); and ‘It seems rather old and tired’ (44 percent to
Labour’s 18 percent). In contrast, the Conservative Party lagged behind Labour on positive
statements such as, ‘It seems to have succeeded in moving on and left its past behind it’ (17
percent to Labour’s 42 percent) and ‘Even if I don’t agree with them, at least its heart is in the
right place’ (22 percent to Labour’s 40 percent).16
Part of the problem for the Conservatives was that British society had changed, becoming
socially more plural, but many people saw the Tories as a party that did not welcome this
development. Figure 7 presented earlier showed that the Conservatives were not seen as
‘close’ to gays, ethnic minorities, women or young people. Centre-right parties can sometimes
look old-fashioned, especially to the young. They tend to emphasise family values and garner
disproportionate support among the elderly, both of which were and are true of the British
Conservatives. However, the Tories had a deeper problem. They suffered from residual
memories of John Major’s infamous ‘back to basics’ campaign in the mid-1990s, when the
Conservative government appeared to be lecturing people on their lifestyles – especially
single mothers – while a succession of Tory MPs became embroiled in sexual scandals.
In addition, a fissure had opened up within the Thatcherite coalition between economic and
social liberals on the one hand and social conservatives on the other (Norton, 2002: 86-7;
2006: 35). The former would become the new ‘modernisers’ associated first with Michael
25
Portillo and later Cameron and the ‘Notting Hill set’. However, socially conservative
traditionalists sought to impose their will at crucial points during the Tories’ first two terms in
opposition. That was most evident with Iain Duncan Smith’s decision to impose a three-line
whip on what came to be called ‘gay adoption’, with high-profile social liberals defying the
leadership (Cowley and Green, 2005: 52-3). It was also seen earlier in relation to drugs, when
Ann Widdecombe, then shadow home secretary in Hague’s shadow cabinet, attempted to
impose a hard-line policy on cannabis. In addition, party spokesmen continued to express
their strong preference for marriage and traditional two-parent families.
Even if the party did not return to the hectoring tone of the Major years, its divisions over
social policy reinforced the image of a party still living in the past. Whereas US conservatives
have been able to appeal to religious ‘values voters’, the potential for the Tories to replicate
such a strategy is limited because Britain is largely a secular, socially liberal country. A
Populus poll commissioned by Ashcroft (2005: 26) found large majorities expressing support
for Britain’s multi-ethnic society, gay rights, the acceptability of cohabitation among
unmarried couples, the acceptability of lone-parent families, and the unacceptability of
governmental interference in people’s private behaviour (see Table 2).
26
Table 2: Social Liberalism in Britain
Indicators of Social Liberalism
% Agreeing
The single change that would most improve life in Britain today is
people being more tolerant of different ethnic groups and cultures
77
It is not a matter for political parties to express a preference between
marriage and couples living together outside marriage
70
The diverse mix of races, cultures and religions now found in our
society has been good for Britain
69
It is not a matter for political parties to express a preference between
two-parent families and one-parent families
66
Gay couples should have exactly the same rights as heterosexual
couples
65
Governments should not use the law to try and change people’s private
behaviour
65
Source: Ashcroft, 2005: 26
Public opinion has also become more liberal on the issue of drugs, especially soft drugs, such
as cannabis. A YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph in January 2004 found that 57 percent of
respondents believed that hard drugs should be distinguished from soft drugs (41 percent said
they were much the same). Although 47 percent thought soft drugs caused harm to all or most
users, the same proportion thought they caused harm to few users or to none at all. Moreover,
while 43 percent thought the sale and possession of soft drugs should remain criminal
offences, fully 51 percent said they should be either legalised (23 percent) or decriminalised,
i.e. seen as minor offences on a par with parking in the wrong place (28 percent). 17
27
Internal divisions over social policy reinforced the impression that many Conservatives
wanted to return to a mythical Golden Age, somewhere in the 1950s. Voters probably did not
regard such ideas as a threat, if only because few people in Britain seriously believe that the
government has much influence over people’s lifestyle choices. But old-fashioned views did
make the party appear out of touch, irrelevant, and somewhat ‘right-wing’ on the ‘pluralism
and tolerance’ dimension. A ‘shift to the centre-ground’ would, in this respect, require a
greater acceptance of modern social mores.
Each of these image problems for the Conservatives – their association with the rich, their
harsh tone on security issues, and their perceived intolerance – was exacerbated by the leaders
they chose during their first two terms in opposition. Here is not the place to undertake a
comprehensive analysis of leadership effects on party support, something on which political
scientists disagree (for contrasting views, see Bartle and Crewe, 2002; Evans and Anderson,
2005). However, not only did Hague, Duncan Smith and Howard all lag behind Blair in
satisfaction ratings,18 they all personified the right-wing image the party needed to soften. It
was the Conservatives’ misfortune that their most appealing electoral figure during these
years was Kenneth Clarke, whose pro-European views made him unacceptable to most of his
party. Consequently, when Tory leaders sought to broaden the party’s appeal by discussing
issues such as public services or criticising Blair’s conduct in the run-up to the Iraq War, they
tended to be seen as opportunistic. Hague and Howard were also accused of abandoning
earlier efforts to reposition the party and returning to the ‘core-vote strategy’ of appealing to
the Tories’ committed supporters – a move that was invariably accompanied by a return to the
strident tone that other voters found off-putting (Denham and O’Hara, 2007: 178-85).
28
Conclusion
Despite frequent injunctions by media commentators that the Conservatives must ‘shift to the
centre-ground’, this article has found that Conservative policies have not been particularly
right-wing over the last decade. Their policies have often been only marginally different from
New Labour’s. Indeed, one of the biggest obstacles in the Tories’ way was Tony Blair, who
was seen by voters as a centrist. His aggressive electoral strategy saw Labour competing with
the Tories not only for centrist but also centre-right voters. Gordon Brown, by contrast, is
seen as slightly left-of-centre and thereby offers a clearer target for the Conservatives: ‘clear
blue water’ might well help the Tories, but only if it opens up by Labour shifting to the left.
The major problem for the Conservatives, however, has been their negative public image. In
addition to a lingering perception of economic incompetence, they came across as uncaring,
strident and intolerant. These impressions helped foster the popular image of the Tories as
‘right-wing’. Consequently, David Cameron has spent his first two years as leader
‘rebranding’ his party and trying to convince voters that it was modernising. It is not the task
of this paper to examine Cameron’s strategy in detail (see Denham and O’Hara, 2007: 185-8;
Denham and Dorey, 2006; Dorey, 2007; Kerr, 2007), but a few observations are in order.
Thus far, Cameron has made few substantive policy pronouncements. Instead, he has sought
to ‘decontaminate’ his party’s brand, softening its tone, appearing more inclusive and
focusing on issues that enable the party to project a more caring image. Talk of tax cuts has
given way to an emphasis on public services, and Cameron sought to win over public-sector
workers by calling for fewer performance targets and more trust in professionals (see Sanders,
2006: 171-9). A new emphasis on the environment was partly intended to distance the party
from materialism and individual self-interest, and was symbolised by a change in the party’s
29
logo to an oak tree. Harsh rhetoric on security issues has been replaced by a stronger defence
of civil liberties. Meanwhile, Cameron has also tried to make his party look socially more
representative, by encouraging local Conservative associations to look beyond white,
professional married men when choosing parliamentary candidates (Dorey, 2007: 153-5).
Cameron’s efforts thus far have brought some success. A YouGov poll for Channel 4 News in
June 2007, similar to the one reported in Figure 1, found that respondents saw Cameron as
more centrist than the previous Conservative leader. His rating was +33 (‘slightly right-ofcentre’), although Gordon Brown, the man who was then waiting to take over as prime
minister, was closer to the centre (-26). Cameron’s bigger problem was that his party was still
seen as ‘fairly right-wing’ (+52). Furthermore, 44 percent agreed that ‘The Conservative Party
will prevent David Cameron’s policies from being as moderate as he would like them to be’,
with 17 percent disagreeing and 39 percent not knowing.19 It would seem that before the
Conservatives can make an electoral breakthrough, Cameron must convince voters not only
that he is modern and centrist, but that his party is too.
30
Notes
1. I would like to thank John Bartle, Ben Clements, Thomas Plümper and three anonymous
referees for their helpful comments on earlier versions of, or arguments in, this paper. Thanks
also to Ben Clements and Kristi Winters for their assistance with data handling.
2. Political Quarterly, Vol. 75, No 4 (2004).
3. Ipsos MORI, ‘Conservative Party Image’ polls, retrieved 1 December 2007 from
<http://www.ipsos-mori.com/polls/trends/party-img-con.shtml>.
4. YouGov, ‘Conservative Leader Election’, poll for the Daily Telegraph, 21 October 2005,
retrieved 1 December 2007 from
<http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL050101047_1.pdf>. The same poll found that 57
percent of Tory members viewed Cameron as a ‘one nation’ Conservative, while only 15
percent saw him as a ‘clear blue water’ Conservative.
5. On the Liberal Democrats’ electoral strategy, see Russell and Fieldhouse, 2005: 178-98.
6. This idea was expressed by a newspaper commentator in 2002: ‘The Tories’ dilemma now
is far worse than Labour’s during the 80s and early 90s. Then, though Labour was on the left,
the Tories were occupying the hard right: there was plenty of middle ground up for grabs.
This time, it’s entirely different. Tony Blair has taken not only the centre ground, but a good
chunk of the rightwing terrain as well.’ (Ashley, 2002)
31
7. For simplicity, the Liberal Democrats have been left out of this analysis. If they were
positioned between Labour and the Conservatives, all three parties would be to the right of the
median voter and Labour’s advantage would remain. If they were to the left of Labour, the
latter would lose some votes, although tactical voting in Labour-Conservative marginals
would reduce the damage.
8. Commenting on the 2005 BES self-placement scale for crime/suspects’ rights (for which
see Figure 6 below) Sanders (2006: 190-1) notes that the average voter is to the right of all
three parties on the issue, but is nearest to the Conservatives. He suggests that the Tories
could gain electoral advantage by shifting slightly to the right in order to be closer to the
mean voter. In fact, on the assumptions of the spatial model, the Conservatives already win all
the votes of people to their right on crime/rights and, in following Sanders’ advice, would lose
some (relatively) more liberal voters to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. If anything, votemaximising Tories should adopt a slightly more liberal position, to take some liberal votes off
Labour and the Liberal Democrats, while continuing to collect the votes of authoritarians by
remaining the ‘least liberal’ party on crime/rights. This strategic scenario is similar to that
depicted in Figure 4: this time, the parties are to the left of the mean voter, while the Tories,
not Labour, are closest.
9. For a dissenting voice on the existence of the post-war ‘consensus’, see Pimlott, 1988.
10. Blair’s electoral strategy, while damaging to the Conservatives, also imposed costs on his
own party. Labour’s shift to the right antagonised the party’s core voters, whose lack of
enthusiasm was evident in declining turnout in safe Labour seats and, in 2005, in a loss of
votes (and 12 seats) to the Liberal Democrats (Crewe, 2006: 205).
32
11. Another YouGov poll in October 2005 found that 58 percent of respondents thought the
incoming Tory leader should ‘move the Conservative Party away from the Right and towards
the political Centre’. Only 13 percent disagreed and 29 percent did not know. YouGov, ‘Iraq,
Conservative Party’, poll for the Daily Telegraph, 4 October 2005, retrieved 1 December
2007 from <http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL050101044_1.pdf>.
12. ICM, ‘Conservative Policies Survey’, poll for BBC Newsnight, 15 February 2005,
retrieved 26 January 2008 from
<http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/pdfs/2005_february_newsnight_conservative_policies_survey
.pdf>.
13. YouGov, ‘General Election Survey 8’, poll for the Daily Telegraph, 3 May 2005,
retrieved 1 December 2007 from
<http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL050101020_1.pdf>.
14. Ipsos MORI, ‘Conservative Party Image’ polls, retrieved 1 December 2007 from
<http://www.ipsos-mori.com/polls/trends/party-img-con.shtml>.
15. For further discussion of this poll, see King, 2006: 166-7.
16. YouGov, ‘General Election Survey 8’, poll for the Daily Telegraph, 3 May 2005,
retrieved 1 December 2007 from
<http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL050101020_1.pdf>.
33
17. YouGov, ‘Attitudes to Drugs’, poll for the Daily Telegraph, 26 January 2004, retrieved 1
December 2007 from <http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL040101001.pdf>.
18. Details of Ipsos MORI’s ‘Leaders’ Satisfaction Index’ polls are available from
<http://www.ipsos-mori.com/polls/trends/satisfac.shtml>.
19. YouGov, ‘Perceptions of the Parties on the Political Spectrum’, poll for Channel 4 News,
19 June 2007, retrieved 1 December 2007 from
<http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/ANA070101002_1.pdf>.
34
Bibliography
Adams, James and Samuel Merrill, III. (2006) Why Small, Centrist Third Parties Motivate
Policy Divergence by Major Parties, American Political Science Review 100: 403-17.
Ashcroft, Michael. (2005) Smell the Coffee: A Wake-up Call for the Conservative Party.
London: Michael Ashcroft.
Ashley, Jackie. (2002) The Tory Leader’s Not the Problem, It’s the Party Itself, The
Guardian, 7 October.
Ball, Stuart and Anthony Seldon, eds. (2005) Recovering Power: The Conservatives in
Opposition Since 1867. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bara, Judith. (2006) The 2005 Manifestos: A Sense of Déjà Vu?, Journal of Elections, Public
Opinion and Parties 16: 265-81.
Bartle, John and Ivor Crewe. (2002) The Impact of Party Leaders in Britain: Strong
Assumptions, Weak Evidence. In: Anthony King (ed.), Leaders’ Personalities and the
Outcomes of Democratic Elections. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bartle, John and Samantha Laycock. (2006) Elections and Voting. In: Patrick Dunleavy,
Richard Heffernan, Philip Cowley and Colin Hay (eds), Developments in British Politics 8.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Budge, Ian, Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Andrea Volkens, Judith Bara and Eric Tanenbaum.
(2001) Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors and Governments
1945-1998. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cameron, David. (2006) Speech to the Conservative Party Conference, 1 October 2006,
retrieved 1 December 2007 from
<http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=132485>.
Conservative Party (2005) Are You Thinking What We’re Thinking? Conservative Election
Manifesto 2005. London: Conservative Party.
35
Cowley, Philip and Jane Green. (2005) New Leaders, Same Problems: the Conservatives. In
Andrew Geddes and Jonathan Tonge (eds), Britain Decides: The UK General Election
2005. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Crewe, Ivor. (2006) New Labour’s Hegemony: Erosion or Extension? In: John Bartle and
Anthony King (eds), Britain at the Polls 2005. Washington D.C.: CQ Press.
Curtice, John and Michael Steed. (1997) Appendix 2: The Results Analysed. In: David Butler
and Dennis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 1997. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Curtice, John and Michael Steed. (2002) Appendix 2: An Analysis of the Results. In: David
Butler and Dennis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 2001. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Denham, Andrew and Peter Dorey. (2006) A Tale of Two Speeches? The Conservative
Leadership Election of 2005, Political Quarterly 77: 35-42.
Denham, Andrew and Kieron O’Hara. (2007) The Three ‘Mantras’: ‘Modernization’ and the
Conservative Party, British Politics 2: 167-90.
Denver, David. (2002) The Liberal Democrats in ‘Constructive Opposition’. In Anthony King
(ed.), Britain at the Polls 2001. New York: Chatham House Publishers.
Dorey, Peter. (2007) A New Direction or Another False Dawn? David Cameron and the Crisis
of British Conservatism, British Politics 2: 137-66.
Downs, Anthony. (1957) An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.
Evans, Geoffrey. (1998) Euroscepticism and Conservative Electoral Support: How an Asset
became a Liability, British Journal of Political Science 28: 573-90.
Evans, Geoffrey and Robert Anderson. (2005) The Impact of Party Leaders: How Blair Lost
Labour Votes. In Pippa Norris and Christopher Wlezien (eds), Britain Votes 2005. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Garnett, Mark and Philip Lynch eds. (2003) The Conservatives in Crisis. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
36
Green, Jane. (2005) Conservative Party Rationality: Learning the Lessons from the Last
Election for the Next, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 15: 111-27.
Green, Jane. (2007) When Voters and Parties Agree: Valence Issues and Party Competition,
Political Studies 55: 629-55.
Gyimah, Sam, ed. (2005) From the Ashes… The Future of the Conservative Party. London:
Bow Publications.
Heath, Anthony, Geoffrey Evans and Jean Martin. (1994) The Measurement of Core Beliefs
and Values: The Development of Balanced Socialist/Laissez Faire and
Libertarian/Authoritarian Scales, British Journal of Political Science 24: 115-32.
Kavanagh, Dennis and David Butler. (2005) The British General Election of 2005.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kerr, Peter. (2007) Cameron Chameleon and the Current State of Britain’s ‘Consensus’,
Parliamentary Affairs 60: 46-65.
King, Anthony. (2006) Why Labour Won – Yet Again. In: John Bartle and Anthony King
(eds), Britain at the Polls 2005. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
Klingemann, Hans-Dieter, Andrea Volkens, Judith Bara, Ian Budge and Michael McDonald.
(2006) Mapping Policy Preferences II: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments
in Eastern Europe, European Union and OECD 1990-2003. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Laver, Michael. (1997) Private Desires, Political Action: An Invitation to the Politics of
Rational Choice. London: Sage Publications.
Laver, Michael, Kenneth Benoit and John Garry. (2003) Extracting Policy Positions from
Political Texts Using Words as Data, American Political Science Review 97: 311-31.
Lynch, Philip. (2003) Nationhood and Identity in Conservative Politics. In Mark Garnett and
Philip Lynch (eds), The Conservatives in Crisis. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
37
Lynch, Philip and Mark Garnett. (2003) Conclusions: the Conservatives in Crisis. In: Mark
Garnett and Philip Lynch (eds), The Conservatives in Crisis. Manchester: Manchester
University Press.
Norris, Pippa and Joni Lovenduski. (2004) Why Parties Fail to Learn: Electoral Defeat,
Selective Perception and British Party Politics, Party Politics 10: 85-104.
Norton, Philip. (1998) The Conservative Party: ‘In Office But Not in Power’. In: Anthony
King (ed.), New Labour Triumphs: Britain at the Polls. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House
Publishers.
Norton, Philip. (2002) The Conservative Party: Is there Anyone Out There? In: Anthony King
(ed.), Britain at the Polls 2001. New York: Chatham House.
Norton, Philip. (2006) The Conservative Party: The Politics of Panic. In: John Bartle and
Anthony King (eds), Britain at the Polls 2005. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
Philp, Chris, ed. (2006) Conservative Revival: Blueprint for a Better Britain. London:
Politico’s.
Pimlott, Ben. (1988) The Myth of Consensus. In: Lesley M. Smith (ed.), The Making of
Britain: Echoes of Greatness. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Portillo, Michael. (2007a) Charisma Won’t Bring Power, David. You Need Cojones Too, The
Sunday Times, 15 July.
Portillo, Michael. (2007b) Immigration, the Taboo Word that Will Cost Cameron Dear, The
Sunday Times, 2 September.
Quinn, Thomas. (2006) Tony Blair’s Second Term. In: John Bartle and Anthony King (eds),
Britain at the Polls 2005. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
Russell, Andrew and Edward Fieldhouse. (2005) Neither Left nor Right? The Liberal
Democrats and the Electorate. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
38
Sanders, David. (1993) Why the Conservative Party Won – Again. In: Anthony King (ed.),
Britain at the Polls 1992. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers.
Sanders, David. (2006) Reflections on the 2005 General Election: Some Speculations on How
the Conservatives Can Win Next Time, British Politics 1: 170-94.
Seldon, Anthony and Peter Snowdon. (2005) The Barren Years: 1997-2005. In: Stuart Ball
and Anthony Seldon (eds), Recovering Power: The Conservatives in Opposition Since
1867. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Shaw, Eric. (1996) The Labour Party since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell.
Siaroff, Alan. (2003) Two-and-a-half Party Systems and the Comparative Role of the ‘Half’,
Party Politics 9: 267-90.
Tebbit, Norman. (2006) Change is Needed: But Be Careful, Mr Cameron, Daily Telegraph, 8
January.
Turner, John. (2000) The Tories and Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Volkens, Andrea. (2001) Manifesto Research since 1979: From Reliability to Validity. In:
Michael Laver (ed.), Estimating the Policy Positions of Political Actors. London:
Routledge.
Whiteley, Paul, Marianne Stewart, David Sanders and Harold Clarke. (2005) The Issue
Agenda and Voting in 2005. In: Pippa Norris and Christopher Wlezien (eds), Britain Votes
2005. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
39