Do we need Conservative Future?

I have recently seen a post on Liberal Democrat Voice entitled Opinion: Why do we need Liberal Youth?, inspired by the fact that the LYers are currently engaged in their annual elections. I've heard enough about past Liberal Youth elections to know when to leave private grief well alone.

But another youth & students wing is soon to have its own elections - Conservative Future. (Already a number of blogs such as Tory Bear are running opinion polls. If anyone wants to vote for me as a write-in candidate feel free to.) So it's time to raise a few questions, perhaps playing Devil's Advocate a little. Now I've been around the block a while and jokingly refer to myself as something of a Methuselah of CF, so maybe this is just the rumblings of a grumpy young man. And yes I'm approaching the upper age limit for CF so perhaps this is someone else's business now. But maybe this means I can speak more freely than others about the problems.

And I've also for a long time seen an organisation that at times has never really known what it's there for, which occasionally finds an answer only to ditch it soon after (usually after a change of leadership) and which seems clearer about what it isn't than what it is.

Now this doesn't apply everywhere. At the local level Conservative Future provides a useful way to recruit and engage younger members of the party (although historically retention has been poor) and the national brand provides both a uniform identity and quality materials that can't be duplicated elsewhere. (Of course at the university level this creates some problems because many of the university branches are much older than CF and are very reluctant to change their names. But the smaller bubble of university means that it's usually easier to advertise anyway and overcome this.)

At the area and regional level CF's record has been mixed with some successes when strong local branches have banded together and some failures when the organisation nationally has tried to direct things. The real problem here has long been a very weak structure between the branches and national level - the old system of just electing an area chair for each of 43(?) pre-defined areas did not in itself guarantee much overall success, though there have been many area chairs who have worked wonders in spite of the limited resources and support available.

At the national level CF has successively de facto decided (without, it has to be said, any real formal choice) that:

• It doesn't want to be a platform for expressing policy opinions that would encourage ideological faction fighting
• It doesn't want to be a super branch for London
• It doesn't want to just be an advertising service for local events
• It might want to get involved in the National Union of Students but then again it might not depending on the background and prejudices of whoever happens to have the portfolio
• It doesn't want to repeat the infamy of the Federation of Conservative Students
• It wants to avoid the Tory Boy stereotype of the last years of the Young Conservatives
• It doesn't want to repeat the previous CF leadership's mistakes

Yes this is negative, but there are some things CF has decided for:

• It wants to create an environment to encourage people to get and stay involved
• It wants to campaign for the party at all levels
• It wants to encourage talented younger members to rise fast in the party, particularly standing as candidates at all levels (and sometimes takes credit even when said candidate has had minimal involvement with, or support from, CF)
• It wants people to enjoy themselves

And a lot of this has taken place against a background of umpteen rounds of personality based infighting, with (let's be honest) many people putting themselves forward because they want to help and make a difference and instead merely finding themselves the subject of bullying and malicious gossip. It should not surprise anyone that there have been quite a number of resignations over the years by people who no longer want to put up with all the crap, especially when they seem unable to get much done. What does surprise is that few want to openly admit this, let alone take firm action to stamp it out.

This post has been quite negative. But the starting point for all improvement is to identify not just what is wrong but why it is wrong. Problems with both individuals and general culture can't be solved simply by changing the rules in the hope that whenever some last week's problem repeats itself exactly it will be solved differently. Whilst having a clear complaints process is essential, they also need to be solved by a proactive people based approach. More generally the organisation needs to find not just a direction, but also a destination, and one that there can be much greater continuity for.

So as the Conservative Future elections begin, I issue a challenge to everyone thinking of standing in them to answer these questions:

1. What is Conservative Future for?
2. What is the ultimate aim of CF?
3. How will you tackle the culture of nastiness that has driven away so many?

It's how people answer these questions, and nothing else, that will determine who I give my support to.

The consequences of fancy dress outfits

As seems frustratingly common these days, I was off-line for much of yesterday but heard about these events nonetheless. (For those who have missed the seeming deluge of coverage see ConservativeHome: Three CF activists expelled from party over online boasts about a Madeleine McCann fancy dress outfit.)

First off Matt Lewis is currently a fellow student here at Queen Mary, University of London but I don't know him that well (the curse of these days spending very little time on campus outside one's own department) having only met him on a few occasions. I can't recall ever encountering Richard Lowe at all and think I've only encountered Flick Cox from afar when she was elected to the national executive of the National Union of Students (she stood claiming to be an independent but was actually a member of one of the ruling factions - see In the world of Adam Nazir Ahmed Teladia: NUS NEC elections).

I don't think Matt meant to cause harm or offence and indeed as many others commenting on this have noted there are many other people who've similarly made bad taste comments and actions without having them dragged all over the media or getting back to the victims and their families. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a stupid thing to do and I have no doubt of his depth of horror at the consequences coming back upon him.

One point that has been rather overlooked is the comment (see Tory Bear: Sick):

Im quite glad about that, I would hate to have to end our friendsship when I become and MP because you had pulled a Prince Harry!!! LOL x

That's not the comment of someone being a friend, that's the comment of a scheming (and deluded) careerist.

But I will also be blunt - the reason this became a story and offended the McCann family is because another blogger took it upon themselves to act as judge, jury, executioner and town crier by running the story on his blog. That is also an act that causes offence to people.

On ideology in youth wings

Tory Bear has recently posted Back to the Future about the lack of ideological battles in Conservative Future elections. And he has a strong point - for as long as I can remember in Conservative Future (since about 2000 - yes I'm showing my age!) virtually all the candidates in elections for the national executive have run campaigns based on what sort of administration they would run if elected and nearly all have had supporters' lists that are ideologically all over the party. The handful who've tried for purity have never got anywhere and even those candidates strongly associated with certain ideological groups in the party have not tried to run on such a line.

Now to a large extent this is because the Conservative Future national executive is an administrative body and so it's utterly irrelevant as to what are someone's opinion on grammar schools, whether or not Conservative MEPs should sit in the European People's Party (although the issue of Conservative Future's affiliation to the European Democrat Students is one that could do with settling) or so forth.

But it's also because a lot in Conservative Future have always been deeply wary of bringing ideology into elections. Many of us have encountered the teenager and twenty-something year-old for whom everything in politics is absolutely back & white with nothing in between, for whom ideas of pragmatism, compromise, electability and so forth are anathema and who often calls for those who don't agree with them to leave the party. Friends in Labour and the Liberal Democrats have confirmed that this is not a feature unique to the right. The idea of ideological based elections brings the danger that the outcome would be a very ideological Conservative Future that would be very off putting to new members, to the detriment of membership and effectiveness. (That problem exists at the moment but it would hardly be resolved by this!) It could also become an embarrassment to the party in general if the youth wing started coming out with absurd policies. Then there's the danger that particular groups in the party would regard the youth wing as a platform to be captured for espousing their own particular policies rather than for benefiting the younger members of the party as a whole.

And what exactly is the point of a party's youth wing espousing political views, which would generally not be those of the membership as a whole or even a national council, but probably those of just those members of the executive controlling decisions and/or accessing the microphone? If it's to influence the party policy there are far better ways to do that - indeed it's better to be enabling individual members and groups to be able to submit their voice rather than have one single voice for all young members. If it's to give the organisation a sense of purpose then it's rather an extreme step to take. And taking it back to the issue of elections, what difference would it make if one candidate is from the One Nation wing of the party, one from the Thatcherite wing and one from the Faith, Flag & Family wing? How would their ability to do the job be in any way affected by this?

(The one point I have seen a few people raise is over the allocation of forty-two places on the Conservative National Convention that are reserved for Conservative Future. How the places should be filled has been a somewhat contentious issue over the years and in one election a chair candidate's supporters asserted that there is a danger of putting forty-two voting places in the wrong hands. But the answer to that must be reform of the Convention places, not hoping for the "right" hands!)

Battle of the CF blogs!

A little competition never hurts anyone. Recently the blog Tory Bear was launched, focusing mainly on gossip around Conservative Future. And now a rival has sprung up - the Blue Guerilla. Hopefully this will encourage the appearance of further such blogs and the competition will be a great force for driving up quality. Battle away!

Has Young Fine Gael lost the plot?

Young Fine Gael, the youth wing of one of the Irish political parties (but don't ask me what they stand for!), have launched posters in support of the European Constitution Lisbon "Treaty". And these are frankly some of the silliest arguments made in its favour yet:



Aren't they truly dire? Has Young Fine Gael got no serious reasons for people in the Republic of Ireland to vote yes?

Still at least the Irish get a say on this "Treaty", thanks to Supreme Court rulings, which is more than everyone gets. But then if other countries let the people have a say, they might "get it wrong" and that would never do for the "European Project", would it?

Oh and for those wondering, Young Fine Gael can hardly be called a counterpart of Conservative Future. The European affiliations aren't the same for one thing - Young Fine Gael is in Youth of the European People's Party and Conservative Future is, for some inexplicable reason, in European Democrat Students.

Hat tip to Iain Dale: Well I'm Convinced, How About You?!

Conservative Future elections

The Conservative Future elections are almost upon us and the various candidates are currently declaring. I am especially pleased to see that Daryl Williams is running for National Chairperson and he has my full support. In the time I've been involved with Conservative Future Daryl has always stood out as one of the best campaigners, bringing dedication, hard work and enthusiasm to the task and inspiring others, and he would take the organisation forward by huge leaps and bounds.

(See also ConservativeHome's CF Diary: Daryl Williams launches campaign for the chairmanship for many other endorsements of Daryl.)

Is first past the post a core belief of Conservatism?

Over on ConservativeHome: YourPlatform article - Christine Constable: When will Conservatives demonstrate their loyalty to the English?, a comment has been left:

Labour do indeed have a majority of seats in England but less votes cast for them than the Conservatives(2005 election). That's not a mandate to discriminate against the English in my book.

But the Conservative Party has long defended the first past the post voting system. Whilst I have no knowledge about the individual commenter's history on election systems, it would be fundamentally hypocritical to back a system and then rage against consequences of it. Also the Conservatives have never had the largest share of the vote in Wales, have not done so in Scotland for a long time and the last time the largest share of votes in Northern Ireland went to candidates pledged to take the Conservative whip was in 1970. That didn't stop the party governing the entire United Kingdom on many occasions.

But does conservatism ideologically prescribe a preferred voting system? Several years ago when I expressed surprise about the way the Conservative Future elections were done, I was bluntly told "We are Conservatives, we believe in first past the post" by one of the then executive members. It was one of those moments that show how often party youth wings can turn party positions into near orthodox religion. (Another came yesterday when doing some searching on LexisNexis I came across the case of the leaders of Oxford University Conservative Association denouncing advocates of voluntary student unionism as socialists! This was because it wasn't party policy!)

The Conservative Future case was also telling as in practice at the time the chairperson and executive elections weren't carried out by full first past the post, but rather by a limited system of elimination ballots, whereby an initial vote by just the executive members and the area chairpersons would vote, with only the top three candidates for national chairperson and the top ten for the six executive members going to the full membership. The whole system was frankly absurd - since only about twelve to fourteen candidates stood, ordinary CF members were told they weren't trusted to vote from twelve, but had to have the list whittled down to ten for them. (Similarly it was notable to have any more than four chairperson candidates.) With only a few candidates going to be eliminated in the first round, it rapidly turned into a process to try to tactically eliminate rival candidates and factions. (Some of the coverage of the early CF days in the LexisNexis archive suggests that this was always the intention.) It also did nothing to tackle the belief that CF was a clique. And with many candidates escaping elimination by only one or two votes (one candidate is to this day still known as "One Vote" because by only voting for himself he escaped the chop) the poor distribution of ballot papers was often highlighted and thought suspicious. Wisely the elimination round was scrapped in 2004.

Throughout the party there are a lot of places where the supposed absolute Conservative belief in first past the post is distinctly lacking. Let's just take two cases - candidate selection and the election of the party leader.

Candidate selection is not done on a simple first past the post ballot but a series of stages variously involving the selection committee and the full membership, with a series of elimination ballots. For one example, take a look at ConservativeHome Seats & Candidates: James Cleverly set to succeed Bob Neill at GLA, especially the video of the final selection meeting.

The leadership election has gone through several incarnations since 1965, but one of the constant features has been that the eventually elected leader must have at least half the votes cast in the final ballot, again with elimination ballots to reduce the number of candidates (and also in recent years denying the membership a full choice of everyone who stands). If it was a core principle of conservatism that first past the post is the perfect election system then I would have had the chance to vote for either Liam Fox or Kenneth Clarke, as well as for David Cameron or David Davis.

This leads to the age old debates about what voting system should be used for Westminster (and other elections in the UK). Now I'll be honest - there are a lot of people on all sides of the debate on proportional representation who have more than half an eye on the likely results for their own party. But I also think that too often parties' basic philosophies get overlooked. Practically all discussions about voting systems ultimately revolve around the degree of importance given to factors such as individual representation, stable government, simplicity for voters, the ease with which a government can be rejected and so forth. Is it surprising that an individualist party that believes in strong, stable clear-cut government favours a system that delivers this in this country?

Of course what works in one country doesn't necessarily work in others. First past the post has been proposed in referendums a couple of times in the Republic of Ireland but always rejected. Most reckon that if adopted it would permanently entrench a Fianna Fáil majority in the Dáil. In India it has been difficult for a single party or alliance to secure a majority at times, at one point having three elections in as many years. And in some African countries first past the post has reinforced single party government.

In this country for much of our history there has been more than one party that had a realistic chance of winning an overall Commons majority under first past the post. Indeed recent analyses and studies that suggested that it would take something like a 9% Conservative lead just to deprive Labour of a majority and that a Conservative majority may never be won again did lead to a lot of people (myself included) seriously reassessing our views on voting systems. Were we being opportunist? Or were we staying true to the principles of government that can be rejected by the electorate, and merely reconsidering the method of delivery?

And of course there are parts of the country where first past the post has historically worked against the Conservatives - most notably Wales and Scotland, where it has taken the additional member system top-up lists to deliver anything more than a micro parliamentary party in each of the devolved parliaments. When they have the power to do so, will the Welsh Conservatives/Ceidwadwyr Cymreig or the Scottish Conservatives change the system to one that would entrench permanent Labour control?

With a lot speculating about a hung House of Commons, with the prospect of the Liberal Democrats making electoral reform their blackmail for allowing government to function smoothly, to say nothing of the recent Commons vote for an all-elected House of Lords, the issue of proportional representation won't go away. Ever more Conservatives will be forced to work out whether their support for first past the post is rooted in principles or in mere party advantage.

Petition to scrap ID cards

Just a quick post to note the campaign just launched by Conservative Future to scrap ID cards. Check it out, especially for Boris Johnson's comments about what he do with a compulsory card.

Join Boris

On the purpose of Conservative Future

The other night I attended the King's College London Conservatives' Freshers' Party - all in all an enjoyable night. Whilst there I met for the first time Mark Clarke the new chairperson of Conservative Future. I was stunned to see how candid he is about the problems facing the organisation and he impressed me well, even though I endorsed a different candidate in the election. (He did, however, make two mistakes by forgetting to get me a Corona at the bar - although he did his best to make this up - and since then referring to my university as "London University". Given the controversy about this at his own alma mater I wonder if I should let this one go...)

Amidst this Mark challenged me to post on my blog what I think are the three defining purposes of Conservative Future. This isn't the strangest request I've ever had in Soho at 0100 but here's what I came up with that night, in no particular order:

*To serve as a forum and network to engage younger members of the Conservative Party.
*To provide younger members with the opportunity to influence policy (but notably not to be a potential platform for any faction in the Party to try and seize).
*To support and encourage local branches.

Perhaps there should also be:

*To teach bloggers how to better answer this question in the small hours.

I'll give it another go soon but what do others think a political party's youth wing exists for?

Caroline Hunt for Conservative Future Chairperson

Yes it's that time of year again. I am in disagreement with Iain Dale about an internal Conservative election.

The annual Conservative Future (CF) elections are on us again and in the race for National Chairperson I have decided to cast my vote for Caroline Hunt. In this crucial year, CF needs a strong and experienced Chairperson who can build up the organisation and take the fight to the other side. Caroline has shown she is dedicated and committed over the past two years and has the necessary experience for the task. It's telling that already LDYS (the young Mingers) see her as the most dangerous of the three candidates.

Caroline's website can be found here and her statement on the ConservativeHome CF diary is here.