Cameron calls for values-based Conservative campaign
David Cameron, the Conservatives head of policy co-ordination, has warned that negative or single-issue campaigning will not help the Tories win the upcoming general election.
Instead, he called for a focus on reminding voters that their core values are Conservative values, and on breaking down apathy and cynicism by setting out a timetable for exactly what they would do on coming to power.
In a speech to an Independent fringe meeting entitled “How do the Conservatives win this time?”, Mr Cameron said the Conservatives would not win by using “opportunist Punch and Judy politics”.
“We don’t win by a fruitless search for differences between us and our opponents where none really exist . It’s unattractive and it doesn’t work,” he added.
Nor would they win by being exclusively negative, Mr Cameron said.
“People now know they have been let down by Labour. We reminded them of that – quite rightly – during the local election campaign. They don’t need any more reminders from us. And every reminder we send probably says as much about us as it does about them.”
He also attacked single-issue campaigning, saying: “People want their political parties to tackle the broad range of issues that they care about. In the main that means schools, hospitals, crime, immigration and the economy. If you don’t sound balanced, you won’t seem balanced.”
He said Conservatives had to do better on reminding voters about what the party stood for, and that their values were in line with the Conservatives’. On questions such as how crime should be punished, whether families were the key building block of a stable society, and whether equality of opportunity mattered more than equality of outcome, people “almost anywhere” would give a Conservative answer, he said.
