Part of the discussion I had with David Cameron (results available in Company magazine, March issue, on sale at all good newsagents from 13 March) revolved around the Tories’ publication of draft manifesto chapters.

He said:

“We’ve launched it draft chapter by draft chapter, on the internet, with people then coming up with their ideas and their questions. I’ve done online public meetings, the first one I think 40 000 people took part and voted on which questions they wanted answered on their particular subject. So we’ve got a long way to go but I think it’s a world away from what we used to do. And the exciting thing is is it’s totally interactive – it’s driven by what people want to say rather than just being pushed stuff by the politicians.”

I asked him if this was a bit of a cop-out, maybe even played into (unfounded, by the way) accusations that the Conservatives are entirely focus-group driven.  He replied (unsurprisingly…) that he disagreed, because: “The draft manifesto is what we want to do, it’s what we believe in but I think in the modern world of Wikipedia and crowd sourcing and interacvtity it’s only right when you’re asking people and you want to be their government, look here’s our draft manifesto what do you think, what have we left out, what do you most think is your priority? I think it’s a very good and modern way of doing politics.”

At the time, I was a bit sceptical. After all, four years of research, policy work, review and discussion – surely they are ready to make the argument for the policies they believe in? But actually, the more I think about it, and the more I hear about just how fed up of politics as usual voters are, the more I think that if this process is seen to be making a difference, then it can only be a good thing.

After all, we are a representative democracy. Our politicians are supposed to be answerable to us. They are supposed to represent us – not just pass laws from on high.  I do want politicians to listen, and react to what we say.

Remember when Tony Blair was attacked on Newsnight about the 48 hour GP targets – he had absolutely no idea what was going on. He assumed that because his government’s 48 hour target was being met, everything was ticking over nicely. But he was very wrong. Politicians need to work out a way to get the real facts – targets being met did not tell them that the GPs’ surgeries just disconnected the phone once two days’ of appointments had been made.

Gordon Brown is right on one thing: politics is all about choices. But you can’t make an informed choice unless you have enough information, and politicians need to make sure that they can access enough information from sufficiently diverse sources to inform the choices they make in our name.

While it does have to actually make a difference (in my experience, fake concern is worse than no concern at all), I have become a fan of wiki-writing the manifesto.  It’s all part of the post-bureaucratic way of doing things…

Most political news is about personality and politics rather than policy.  At the moment that’s particularly true – the big stories of recent weeks have been about Brown’s behaviour, Lord Ashcroft, what the polls say.  Next week promises more of the same – a Channel 4 programme on Cameron, and the court appearance of some of the people charged as part of the expenses scandal.

I’ve often wondered how much difference all this news makes.  Sit through a focus group, or speak to your least political friends and you will hear one thing time and time again: “they are all the same”.  So much of this bad political news is just reinforcing what people think anyway – it is “already in the share price” as they say in the City.

Danny Finkelstein made the point nicely in an article last week:

The cynicism about politics is so pervasive that it embraces almost all political activity. Use a statistic? It’s a lie. Cry on television about your dead child? It’s an election gimmick. Attack your opponents’ policy? You would say that, wouldn’t you.   And this cynicism extends to the media and our coverage.  So not only politics, but news about politics, is seen as a fiction inside an untruth wrapped in a piece of spin… Most of politics and most political coverage proceeds as if there was still a reasonable degree of trust. As if the messages were still getting through, still being listened to, still being weighed up.

For the government of the day the clear implication is that what really matters is not their spin but whether they can deliver better results on the ground (a point grasped by Tony Blair some time in his second term).  It is rather more difficult for the opposition to act on this insight.  However, at the start of his time as Conservative leader David Cameron did emphasise that he would always aim to “show, not tell” people that the party had changed.  And there was something of this in Cameron’s initial reaction to the expenses scandal – when he was prepared to take a stand unpopular among some of his MPs.

The big problem for Cameron is that the Government has managed to shift so much the real-world pain the public will feel until after the election by running up huge debts.  So right now the public services are still hiring away. On the ground, things don’t look so bad.  At least, not yet.

We know more or less what the Budget is going to say already.

The Government is thinking not about how to reduce the soaring deficit – but how to spend the receipts from the super-tax in a pre-election giveaway.  We will see mock “surprise” at how much the bonus tax has raised, and condemnation of those who “said it wouldn’t raise any money”.  We will see big figures for savings based around finally officially scrapping the disastrous NHS IT programme and merging a few Primary Care Trusts.  If Liam Byrne has his way (and he probably won’t) the government may even nod to the markets by stressing how “tough” it is planning to be on public sector pay post election (nominal rises less than 1%, meaning small real-terms cuts).  The one thing it won’t do is make any meaningful effort to control the vast deficit.  Instead the Government will try to keep the debate narrowly focused around the timing of cuts – not the content.

Ironically, this is where public cynicism might ride to the rescue of the Conservatives. The idea that politicians will spend now and cut after the election is highly plausible for most world-weary voters. In the 1974 election Willy Whitelaw accused Harold Wilson of going “round and round the country stirring up apathy”.  The Tories won’t need to go round “stirring up” cynicism about the budget.  But they will need to try and be in a position to exploit it.

Neil O’Brien is the Director of Policy Exchange

What do the Tories stand for? The charge that the Conservatives have not made clear what they stand for has been slowly gathering momentum ironically ever since the Conservatives started their ‘one a week’ policy series. Right wing commentators who are fearful that a Cameron Conservative government will not govern in an appropriately conservative enough way have fanned this criticism. A few weeks ago Simon Heffer clarified this view when writing “the problem for the Tories is this, succinctly put to me by a close observer to the party of the day: if you board a bus anywhere in these islands, sat down next to a passenger at random and asked what it stood for, he or she could not tell you”. This got me thinking. Does Simon Heffer ever use public transport? Who is this sage observer who bothers random people on buses? Is the assertion true? I grabbed my Oyster card and went to the bus stop. In the interests of polling methodology I should reveal that I live what Alistair Campbell may describe as a ‘bog-standard’ middle-class London lifestyle.

I won’t lie to you. At first I was a bit apprehensive about approaching people, but I was glad to find that most people do not mind being asked about their opinions. The instant response was ‘umm not sure’ which was then followed by an opinion of what the Conservatives stood for. The two most popular answers were that the Tories would:

• Cut the deficit
• Promote the family

A couple of people said that they would protect the interests of the rich and one lady said she was not sure but they had to be better than the current lot so she would vote for them anyway.

It is only fair that I answer my own question. For me the Conservatives stand for opportunity, which they will facilitate through governing by trust. A Conservative Government will trust local groups to decide what needs doing and how plans should be executed. Labour’s obsession with mechanical control has been both expensive and stifling. It has lead to the ID card debacle; massive increase in state monitoring and situations such as a 64.4% increase in NHS managers. The Conservatives will also focus on the important task of regaining the public’s trust in politicians and Government. This will be done through the transparency agenda, which will allow people greater choice in deciding how politicians should be accountable.

Since I started my little experiment there has been a media frenzy over the Tory poll-acoaster. Most pundits have been asking the question ‘Why are the Conservatives slipping?’ and then answering their own question by saying ‘I told you so, you’re not the right type of Conservative’. This sort of analysis loses sight of the bigger picture. For me the real question should be ‘Why were the Tories so far ahead in the first place?’. This election is the antithesis of 1997. The electorate is not in the mood to place the same amount of trust and hope in our elected representatives as they did with Tony Blair in the great political love-in of 1997. There is an underlying feeling that no prospective government should be given an easy ride or have its promises taken at face value. The people I spoke to could tell me what the Conservatives stood for but this was not the same as them believing that the Tories would make a positive difference. It seems to be that the deal can only really be sealed once a new Government has proved that they are governing in a new way. Many people will enter the voting booths begrudgingly. This will lead to certain amount of electoral volatility, which will manifest itself in some odd results. The polls should be taken with a pinch of salt, and should not distract us from working hard to promote the benefits of a Conservative government.

My conclusion after a week on the bus is that this country is complex. It is full of people with differing needs and beliefs. While a couple of consistent themes did emerge no one gave me exactly the same answer (apart from the two people who looked at me as if I was a madman before declining to answer). The truth is that the question Simon Heffer poses does not have a single right answer. The Conservative party itself is a complex coalition which contains people who can both strongly agree and disagree with each other depending on the issue being debated. What I hope we can all agree on is that the future of this country is best served by electing the strongest possible Conservative Government. The rights and wrongs of certain policies can be discussed after 6 May. As Tim Montgomerie puts it “this election isn’t a choice between a perfect Conservative Party and an imperfect Conservative Party but between a strong government led by David Cameron and the chaos of a hung parliament.”

George Osborne was right when he said, “We are all in this together”. We need to work together to ensure that there is the best future for all.

PS I want to give a shout out to www.futurefairforall.org I often consult this treasure trove of information before I go out canvassing. It has a lot of evidence, which shows that 13 years of Labour has spectacularly failed to create a ‘future fair for all’.

A nervous crowd alighted on Brighton this weekend, and rightly so as polls put Labour ahead in terms of seats won. There was frustration on the part of delegates attending: ‘what does Time for Change mean if we don’t know what the change is?’ one asked. In discussions overheard at fringes and in corridors one could hear a collective sigh at the prospect that this election may echo those of recent years and that the Conservatives might not be able to see it through after all.

However, despite the stakes that rested on Cameron’s speech on Sunday afternoon, there was some reason to be positive. A more low-key and relaxed atmosphere than at October’s conference meant that there was room to discuss and debate openly the prospect of a hung Parliament, what this might mean for the Conservatives and how to avoid it.

It is of course vital that the Conservatives prepare themselves for all eventualities following the election. Being aware that a hung Parliament may not necessarily involve a Conservative-led government is an important element of this. The Liberal Democrats are holding their cards close to their chest at the moment and could find themselves in a position of extraordinary power both during the formation of a coalition government and in the coming months when they could force constitutional reform to maintain and stabilise their position in the centre.

These are sobering thoughts for the committed Tory delegate but could this prospect provide the spur that Conservatives need? The October conference resonated with the fear of losing hold of what was a substantial lead in the polls and it was almost as if the Conservative leadership were afraid to ruin it by taking the risks needed to push their campaign one direction or other. Now that the Conservatives feel under the kosh, they conversely have less to lose by throwing in everything they can and not being afraid to outline concrete ideas. By rolling up their sleeves to fight a very real threat from Labour and the Lib Dems they more likely to be able to win the election than by trying to maintain a shining image as a ‘government in waiting’.

It is from honest debate as seen at moments this weekend, rather than the polished pr of the October conference, that a real plan of action can surely emerge. The question to ask is: is it too late?

Posted by Administrator on behalf of Isabella Sharp

The phoney election campaign continued last week.  The media seems to have decided that the Tory “wobble” is over, after the launch of some pretty good posters and a warm media welcome for their policy announcement on cooperative public services.  With their whole campaign operation now transferred from Norman Shaw South into Milbank as of last week, the Tories are now all set for the vote.

It was a funny sort of “wobble” anyway, as none of the last 24 polls have shown the Conservatives more than 2 points in either direction from 40%.  Given that the statistical margin of error on these polls is plus or minus 3%, none of the them have shown a statistically meaningful shift.  But little things like that don’t affect the Westminster narrative.

One of the incidents in the “wobble” related to a screw-up by the Tories about a decimal point.  They released an otherwise excellent report on how inequality has grown under Labour.  The document shows how the gap between rich and poor has grown in not just in income, but in health, education, housing – you name it.  However, due to a cock up the document initially claimed that in poorer areas 54% of teenage girls in poor areas got pregnant, rather than the real figure of 5.4%.

This was a bad mistake and caused a big Westminster row.  But hang on a minute.  The real figure should give us serious pause for thought.  More than one in twenty teenagers getting pregnant is really, really high. A larger proportion of teenagers in Britain have children than any other EU county apart from Romania and Bulgaria.  The rate is more than double the European average and five times higher than countries like Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

And teenage pregnancy is very concentrated in poor areas. For example, in leafy Rutland the teen pregnancy rate is 1.4%, while in less leafy Lambeth it has averaged 8.9% in react years. Given the concentration of the problem in poverty hotspots, and the fact that 92% of teenagers who have children are not married, teen pregnancy often kicks off a cycle of intergenerational poverty which can last for many decades.  In the long term, this costs the state a fortune – quite apart from the mass misery involved.

Part of the problem is about poverty, and part of it is about culture.  Hence Cameron’s continuing criticisms of the premature sexualisation of children.  But the bully pulpit alone won’t solve these difficult problems.  I don’t believe that we have the policy answers to them yet – although they are soluble.  For this reason Policy Exchange’s work in this area will continue to grow.

Meanwhile, we are now seeing all the hoopla of an election campaign: student stunts, bizarre poster spoofs, weird viral web trends (e.g. “Dave Facts”) and – God help us - novelty records (cf.“There’s no-one as Irish as Dave Cameron”).

What we aren’t seeing yet is any discussion of the big issues.  It isn’t just the big missing discussion about deprivation and social breakdown. Britain’s media seems generally unable to grapple with the detail of big policy questions, so instead reports on easy-to-grasp personality clashes and Westminster spats.

With such an information-poor public debate, it is sad that James Purnell has decided to step down at the next election.  He was not only one of Labour’s better potential leaders, but also one of the few people on the left really able to step back and question their policies.  There is far too little thinking in British politics, and there will be even less in the Labour Party without Purnell.

Neil O’Brien is Director of Policy Exchange