Getty ImagesThe slogan “review and rebuild” has been plastered all over this year’s Conservative annual conference, the party’s first out of power since 2009. A debate has already been raging within the party about the reasons for its loss at July’s election, the worst in its history.But the looming selection of the party’s next leader has spurred the quest for answers.The party has announced that former cabinet minister Lord McLoughlin will lead an audit into what went wrong. His initial findings will be presented to Rishi Sunak’s successor, after they are picked in a ballot of party members next month.However, it will be far from the only diagnosis on offer.Across the conference, the campaign itself came in for criticism.Former leadership contender Mel Stride, one of the party’s most regular media performers during the election, told a fringe that “blunders” including the betting scandal and Sunak’s decision to leave a D-Day event early had confused the party’s message to voters. He also said the decision to call an early election in the summer had been “questionable”. Grant Shapps, one of a slew of government figures to lose their seats in July, went further, telling another fringe the decision to go early had been “tragic” and the party hadn’t been ready to select and field candidates.The former cabinet minister, known within Westminster for his data-driven approach to campaigning, launched a new group, Conservatives Together, to figure out what lessons the party needs to learn.It argues that despite the Tories’ crushing defeat, the next election is still up for grabs, with Labour’s huge majority built on a “fragile” share of the vote.It has advanced a range of reasons for the party’s defeat, from a “disconnect” between the central party and local branches, to a lack of success on TikTok, seen as increasingly crucial to reach younger voters.Smell the Coffee 2.0Tory peer and pollster Lord Ashcroft, whose 2005 pamplet “Smell the Coffee” sought to help the party exit the electoral wilderness after its election defeat that year, has produced a 96-page paperback analysing its 2024 loss. Drawing …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nn Getty ImagesThe slogan “review and rebuild” has been plastered all over this year’s Conservative annual conference, the party’s first out of power since 2009. A debate has already been raging within the party about the reasons for its loss at July’s election, the worst in its history.But the looming selection of the party’s next leader has spurred the quest for answers.The party has announced that former cabinet minister Lord McLoughlin will lead an audit into what went wrong. His initial findings will be presented to Rishi Sunak’s successor, after they are picked in a ballot of party members next month.However, it will be far from the only diagnosis on offer.Across the conference, the campaign itself came in for criticism.Former leadership contender Mel Stride, one of the party’s most regular media performers during the election, told a fringe that “blunders” including the betting scandal and Sunak’s decision to leave a D-Day event early had confused the party’s message to voters. He also said the decision to call an early election in the summer had been “questionable”. Grant Shapps, one of a slew of government figures to lose their seats in July, went further, telling another fringe the decision to go early had been “tragic” and the party hadn’t been ready to select and field candidates.The former cabinet minister, known within Westminster for his data-driven approach to campaigning, launched a new group, Conservatives Together, to figure out what lessons the party needs to learn.It argues that despite the Tories’ crushing defeat, the next election is still up for grabs, with Labour’s huge majority built on a “fragile” share of the vote.It has advanced a range of reasons for the party’s defeat, from a “disconnect” between the central party and local branches, to a lack of success on TikTok, seen as increasingly crucial to reach younger voters.Smell the Coffee 2.0Tory peer and pollster Lord Ashcroft, whose 2005 pamplet “Smell the Coffee” sought to help the party exit the electoral wilderness after its election defeat that year, has produced a 96-page paperback analysing its 2024 loss. Drawing …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
