ConservativeHome's About Page

ConservativeHome.com aims to provide comprehensive coverage of Britain's Conservative Party.  It's independent of the Conservative Party but supportive of it.  It is edited by Tim Montgomerie and Jonathan Isaby.  By 9am every day ConservativeHome identifies the most important Tory stories of the day.  The site is then updated throughout each day, seven days a week.  The biggest developments are analysed within the ToryDiary section.

OVERVIEW OF CONSERVATIVEHOME

> ConservativeHome's manifesto - the principles behind this website
> A guide to the eleven ConservativeHome shields that crown every page of this site and our other 'artworks'.
> Plaudits for ConservativeHome from thought leaders, politicians and journalists
> Introducing ConservativeHome's co-editors - Tim Montgomerie  and Jonathan Isaby.
> Introducing our local government editor Harry Phibbs and also Tom Greeves, the editor of ConHome's parliament blog.

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Related sites: ConservativeHome also runs CentreRight.com and, for fun, selects great videos for PlayPolitical.com.

Contact: Email ConservativeHome.com.

ConservativeHome was first launched on Easter Monday 2005.  It looked a lot different then...

ConHome has made a fair share of mistakes but reflecting on those four years I'm proudest of the following...

• Representing the grassroots: The way in which ConHome has brought the grassroots of the Conservative Party to the table. Through the monthly surveys, through Platform articles and through comments left on a blog that is widely read by journalists, parliamentary researchers and politicians they have a voice they've never had before.  Representation of grassroots feelings was particularly important during the grammar schools row, against the much disliked A-list and more recently on 45p.
• A daily news service: By 9am each day we pick the most important Tory news stories of the day and have them all listed in one place.  More than 5,000 people now subscribe to our daily email.
• 'Narrowcasting': ConservativeHome's micro blogs - on seat selections, Tory videos, Harry Phibbs' local government blog and Tom Greeves' parliamentary reports - provide coverage and accountability that isn't provided by the mainstream media.
• Protecting party democracy: ConHome's proudest single achievement of all was initiating the fight against Michael Howard's attempts to rob members of a decisive vote in the leadership of their party.  Others played very important roles in the campaign too but it was a successful fight that ensured David Cameron was elected with a mandate from all sections of the party.
• The most coverage of the 2005 Tory leadership race: The archive of which is still live.
• Breaking stories: Publishing the membership of the A-list, predicting accurately the outcome of the Tory leadership election, breaking the news that Brown had bottled calling a 2007 General Election and accurately calling London for Boris Johnson.
• Campaigning for a balanced Conservative message: We critiqued the unbalanced path that Cameron took in the early part of his leadership - arguing for a 'politics of and' that combined the messages that have dominated Tory thinking in recent times with a greener and more socially-just conservatism.  The shields in the masthead capture our commitment to build a broadly-based conservative coalition.
• Initiating campaigns: Our campaign against the 2007 pledge to match Labour's spending plans has been vindicated by events and we will continue to seek a more hawkish stance on the size of the state.
• Promoting new talent: Creating the CentreRight group blog and promoting great writing talents including Graeme Archer, Peter Franklin, Andrew Lilico and Matt Sinclair.
• Championing the role of the internet in politics: We've argued for bolder use of the internet by the Conservative Party and proved, I hope, that not all blogs are places for tittle tattle and gossip.  In coming months we want to produce a lot more viral video of the kind we have recently produced against Gordon Brown - here and here.

Four people deserve special mention:

• Stephan and Rosamund Shakespeare for providing the financial underpinning.  ConHome may not have got into a third year without Stephan's generous and enthusiastic backing.
• The hugely talented Samuel Coates for being Deputy Editor for two-and-a-half years before going on to bigger and better things in David Cameron's office.
• Jonathan Isaby for being (I think) the first UK political journalist to leave the old media for the new.

And final thanks to all readers for their loyalty and wisdom.

Tim Montgomerie

Over recent years the American artist Krieg Barrie has produced a number of drawings for ConservativeHome.  We've brought some of them together below (you can click on any of them to enlarge them and inspect in closer detail):

The shields in the ConservativeHome masthead (fully explained here) represent the breadth of the conservative coalition:

The ConservativeHome shields aimed to present a vision of a broad party, welcoming of economic, social and internationalist conservatives  - not, perhaps, always agreeing but working together.  When ConHome launched four years ago we worried that the Conservative Party was too narrow.  The image below of a man trapped in a dark room, constantly recycling the same four messages was where the party seemed trapped:

Any donations will be used to buy new computer equipment for ConservativeHome.com and to produce political attack videos like the one at the bottom of this post. Please donate via the button immediately below.

Jonathan has taken a keen interest in politics since the day in November 1989 when the proceedings of the House of Commons were televised for the very first time (and when he was only just out of short trousers!).

A Conservative activist in London during his teenage years, in 1996 he went to study modern languages and linguistics at the University of York, where he was deputy editor of the award-winning student newspaper, Vision, chairman of the University of York Conservative Association and a member of the inaugural national committee of Conservative Future in 1998-99.

For most of the last decade, Jonathan has observed politics professionally, having joined the BBC on graduation as a political analyst based in the corporation’s Westminster newsroom. His research there – focusing on parliamentary matters, the Conservative Party and Northern Ireland affairs – was used by radio and television programmes throughout the BBC and he also worked behind the scenes on every election night programme between 1998 and 2003.

In 2003 he joined The Daily Telegraph as a reporter on the diary column, Spy, later becoming its deputy editor. He latterly wrote his own daily political diary column, Three Line Whip, which sat alongside the blog of the same name on the paper’s website. During his five-year stint at the Telegraph, he also wrote regularly for the news pages, including a number of analytical pieces during the 2005 Conservative leadership election.

Jonathan joined ConservativeHome.com as co-editor in November 2008, making him the first journalist from a national newspaper to leave the mainstream media to work in the blogosphere.

He helped research Dean Godson’s acclaimed biography of David Trimble, Himself Alone, and his own first book – Boris v Ken: How Boris Won London, co-written with Giles Edwards – was published in June 2008.

Since May 2008 he has written a monthly political column for GQ magazine and he also regularly appears on television and radio as a political pundit, commentator and newspaper reviewer. You may have seen or heard him on the BBC News Channel; Sky News; Channel Four News; BBC One's Breakfast; BBC Parliament; Today, The World at One and PM on Radio Four; Radio Five Live; Radio Scotland; Radio Ulster; Nick Ferrari's Breakfast Show on LBC; and German satellite channels Sat 1 and RTL.

Jonathan is also an accomplished after-dinner speaker (and an uncanny mimic) and has addressed Conservative associations, university Conservative Future branches and a number of other groups up and down the country.

Email Jonathan.

Read Jonathan's CentreRight posts.

To advance the centre right as the new home of progressive politics: Who extended home ownership to Britain’s poorest families?  Margaret Thatcher.  Who has led the world against human trafficking?  George W Bush.  Who turned the tide on crime’s ‘inevitable’ rise?  Rudy Giuliani.  Who appointed the head of one of the world’s leading human rights agencies as his chief foreign minister?  Nicolas Sarkozy.  Whether it’s school choice, welfare reform or market-led solutions to pollution and poverty it is the centre right which is now the home of ‘solution politics’.  The left’s indifference to values and its support for a large, centralised state make it ill-equipped to fulfil its historical promise.

To argue for a conservative coalition that is broad and deep: To establish itself again as the natural party of government, the Conservative Party must be a one nation party – representing all of mainstream Britain’s hopes and concerns.  ConservativeHome’s ‘And Theory of Conservatism’ describes how conservatism can and should embrace the breadth of causes that are represented in the shields that crown this website: home and family; the creation of wealth; compassion for the vulnerable; law and order; the significance of every human life; religious freedom; conservation of the natural environment; the importance of culture; patriotism; international engagement; and political involvement.

To respond to the most serious challenge of our time – Islamic fascism: The world changed on 9/11.  Some people have recognised that.  Some have not.  The threat of Islamic fascism is different in nature from previous forms of terror.  The followers of Wahhabism – the heirs of Sayyid Qutb - do not want a place at the negotiating table.  They wish to blow up the table.  They aim to destroy all pluralism and diversity.  Evil men have always populated the planet but today they have easier and easier access to devastating and portable weaponry.  The threats are so grave that the civilised world needs to rethink the security architecture that is no longer adequate for its protection.  The United Nations, for example, has consistently failed to confront terror and genocide.  It is also unable to understand that today’s threats are so grave that they have to be pre-empted militarily and ideologically.

To argue for a Conservative Party that embraces the localism and democracy that it recommends for the nation: ConservativeHome first came to national attention when it helped to defeat former Tory leader Michael Howard’s attempt to scrap the right of members to elect the party leader.  Since then we have published the A-list of elite candidates that the leadership wanted to keep secret and unsuccessfully opposed the party’s attempt to limit members’ right to select MEP candidates.  We believe in an open and inclusive Conservative Party where decisions about candidates and policy involve the widest possible cross-section of the British people.

To provide a platform for all strands of opinion within the Conservative Party: Although ConservativeHome has its own worldview it is welcoming of alternative perspectives.  All views are invited on discussion threads as long as they observe the comments policy - including its zero tolerance of racism, homophobia and bad language.  The Platform provides friends and members of the party with an opportunity to initiate debate on a subject of their choice.  Disagreement with ConservativeHome’s editorial line is welcomed.  The seven contributors to the Columnists section represent all strands of the conservative coalition.  Some are hardwired into Project Cameron.  Some are more socially liberal and more actively concerned about climate change than ConservativeHome.

To embrace the internet’s revolutionary impact on political parties: In the television age politics became increasingly centralised.  A few large parties, a few journalists and a few broadcasters decided what we consumed as voters.  The internet is decentralising power on a scale that we are only just beginning to appreciate.  The blogosphere is providing a platform for coalface practitioners to challenge conventional wisdom.  It is exposing mainstream media error and bias.   It is interactive where television encourages passivity and it is diverse where television is narrow.  If the barriers to entry in the field of comment have already been swept away, the next stage of the internet revolution will see the political parties lose their monopoly if they do not become the online arms of their once natural supporters.

Guardian Online has called ConservativeHome's analysis "penetrating".  The Mail on Sunday has called ConservativeHome "influential".  The Sunday Telegraph has described it as "indispensable".  What are others saying about Britain's leading conservative blog?

"ConservativeHome.com has got the right balance - of being run independently of the party but with good connections and encouragement. For instance Tory front-benchers often contribute to it. It also has the right balance of being supportive of the Conservatives without being deferential. During the leadership election it contributed to the ability of members to make an informed choice - for example by including reports from the various hustings meetings. The site was also influential in ensuring that the membership had a choice in the first place - rather than the contest being decided by MPs."

- Harry Phibbs, London Evening Standard

"Conservativehome.com is one of the most exciting developments in Tory thinking for years.  Absolutely indispensable reading. No political journalist or politician worth his or her salt fails to pay at least one visit a day to ConservativeHome"

- Matthew d’Ancona, Editor of The Spectator

" ConservativeHome, which under the direction of its engaging blogmeister Tim Montgomerie, has become the most lively, useful and entertaining meeting point for Tories of all descriptions and anyone else with an interest in the future of British politics. If you want to get an idea of how politics is evolving - and fast - you can follow it on CH."

- Ben Brogan, Political Editor of The Daily Mail

Tim Montgomerie edits ConservativeHome with Jonathan Isaby.  He launched the website on Easter Monday, 2005, with the aims of championing grassroots party members and advocating a balanced, authentic conservatism.

Born in 1970 he grew up in Hampshire and Germany - living within an army family.

He studied Economics and Geography at Exeter University before joining the Bank of England in 1992 where his responsibilities included the Russian economy and the study of systemic risk in financial systems.

With David Burrowes, Tim established the Conservative Christian Fellowship in December 1990.  He was its Director for thirteen years - first in his spare time and then full-time.

From 1998 to 2003 he ran the Conservative Party's outreach to faith communities and the voluntary sector.  His responsibilities including writing speeches for two Conservative Party leaders, William Hague and then Iain Duncan Smith.

Tim was Iain Duncan Smith's chief of staff for his last two months as Conservative leader and throughout 2004 helped him to establish the Centre for Social Justice.

Tim's political hero is William Wilberforce.  Tim writes: "This devout Christian stood for a great moral cause - the abolition of slavery -  and brought the greatest of qualities - perseverance - to ensure he succeeded."

Tim is a regular media pundit.  His broadcast experience includes Radio 4's Today, The Week in Westminster, The World at One, PM, The World Tonight, Any Questions?, BBC1's Daily Politics and Ten'o'clock News, BBC2's Newsnight, Channel 4 News, Sky News, Fox News and Bill Bennett's Morning in America radio programme.  Tim has written for The Spectator and a number of national newspapers including The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Independent.

In November 2008 he launched the London Centre for the Study of Anti-Americanism.  The early work of the Centre is captured at AmericaInTheWorld.com.

Email Tim

Interviews: Tim Montgomerie answers your questions

View all of Tim's posts on CentreRight.com.

Tim's Twitter account.

Update: SAMUEL COATES' LAST DAY AS DEPUTY EDITOR WAS SATURDAY 26TH JULY 2008.  SAM HAS MOVED TO DAVID CAMERON'S OFFICE TO BECOME A SPEECHWRITER.

Message from the Deputy Editor:

"I have been involved in politics and journalism since secondary school and joined the Conservative Party early on. Brought up in north Liverpool, I have worked for the Liverpool Echo and Daily Post newspapers, and a target seat election campaign in Warrington.

I was working on ConservativeHome part-time whilst reading Politics and International Relations at university, and left to go full-time on it and related projects at the start of 2007.

I do a bit of everything for the site such as going to press conferences, writing ToryDiary pieces and compiling the newslinks, as well as running CentreRight and the Platform.

My political perspective could be described as a fusion of social conservatism and economic liberalism, working together for social justice by harnessing personal responsibility and civic society. I believe we need to be prepared for how the internet will change the hierarchical way politics works in this country, and therefore take a particular interest in developments in new media and the conservative movement both here and abroad.

I am a member of the Conservative Party's Human Rights Commission, and the Territorial Army. I enjoy travelling, good food, and the outdoors."

Email Samuel

See Samuel's Q&A with ConservativeHome readers

View all of Samuel's posts on CentreRight.com

Meet Tim Montgomerie, Editor.

[The other Sam Coates].

If you see anything on ConservativeHome that you find objectionable please alert the Editor by emailing tim@conservativehome.com.

Potentially actionable remarks and all impersonations of another person - a public figure or otherwise - are likely to result in an immediate and permanent ban on the source IP address.

Homophobic, racist or other hateful posts will also result in permanent bans.

Bad language, personal nastiness or posts that are overly long, tangential or simply tedious may be deleted and their authors may be subject to temporary or permanent bans.

The Editor's decision is final with regard to any and all bans.  The Editor also reserves the right to edit any comments - removing bad language or other objectionable material.