Stephen McPartland is a Party agent in North East Hertfordshire.
People worry about
developing the right policies to motivate and enthuse electors in towns and
cities to vote Conservative. However, communicating policy rather than policy
development is the problem. We often hear that our policy is received well on
the doorstep, but who tells voters our policies on the doorsteps in towns and
cities?
The honest answer
is this does not happen and we have almost no organisation in many towns and
cities other than on paper. The lack of any real representation in northern
urban areas provides the starkest example of this problem, but we should not
allow ourselves to believe that it is purely a northern problem. Excluding London, we have a serious
lack of representation in most urban areas and this is an issue we must tackle
not just talk about if we are to form the next government.
We all know the
real challenge facing the Conservative Party is to re-engage with the
electorate before the next election, but this must also be done on a practical
organisational level if we are to achieve electoral success.
The purpose of this article is to provoke a discussion on the need for an "Urban Campaign Unit" that focuses on what practical steps we need to take to achieve electoral success in towns and cities.
The Party does not know how to campaign effectively in urban areas, traditional Conservative campaigning techniques just do not work. There are very few agents who have campaigned in urban areas and even less who have done so effectively. The Party recognises that to campaign effectively against the Liberal Democrats it has to campaign differently and has set up a Liberal Democrat Unit. It is now time to set up an active Urban Campaign Unit to develop the campaigns to make a real impact in our towns and cities.
Continue reading "Stephen McPartland: The case for effective urban campaigning" »
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