(http://www.conservativehome.com) Search the site ESET INTERNET SECURITY - ESET® New Security Features for 2017. 25% Off 2-Year License - Buy Today! (http://www.conservativehome.com/frontpage/2017/03/newslinks- 2017.html) Published: June 16, 2015 51 comments The computers that crashed. And the campaign that didn’t. The story of the Tory stealth operation that outwitted Labour last month By Mark Wallace (http://www.conservativehome.com/author/mark-wallace) (http://www.stopthefobts.org/) Follow @wallaceme 22.1K followers Gamblers urged to take part in Flutter-Free February (http://stopthefobts.createsend1.com/t/ViewEmail/r/991A06EDDA7146F92540EF23F30FEDED) (http://stopthefobts.createsend1.com/t/ViewEmail/r/991A06EDDA7146F92540EF23F30FEDED) SUBSCRIBE (HTTP://WWW.STOPTHEFOBTS.ORG/TAKE- ACTION/) (https://www.facebook.com/stopthefobts) (https://www.twitter.com/stopthefobts) (http://conhome.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-shot-2015-06- Highlights Latest Comments 16-at-07.33.47.png)The event: the annual Conservative Conference. The place: Birmingham. The year: 2012 – three years before the 2015 election in which David The NICS bungle has exposed a Cameron pulled off the biggest surprise win in modern times. This was the venue for weakness. This is not a strong the presentation by Stephen Gilbert, the Prime Minister’s Political Secretary, which Cabinet. outlined the strategy that – not without its hiccups and problems – was delivered on (http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2017/03/a-brutal- the ground and made victory possible. truth-in-the-nics-aftermath-this-is- Speaking in a closed session to senior not-a-very-good-cabinet.html) activists, Gilbert set out the programme for March 16, 2017 the Tory Stealth Win that was painstakingly effected beneath the radar of Labour, the Yes, it’s Gove v Portes in a brutal media – and indeed the pollsters. Brexit rematch – but where’s the blood? What was it and how did it work? The Related Articles (http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2017/03/yes- Conservative air war was visible for anyone its-gove-v-portes-in-a-brutal-brexit- to follow – the assault on Labour’s fiscal Andrew Kennedy: How an rematch-but-wheres-the-blood.html) credibility, the image of a weak Ed Miliband Association turned from a loser into March 16, 2017 being propped up by a strong SNP, the a winner starkly-drawn dividing lines on such as (http://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2017Daniel Hannan:/03/andrew- Brussels, not May, is welfare reform and the deficit. These kennedy-how-an-association- being inflexible headline messages certainly played a large turned-from-a-loser-into-a- (http://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2017/03/daniel- part in delivering the Conservative majority. winner.html) hannan-brussels-not-may-is-being- We are less familiar, though, with this other Interview: David Burrowes, inflexible-on-brexit.html) reason for the election result. The occasional rebel, constant Christian March 16, 2017 disproportionately good results in the – and a backbench force to be marginals – both those the Tories needed to reckoned with Joe Ray: Scottish Leavers could hold hold and those they needed to gain – are a (http://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2017/03the key to sinking/interview- Sturgeon’s dream testament to the success of the 40/40 david-burrowes-occasional-rebel- of independence strategy. The Liberal Democrats were constant-christian-and-a- (http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2017/03/joe- devastated, despite their supposed backbench-force-to-be-reckoned- ray-scottish-leavers-could-hold-the- incumbency advantage in the seats they with.html) key-to-sinking-sturgeons-dream-of- held, with more of their voters moving to the independence.html) Is Putin’s Russia an enemy or ally? blue column than most had expected. In Please take our monthly survey. March 16, 2017 many seats, it also seems the Conservatives (http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2017/03/should- were not only more effective at hanging onto there-be-a-snap-general-election- The Article 50 letter: keep it short and their voters and winning over former Liberal take-our-monthly-survey.html) simple Democrats, but were also more successful in (http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2017/03/the- wooing UKIP voters than Labour. Andrew Kennedy: Our findings on article-50-letter-keep-it-short-and- whether the mass of new Party A good national campaign might have been a simple.html) members who joined post- precondition for success in such seats, but a March 15, 2017 referendum will renew strong ground war was essential to delivering (http://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2017/03/andrew- such good results. Three years ago, “the kennedy-our-findings-on-whether- 40/40”, Team 2015, VoteSource and the-mass-of-new-party-members- RoadTrip2015 weren’t even gleams in who-joined-post-referendum-will- Cameron’s eye. Yet each came to play a renew.html) crucial role in deciding the future of the country, defying almost everyone’s Rebecca Lowe Coulson: Copeland, expectations and securing a historic result. Stoke, elections – and my coolness about cold-calling Today, we tell for the first time the story of (http://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2017/03/rebecca- that ground war – how the strategy came lowe-coulson-copeland-stoke- about, who controlled it, and how it worked elections-and-why-i-am-cool-about- in practice. cold-calling.html) Lessons from 2010 Despite the glow of the Downing Street garden setting at that first press conference, the 2010 election was not an unalloyed success. Up against the worst Prime Minister for years, on the back of a financial and fiscal crisis and led by Cameron, whose poll ratings had long been more favourable than those of his party, the Conservative Party had failed to win a majority. There had been serious problems with the national messaging – as Steve Hilton has recently acknowledged (http://conhome.wpengine.com/thetorydiary/2015/05/steve- hilton-policy-guru-thinker-would-be-revolutionary-mp.html) – but there were also problems with the ground campaign. After years of a decline in membership, and near-extinction in some areas where the Conservatives ought on paper to have been competitive, the party’s line regiments were variable at best. Institutional knowledge, experience and enthusiasm were combined in some strong Associations, who continued to make do more with fewer people, but in other seats, even where there were people ready and willing to campaign, the tactics and techniques being used were either outdated or held back by the loss of experience, in the wake of the death or departure of older members. Some seats saw stellar swings based on a combination of good candidates and good campaigning – but others fell far short of even the national average Tory swing. It took time for CCHQ’s gaze to move on to the next election. The initial throes of coalition had to be navigated, it lost many of its staff to Government as Special News Tweets Advisers, and others departed for the private sector. A Twitter list by @PaulGoodmanCH It’s also fair to say there was little sense of urgency to review what went wrong – after PoliticsHome all, the Conservatives were back in government, albeit not with the majority which @politicshome many had been led to hope for. Labour claims credit for Tory Budget But by 2012 – at roughly the time of Sayeeda Warsi’s replacement as Party co- U-turn amid fresh row over Jeremy Corbyn 'incompetence' bit.ly/2m0ClDC Chairman by Grant Shapps – CCHQ was once again looking forward. It was being comprehensively restaffed and, crucially, the “omnishambles” budget had occurred. It was a wake-up call for the Tory machine. Conservative poll ratings had taken a nosedive and, for the first time, it began to seem plausible that Ed Miliband might be Prime Minister in 2015. The task of getting CCHQ into shape was beginning to look more challenging. Simultaneously, new tactics were being used in the US presidential election which sharpened the sense at the top of 58s the Party that the Tories were lagging behind on the practice of political campaigning. The seats – and targeting Matthew Elliott Retweeted Legatum Institute It was in the summer and autumn of 2012 that the 40/40 strategy was born. When @LegatumInst Gilbert briefed Party members on the plan Senior Fellow @matthew_elliott will be (http://conhome.wpengine.com/majority_conservatism/2012/10/conservative-hq- on Sky with @adamboultonSKY at briefs-tory-members-on-its-battleground-strategy.html) in Birmingham, it sounded 10.45 then @daily_politics at 12.20 on deceptively simple. The campaign would focus on defending 40 Conservative-held seats and attacking 40 others then held by Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Embed View on Twitter The seeds of the scheme lay in close analysis of the 2010 results. Even then, there were signs that good ground wars had defied the problems caused by the faltering air war. As Tim Montgomerie wrote at the time: “The Conservative Party now feels it has a better ground operation than Labour. It points to the fact that it won 23 more seats at the last election than it should have done if the national swing towards the Tories had been evenly spread across the whole country.” Like Page Sign Up That factor saved the Conservative bacon in 2010: what if it could be extended Be the first of your friends to like this and deployed, in addition to a more effective air war? Rather than simply stemming a red tide, Gilbert and others believed, it could produce a Tory majority. By the time of Shapps’s appointment, the analysis and development of this idea was ConservativeHome underway, and the new Chairman and the Prime Minister agreed with the campaign 38 mins team’s conclusions.