Gove should be at local government to drive through real planning and hosuebuilding reforms. He'll have to take on conservative councils and members who are nimbys but he's got the talent to do it.

We can only win the next election if we build more houses and go back to thatchers dream of a property owning democracy.

What's standing in the way is our own councillors who often are the only people delivering leaflets for us.

It's a catch 22. Our members are not representative of the country at large. We need policies that appeal to the majority in this country and not right wing ideologues.

A lot of members felt ignored during the successful Cameron era and wanted something different and backed May hugely. Now the wheels have come off.

We need to find a way of valuing members because they're the lifeblood of the party. But we also need policies that appeal to a broader base too.

Nothing like a bit of ConHome hypocrisy. This site was praising May for the manifesto.

Here's some highlights

"The Conservatives have produced a manifesto for the country. As we put it the day after the document’s release, it is “a real attempt to address directly some of the great issues of our time: an ageing population, high immigration, job insecurity, disillusion with our political system”. It seeks to tackle inter-generational injustice, provide more homes, boost the status of technical education, restore the integrity of the honours system. And it is solid on Brexit – the reason why May called this election in the first place, and a dog that has scarcely barked during this election campaign. Her aim is to gain a bigger majority that will enable her to govern more effectively."
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/201...

"Taken together with other pledges to “empower patients” and give them “a greater role in their own treatment”, as well as re-stating the commitment to “a truly seven-day health service”, this looks like a concerted effort to make Britain’s care system more consumer-focused, in contrast to Labour’s producer-interest approach."
https://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2017/...

"Taken together with other pledges to “empower patients” and give them “a greater role in their own treatment”, as well as re-stating the commitment to “a truly seven-day health service”, this looks like a concerted effort to make Britain’s care system more consumer-focused, in contrast to Labour’s producer-interest approach."
https://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2017/...

"So ConservativeHome wrote on Friday as we praised Theresa May for pursuing Grown-Up Government, while warning that many voters will be unwilling to “put away childish things”.

And so today’s polls suggest.

YouGov for the Sunday Times puts the Conservatives down to 44 per cent, with Labour up to 35 per cent. That’s the smallest Tory poll lead that it has found this year.

Survation for the Mail on Sunday shows the Conservatives on 46 per cent and Labour on 34 per cent.

Polls come and polls go, but these have undoubtedly picked up a sense of protest about, in ascending order, May’s proposed junking of the pensions triple lock, means-testing the winter fuel payment, and her social care plan.

John Rentoul asks in his Independent column today why May spelt that last policy out in some detail. Perhaps the answer is in order to ensure that she gains a mandate to get it through the Lords.

At any rate, the election can now take one of two courses.

First, the social care proposals come to dominate the election, scaling back May’s projected majority or, just possibly, delivering a hung Parliament.

Second, Lynton Crosby – perhaps this week, or perhaps next, after the Bank Holiday – lets slip the dogs of war on Jeremy Corbyn on defence, immigration and, above all, Brexit. And the Tory position rallies.

The second outcome is the more likely. May seems to have calculated that it is worth weakening her majority to strengthen her mandate – in other words, risk losing some votes on June 8 in order to deliver the policies she wants later.

And the way in which her support is distributed probably helps her. The number of people who would lose from her social care plan falls, broadly speaking, the further one leaves the greater South-East behind.

So May’s calculation will be that it is worth shedding some Conservative votes in her southern heartlands in order to pick up some Labour ones in northern marginals.

Furthermore, a poll wobble now is not unhelpful to Downing Street and CCHQ.

As Harry Phibbs wrote yesterday on this site, the biggest threat to a Tory landslide is the expectation of a Conservative landslide – leaving Tory voters convinced that since May will win anyway, there’s no point in turning out to vote.

Polls like today’s are likely, if repeated, to stir a panic stampede in the centre-right press (now even more onside than before, given May’s pledge to drop Leveson Two) and among Tory voters. That would solve any abstention problem."
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/201...

Nothing like a bit of ConHome hypocrisy. This site was praising May for the manifesto.

"The Conservative Manifesto published yesterday represents an intensification of that spirit, and a broad, deep application of it that could scarcely be more ambitious.

Gone are the Gordon Brown-style drawing of artificial dividing lines, the debt traps, benefit caps and surplus traps of the Cameron-Osborne era: “politics is not a game”.

Vanished, too, is the sense – understandable and prudent in itself – that some challenges are too hazardous for politicians to tackle and, after cursory inspection, must speedily be returned to the Too Difficult Box.

You may be apprehensive about the effects of the Prime Minister’s Christian Democrat-flavoured politics on the unity of a previously free market-committed party, as we are.

You may, too, be troubled about some of the policies she is proposing – as we are again (consider, to take just one example, the proposed energy price cap).

But there can be no doubt that the sum of May’s manifesto is a real attempt to address directly some of the great issues of our time – an ageing population, high immigration, job insecurity, disillusion with our political system.

ConservativeHome could scarcely have asked for more. We wanted a sober plan to tackle inter-generational injustice, provide more homes, and boost the status of technical education."
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/201...

And there it is, "conservative home could scarcely have asked for more"

Cheerio and good riddance. Tim has been a professional malcontent ever since we won a majority.

Cameron is an idiot and this is from someone who has supported him. We're going to vote out and he will have to resign in terrible circumstances. He will go out with a wimper rather than a bang. It's total lunacy. Here we are with a chance to govern until at least 2025 and our popular Prime Minister is going to get kicked out within the 24 months because of his pathetic negotiations.

Cameron would be mad to sack her because May would surely then do everything possible to win the referendum for the leave campaign which would mean Cameron resigning and her becoming the next PM.

I think we have to vote to leave.

Cameron should say to the cabinet that they need to shut up until the renegotiation is done but once it is complete they and any MP are free to campaign for In or Out.