The Conservative Party 1997 - 2007

Key chronology

• May 1997 Election defeat 

• June 1997 Election of William Hague

• June 2001 Election defeat

• June 2001 Election defeat 

• June 2001 Election of Ian Ducan Smith 

• May 2003 Duncan Smith replaced by Michael Howard

• May 2005 Election defeat 

• June 2005 Election of David Cameron

William Hague 1997 - 2001

• The Conservative Part after the 1997 election was only half the size of the party that had chosen John Major in 1990. 

• The party was more Eurosceptic and Thatcherite than it had been previously; one estimate is that 145 of the 165 members were Eurosceptic. 

• Some of the big hitting Europhile members were gone E.g Chris Patten.

• Major’s immediate resignation meant new leader would be announced quickly. Heseltine had suffered some ill health during the election campaign and decided not to stand in the leadership contest. 

• Ken Clarke’s europhile views meant that he wouldn't be able to lead a eurosceptic party.

• Portillo was going to be a front runner for leadership but he surprisingly lost his seat in Enfield to Twigg from Labour. 

• The candidates from the right of the party were therefore Michael Howard, John Redwood, Peter Lilley and William Hague.

• The campaign was basically dominated by an ‘anyone but Clarke’ attitude. 

• William Hague was a 36 year old with limited political experience that believed he could represent a fresh start. 

• Hague won significantly due to the backing he had from Thatcher as she said, ‘Vote for William Hague to follow the same kind of government I did.’ 

• After 1997 the Labour Party enjoyed an extended honeymoon with the electorate but it was not simply due to the popularity of Tony Blair and New Labour that the Conservatives remained far behind in the polls. 

• Even though Hague united the party over Europe by ruling out entry into a single currency, the Conservatives remain unpopular. 

• Some members of the party felt that the party needed change in its policies and image. 

• Peter Lilley delivered a speech in 1999 which criticised some of Thatcher’s policies; specifically privatisation of major companies and the private involvement in public services. 

• The electorate voted for Labour they desired to protect these public services and have them run by the State rather than privatised. 

• The Conservative Party began to divide between those who believe the party needs change and those who believe it didn't. 

• The Conservative Party failed to make any progress in the polls. 

• Hague felt his leadership was even more threatened after 1999 when Portillo was elected to Parliament in a by-election.

• To some on the right, Portillo was the man who should have become leader in 1997 and Hague felt obliged to appoint him as shadow chancellor. 

• After the Conservatives went down to another crushing defeat, Hague resigned immediately in 2001.

Iain Duncan Smith 2001 - 2003

• After Heath’s resignation in 2001 the strongest candidates for the Conservative leadership were Kenneth Clarke and Michael Portillo. 

• Clarke had remained popular with the broader electorate but was still viewed with suspicion by many Conservatives because of his European views, particularly after appearing with Tony Blair at a pro-European event in 1999. 

• Michael Portillo, still a strong Eurosceptic, had reinvented himself socially as a social liberal and promised to make the party more modern and inclusive but this made him unpopular with many traditional Conservatives. 

• Under the new rules for the leadership introduced by William Hague, the party members chose Iain Duncan Smith over Kenneth Clarke in the final round. 

• Smith won in 2001 because of negative voting against Clarke and Portillo. It appeared as if the Rockers had defeated the Mods. 

• However, Duncan Smith had little charisma and was no match for Tony Blair. The Conservatives remained behind in the opinion polls and within a few months of his emergence as leader, some MPs were trying to get rid of him. 

• Duncan Smith made some efforts to introduce compassionate conservatism; visiting the deprived Easterhouse estate in Glasgow convinced him that the Conservative Party had to do more to tackle poverty. 

• He was aggressively Eurosceptic and reopened the divisions over Europe. Under his legislation, the Conservative Party also remained socially conservative - voting against both the repeal of Section 28 and against allowing unmarried couples to adopt. 

• These issues demonstrated the divisions in the party as modernisers such as David Cameron and George Osborne refused to follow the party line. And as Duncan Smith had been such a key architect of the rebellion that Major had faced over Maastricht, he now found it difficult to demand loyalty from his backbenchers as leader. 

• Duncan Smith also supported the British entry into the Iraq War. This was heavily criticised by some, including Kenneth Clarke, as it made it difficult for the Conservatives to criticise the Labour government for this unpopular decision, especially as the war dragged on; instead the Liberal Democrats emerged as the anti-war party to challenge Labour. 

• Finally amid press speculation about the salary he paid to his wife to act as his secretary, Duncan Smith faced a vote of no confidence. Despite the fact that subsequently no wrongdoing  was found, the damage was done; Duncan Smith was ousted from power and Michael Howard was installed as leader, unopposed.  

Michael Howard 2003 - 2005

• Howard took over Conservative as a unifying figure, having support from both the Mods and the Rockers. 

• One MP said, ‘Many of us who hate everything Michael Howard stands for politically will back him because we are tired of being embarrassed.’ 

• Like Hague and Duncan Smith, Howard struggled to compete with Tony Blair in the opinion polls. Much of the work that Duncan smith had done on social justice was abandoned and Conservatives remained distrusted on key areas of policy such as education. 

• However, Howardsus bring stability to the party and was socially conservative, Howard promoted modernisers in his cabinet. 

• After the election defeat in 2005 David Cameron became shadow education Secretary and George Osborne shadow chancellor. Howard made it clear that his preference was for his successor to be a moderniser.

David Cameron 2005 - 2016

• In the leadership contest held in the autumn of 2005, Cameron defeated David Davis due to his impressive note-free speech. 

• As leader, Cameron was focused on detoxifying and modernising the Conservative Party 

• Cameron and his fellow modernisers believed it was necessary for the party be tolerant and supportive of all groups on society. 

• He promised the Conservative government would take seriously the issue of climate change. He was in favour of gay rights and wanted to increase overseas aid. Osborne promised to maintain Labour levels of spending on public services, effectively ruling out tax cuts. The Conservative Party would be more centrist, tolerant, and outward looking. 

• Labour found it more difficult to attack Cameron than his predecessors this partly because Labour’s popularity was starting to decline. Now the Tories started to look electable again. 

• Many on the right wing of the Tories remained sceptical about the shift E.g Norman Tebbit who was openly critical and claimed the conservatives were rejecting Thatcherism. 

• The Tories looked more united than ever and hoped to win at the 2010 election.

Reasons for failures in the 2001 and 2005 General Election 

• The failures of the leadership, 

• the divisions over Europe 

• The divisions over Thatcher

• Divisions over social liberalism 

• The failures to learn lessons about electoral defeats 

• Resistance to reform