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Poll puts parties just 3 points apart, as Blair fails to regain confidence Labour's opinion poll lead has been cut to only three points in the last month as the Tory pre-election campaign gains momentum, according to the results of this month's Guardian/ICM opinion poll published today. With the expected date of the general election only 72 days away the poll results will alarm Labour election strategists who fear Conservatives could use the intensive "phoney war" campaigning to close the gap between the parties. Tony Blair effectively launched Labour's campaign a fortnight ago with his helicopter tour, the six pledges...

Since leaving office, I have not sought publicity. Even when provoked I have usually kept my counsel. Yet the changing character of the way politics is conducted is an issue on which it would be wrong to remain silent. The turnout at the last election was pitiful and is likely to be even more so at the next one – probably below that in Iraq, where voters ran the gauntlet of bomb and bullet. In one of the world's most secure democracies, how can such disillusion have set in?One cause is the way politics is conducted. It is a robust...

When George W. Bush arrives for his European visit next week, a special ceremony will be laid on in Brussels: the discreet burial of hatchets. Dinner with Jacques Chirac will start the rapprochement with Old Europe while other leaders wait in line, olive branch in hand. But there’s one politician the American President certainly won’t be meeting: Michael Howard. Even if the Conservative leader was at the European Union summit, he’s unlikely to have been granted an audience; he languishes, unforgiven, in a special kind of purgatory. Four months ago, before Bush’s historic victory, Howard was parading his credentials as...

On the eve of the Iraq election, the Times treated us to a riveting columnar collaboration: ‘We need to fix an exit timetable, say Robin Cook, Douglas Hurd and Menzies Campbell’ — in perfect harmony. To modify Churchill, defeat may be an orphan, but defeatism has many fathers, and these three were in tripartisan agreement about what a disaster Iraq had been. You’d have got a better idea of how election day was likely to proceed from that week’s Speccie, which blared across its cover ‘Iraq — the unreported triumph: Mark Steyn says that things are going Bush’s way’ —...

Michael Howard’s election guru has told him that the Conservatives have no hope of winning the next general election. The crushing blow from Lynton Crosby, the Australian campaign expert hired by Mr Howard at great expense to bring about a surprise Tory victory, came as Mr Howard attempted yesterday to put immigration and asylum at the heart of the party’s election campaign. The opposition leader was accused of desperation for his personal pledge to restrict immigration to Britain, to be presented in a speech today as a Tory vote-winner. The Times has learnt of an extraordinary power tussle at Conservative...

Migration needs to benefit all BritonsBy Michael Howard (Filed: 27/01/2005) The first responsibility of Government is to control the nation's borders. But this Government has comprehensively failed in its duty to police entry to our country. For all those of us who believe that Britain benefits from immigration, the Government's failure is a particular tragedy. Modern Britain is immeasurably better off as a result of the new Britons who have made their homes here over the last century. We all benefit from the social diversity, economic vibrancy and cultural richness which immigration has brought. But, if those benefits are to...

FALTERING Tory leader Michael Howard has been thrown a political life-line - from the mastermind behind George Bush's victory in the US election. The shock signing of Karl Rove is all the more amazing as President Bush's right-hand man banned Mr Howard from the White House just three months ago. The highly-rated strategist discussed the Opposition leader's fading General Election hopes in a trans- atlantic phone call this week. And during his talks with party chairman Liam Fox he agreed to bury differences over the Iraq war and draw up Mr Howard's masterplan for the May poll. The development will...

Editorial: Anglosphere's leadership is singing in tune IN an analysis of George W. Bush's election victory in the current issue of The Economist, the magazine's acerbic US commentator, "Lexington", warns the Democrats against the self-serving view that the US President won by appealing to base instincts such as fear and hatred. The Republicans "clobbered them on hope". Mr Bush was better than John Kerry at "exuding optimism" and "addressing the aspirations of an aspirational people". This is always the winning strategy in a pro-growth culture such as the US, and shows the Republicans have turned themselves into the "party of...

Howard refuses to congratulate Bush Nicholas Watt, political correspondent Monday November 8, 2004 The Guardian Michael Howard deepened his feud with the White House yesterday when he pointedly refused to offer the traditional post-election congratulations to George Bush. Angered by a White House edict banning him from meeting the president - as punishment for criticising Tony Blair over Iraq - Mr Howard said it would be wrong for him to express any view on the poll. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph the arch-Atlanticist was asked whether he was pleased that a fellow rightwinger had beaten a liberal. He...

Can the Tories figure out how Bush won again? By Charles Moore (Filed: 04/11/2004) A conservative has just won for a second time, more strongly than four years ago. It is the biggest vote ever cast for a conservative in the history of the world. And that conservative's job is the most important in the world. Where is the British Conservative Party? The most honest answer is, no one is quite sure. Michael Howard, the party leader, is strongly Atlanticist, but he devoted so much energy earlier this year to trying to catch Tony Blair out over the war in...

Bournemouth – This seaside resort town has seen better days. So has the Tory party, which last week convened here for its annual conference. The town was devastated when cheap airfares made the sun and beaches of Spain affordable for vacationing Brits. The Tories were devastated when they first deposed their electoral meal ticket, Margaret Thatcher, and then descended into intraparty feuding over the role of Britain in Europe, treated themselves to a round of sex and finance scandals that made a mockery of their "Back to Basics" theme, and ruined their reputation for economic management by joining a European...

Howard: I'll sack ministers who break promises Michael White and Nicholas Watt Tuesday October 5, 2004 The Guardian Michael Howard will today make a dramatic attempt to win the trust of disillusioned voters by promising to sack cabinet ministers who fail to deliver the detailed election promises on target. In a self-lacerating address to the party faithful and the wider television audience, the Conservative leader will admit during his speech to the party's conference in Bournemouth: "Politicians seem to live in a different world, where promises are dropped just as casually as they are made, a world where there are...

Howard hopes tax pledge will lift gloom Nicholas Watt and Michael White Monday October 4, 2004 The Guardian Michael Howard will today attempt to breathe new life into a despondent Conservative party by turning the clock back to the glory days of the 1980s with a pledge to match Margaret Thatcher's tax cutting commitments. As gloomy Tories gathered in Bournemouth for their last conference before the general election, the scale of the challenge facing Mr Howard was underlined by a poll which showed that he is even less popular than Iain Duncan Smith. The findings of the Populus poll could...

With rumours of mushroom clouds over North Korea and genocide in Sudan, it's good to know the Government has identified the real threat in the world today. As The Telegraph reported: "Chief constables intend to site CCTV cameras on hedgerows, fences and trees along known hunting routes to enable them to photograph hunt members who break the law after hunting with hounds is outlawed. "The controversial measure was agreed at a secret meeting between David Blunkett and the chief constables of England and Wales after the hunting ban was announced last week. Police chiefs warned the Home Secretary that enforcing...

With rumours of mushroom clouds over North Korea and genocide in Sudan, it's good to know the Government has identified the real threat in the world today. As The Telegraph reported: "Chief constables intend to site CCTV cameras on hedgerows, fences and trees along known hunting routes to enable them to photograph hunt members who break the law after hunting with hounds is outlawed. "The controversial measure was agreed at a secret meeting between David Blunkett and the chief constables of England and Wales after the hunting ban was announced last week. Police chiefs warned the Home Secretary that enforcing...

New York THE REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS of the post-September 11 world have claimed another victim--the ties that bind politically like-minded Anglo-Saxons A hapless bunch of British Tories made the rounds at the GOP convention this week reassuring just about anyone who would listen that they really, truly, honestly are the Republicans' best friends. The trouble is that the party that has produced ideological icons for American conservatives from the Duke of Wellington to Winston Churchill to Margaret Thatcher, has been cold-shouldered by the Bush White House. And all because of Iraq. Michael Howard, the Conservative leader since late last year, has...

A Convention for British Bush-backers this week would not need Madison Square Garden. A Manhattan milk bar would do -- room enough for Tony Blair, a tiny band of his ministers and a rather larger contingent from the Opposition Conservatives. One of those at that bar should be the new leader of the British Conservative Party, Michael Howard, former minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments and her successor as probably the most deeply committed Atlanticist in the House of Commons. Yet Mr. Howard has been left out in the street and, thanks to a fresh flurry of leaks to newspapers in...

Rift harms Tory links with Bush Sarah Hall, political correspondent Monday August 30, 2004 The Guardian Liam Fox, the Conservative party chairman, will fly into New York for the Republican convention today despite a row between Michael Howard and George Bush. The senior Tory, attending the convention with the party's former leader William Hague, and frontbenchers George Osborne and Tim Loughton, will be hoping for a meeting with the US president, though none has been promised or arranged. Any discussion is likely to be seen as a chance to build bridges after the Tory leader was provoked into issuing a...

According to The Sunday Telegraph, "Howard Tells Bush: I Don't Care If You Won't See Me". Presumably he didn't actually "tell" Bush, since his lack of access to the guy is what this thing's all about. "Face time" they used to call it in Bill Clinton's day. So Bush is probably unaware that Howard doesn't care if he won't see him. By next Sunday we might be seeing headlines such as: "Furious Howard Slams Reeling Bush: I Don't Care If You Don't Know That I Don't Care If You Won't See Me". But, despite the lively account in the Sun,...

Tory leader Michael Howard has hit out at White House aides after he was told would never meet President Bush. The Sun reported senior aide Karl Rove told Mr Howard in February: "You can forget about meeting the president full stop. Don't bother coming." The officials were reportedly furious at the Conservative leader's call for Tony Blair to resign over the Iraq war. Mr Howard said he would carry on doing his job as he saw fit and accused US aides of trying to protect Mr Blair. "A Conservative government would work very closely with President Bush or President Kerry,...