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Today the Prime Minister unveiled the statue of Dame Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square commemorating her extraordinary advocacy for equality and fairness for women
Thank you, Rob, for those
warm words.
But thank you, above all,
for your leadership of the National Convention.
And for all that you do,
day in and day out, for our Party.
And – I know from all your
phone calls and emails – night in, night out…
RENEWAL
I can’t tell you how proud I am to be standing here today as
the Chairman of our great Party…
Over the last couple of
months, I’ve travelled right across our country, meeting and listening to
so many members…
I even had to battle through the Beast from the
East… (And I don’t mean Dennis Skinner…!)
So I’m rather pleased that
in three days, it’ll officially be the beginning of spring – despite what the
weather may tell us…
There cannot be a better
time for us to launch our plan for renewal and our roadmap for the future.
Ours is a party that’s
always seeking to improve – to raise our game, politically and
organisationally;
That’s how we’ve kept going all these years.
That’s why we’re the oldest political party in the world.
And not just the oldest: also
the most successful.
And we must – and will – do
it again!
I want to thank my
predecessor, Sir Patrick McLoughlin, for his leadership in steering the
Party over the last year.
And I want to pay tribute
to my extraordinary team.
Our new Deputy Chairman and
Vice Chairman have hit the ground running, whilst our hardworking staff at
CCHQ, led by Sir Mick Davis, have thrown
themselves into building our election machine with energy and dedication.
To all of them – and to all
our staff across the country who go that extra mile – I want to say thank you.
And so today, I want to
tell you about my priorities as your Chairman.
Priorities that have been
shaped by more than twenty years of political life:
· By the politics I learnt in
Brentwood and Sherwood, in Great Yarmouth and Great Britain;
· And by my experience as an
activist, as a councillor, as a parliamentary candidate and as an MP.
1.
I’m going to talk about our membership,
2.
I’m going to talk about how we are changing the way we
campaign across our country and on social media…
3.
And I want to talk to you about the steps we are taking
to ensure that we develop a more diverse pool of candidates…
So that – across all of these key issues – we can
continue to build upon our recent successes, and deliver a Conservative
campaign machine that is fighting fit for
the next general election.
THE GENERAL ELECTION
A lot of our success is
down to the help and support of all of you.
At last year’s General
Election, I know many of you worked relentlessly,
tirelessly, selflessly… to try to secure the result we all wanted.
We have learnt lessons, and
I want to thank Sir Eric Pickles for his review and Sir Mick Davis for his
business plan setting out how to ensure our team that is fighting fit for the
next election.
I just wonder… How many of
you thought about how much time and energy you put into the campaign?
Do you know how many calls
you made?
(Don’t worry…the
interactive part comes later!)
But let me tell you: it was one
hundred and thirty-six thousand.
And do you know how many
leaflets we delivered between us?
It was 50 million!
And you talked, too, to
millions of voters on the doorstep.
For all of this, and for
all you continue to do as we look towards the local elections, I want to say
thank you.
But right now, let’s think
for a moment about why we are proud to be Conservatives.
Let me tell you a story…
It’s the story of Jack.
Jack is born in a
hospital with extra doctors and extra nurses taking care of him thanks to our
investment in the NHS.
When Jack’s ready for
nursery, his mum – if she wants to – can
go back to work because we’ve introduced free childcare.
Along with nearly 2
million extra other kids, he’ll go on to get a good or outstanding education
because of the conservative government’s reforms
And Jack can go to a
well-funded university or he may decide that academia is not for him, and because
we’ve introduced apprenticeships, he’ll have the skills to get a great job in
the workplace – one of the thousands of jobs created since 2010.
And if Jack falls in
love…
And he might fall in
love with somebody of the same sex…
Thanks to the
legislation that we as Conservatives introduced, he will be able to get married.
And Jack will be able
to get on the housing ladder
and he’ll get a
deposit using Help to Buy,
and he’ll live in a
house built by the Conservatives.
And as Jack gets on
in life, he’ll have confidence that there’s a well-funded NHS to look after
him, and a pension that’s sustainable thanks to our reforms.
And that’s why,
although over the past 8 years we have had to make difficult choices, I am
proud of – we should all be proud – what the Conservative government has
achieved.
And by the way,
Jack’s story is also Jane’s… and Rashid’s and Aisha’s.
This is a
Conservative government that works for everyone.
MEMBERSHIP
We know that we can’t
continue to improve the lives of people in this country unless we win elections.
And to win elections we must have an effective campaigning force.
Our members lie at the heart of our ability to do
this.
As members and supporters,
you are the backbone of this Party.
I’m in politics to make a
difference.
My guess is that that’s why
you’re in politics, too.
And believe me, you do make
a difference.
Every door you knock on…
Every one of those 50
million leaflets you pushed through a letterbox…
(And the ones I hope you’ll
be delivering in the weeks ahead of the local elections)…
Every post you share
online…
It makes a difference:
· A difference to the debate;
· A difference to our democracy;
· A difference to our party’s chances of victory and of government.
We will be going out there
to make a difference as a family of
members that is growing in numbers…
You know, in recent years
there has been much speculation about the number of members we have.
Apparently we have 100,000…70,000… or 30,000 members.
None of these figures were
correct.
It is time to end that
speculation.
I can tell you, that as of
today, we have 124,000 members.
And thousands have joined since the general
election – and in fact we have 6,000
new members since January.
But it could, and should,
be higher still.
And let’s not forget that
the Conservative family extends way
beyond our party membership…:
…The thousands of activists, who aren’t full members…
…The 350,000 members of Conservative Clubs, many of whom go out at the
weekend to make the case for us on the doorstep.
I want us to find ways of
making sure that everyone—all 500,000—
in our Conservative family feel like they are part of the team.
We can do this by bringing forward a vision
of modern Conservative membership.
And one of the most important things we need to do – as part of that
modernisation process – is to start administering our membership centrally.
Members will always belong to constituency associations.
The constituency
association is the rock on which the
Conservative party is founded.
It is fundamental to our internal culture, fundamental to our approach to politics and fundamental to our success.
CANDIDATES
On which note, I want to
make clear that local associations will always
have the right to choose their own
parliamentary candidates.
I want to make sure that we
have the best pool of candidates for you to choose from…
And I believe that we can
have the very best candidates without using shortlists and quotas, which do not
get to the root of the problem.
There is one area, in
particular, that we should be focusing on as a Party: women.
It’s why the Prime Minister co-founded Women2Win and why we are working with CWO to reach out to women up and down
the country.
There are so many talented
women in this country who would make excellent Conservative candidates.
And we need to go out and find
more of them to join our already inspiring group of Conservative female MPs.
Just for the record, at CCHQ, we are leading by example:
We are today publishing gender pay figures that
demonstrate across CCHQ – whether that’s at director level, executive officers
or managers – we are giving our male and female staff equal pay for equal work.
We must and can do more – in particular, we need more
women in CCHQ.
This
is a challenge across parties,
politics and our society….
We need to create an environment in which we proactively
reach out and encourage women to join our Party, run for local council, stand
for Parliament and work for our Party.
CAMPAIGNING AND DIGITAL
And finally, as Party
Chairman, I will be doing everything I can to renew our party machine and to
build on our successes.
For example, we have now
hired 81 new campaign managers and ramped up our digital operations since the
election.
We’re producing far more
online content and we’re doing it every single day.
But what we do at CCHQ is
only part of the battle:
I need you to get involved!
To spread the message:
· On Facebook, engaging with friend
and political foe, alike… but nicely…
· On Twitter, re-tweeting
positive news and supporting your local candidates…
· And on Instagram, sharing
pictures of yourselves and your fellow campaigners, taking the fight to Labour…
CONCLUSION
The point is that we all
have a part to play…
And you are as important in
helping us as I am.
We are only six weeks to
our next electoral test.
There is so much at stake.
Because the consequences of
inaction are just so serious…
In some of your areas, the
difference between winning and losing is a handful of votes.
That extra hour we put in could be the thing that makes the difference.
That extra hour that means we win one extra seat, in one extra ward,
that gives us the right to govern….
So I would ask all of you –
our Conservative family:
To let us go from here…
To take the fight to Labour…
In every town, on every street, on every doorstep…
To earn the right to build a Britain that is fit for the
future!
Thank you.