It seemed timely to ask the panel for its view of Peter Cruddas and David Campbell-Bannerman’s Conservative Democratic Organisation – though also problematic.
That’s because the campaign aims to make the Conservative Party more democratic – “to strengthen party democracy by ensuring the Conservative Party is representative of the membership and fairly represents their views,” as its website puts it…
..While also seeking to make it more right-wing. It “also [has] serious concerns about the political views of many Tory MPs elected under David Cameron’s leadership”.
Lord Cruddas was also one of the most assertive voices in the loose “Bring Back Boris Johnson” alliance this autumn. It’s unlikely that he has changed his view.
All this information would be difficult to pack into a brief question, so we settled simply for naming the campaign and asking panel members if they support it.
And with a narrow plurality, they do. To some extent, the answers will be a product of name recognition (so some of the 28 per cent who have no view will not have heard of it).
Furthermore, support may be inflated by panel members who haven’t grasped that part of Cruddas’s aim is to change the composition of the Conservative Parliamentary Party…
…or else deflated for exactly the same reason. Some of the campaign echoes our own view, expressed over time, and some of its doesn’t. Henry Hill explains all here.