The post you are reporting:
Courtesy of the Sunday Times.
Michael Gove and Ruth Davidson have joined forces to help draw up Tory policy for the next general election in a significant move that brings together two of the leading lights of the Brexit and “remain” campaigns. The environment secretary and the Conservative leader in Scotland have agreed to front the launch of a think tank called Onward, which will create “retail policies” to appeal to the under-45s who abandoned the Tories at the last election.
The group, which has been given the blessing of Downing Street chief of staff Gavin Barwell, will draw up policies to boost Theresa May’s government and contribute to the Tory manifesto in 2022. Will Tanner, a former aide to the prime minister, has been recruited as director. The think tank will launch on May 21, after what are expected to be poor local election results for the Conservatives. Those involved say Onward will address what many Tory MPs see as a dearth of ideas with “doorstep appeal” to voters. Its name echoes En Marche!, the movement that swept Emmanuel Macron to power in France. There is concern that May’s team is too consumed by Brexit to work on domestic policies, leaving the way clear for Jeremy Corbyn’s hard-left politics. May has repeatedly commissioned reviews of difficult questions rather than announce eye-catching ideas.
Invitations to the launch, which will feature speeches by Davidson and Gove, will be sent out tomorrow, cementing an unlikely but potentially powerful alliance. This is the second time they have teamed up. Last month they campaigned for British fishermen who want to reclaim control of UK waters after Brexit.
Some Tories believe Davidson and Gove are the most able Conservatives from their wings of the party and suggest they would be a powerful pairing in a leadership contest after May stands down. Davidson led the Tories to 12 gains in Scotland in 2017 while Gove is seen as the most effective minister at driving through policy. “We hope to be an ideas factory for the centre right and reach out to new groups that in the present climate the Conservative party isn’t very good at talking to,” Tanner said. “We’re a modernising, one-nation organisation. We believe in the value of markets but also the good that government can do. “We want to come up with ideas that can be sold to the public and will be popular. This is not some exercise in high-falutin theory. We want to come up with crunchy retail politics that appeal to the young, which means the under-45s, not just the under-25s.”
Those behind Onward hope to create a raft of policies, some of which can be implemented quickly. Others would form the centrepiece of the 2022 manifesto, whoever is party leader. Early publications by Onward will include ideas to help families with living costs and job security and what Tanner calls “better solutions to dysfunction in the housing market”. Onward’s board will be chaired by Lord Finkelstein, a close associate of George Osborne, the former chancellor. It will include rising stars such as Neil O’Brien, who worked for both May and David Cameron and helped set up Onward; and Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the foreign affairs select committee. Others signed up include Kemi Badenoch and Ben Bradley, who are party vice-chairmen; James Kanagasooriam, a data expert who helped Davidson last year; John Lamont, a Scottish Tory MP; Craig Elder, who has run the Tory digital operation in the past two general elections; former Osborne aide Eleanor Wolfson; and former Cameron aides Kate Fall and Kate Rock.