ConservativeHome

ConservativeHome

Web address	http://www.conservativehome.com
Commercial?	No
Type of site	Blog
Created by	Tim Montgomerie
Launched	2005
Current status	Active

ConservativeHome is a UK political website started by Tim Montgomerie prior to the 2005 United Kingdom general election campaign,^[1] that aims to represent UK grassroots Conservative opinion.^[2][3][4]

Editors

ConservativeHome was first edited by Tim Montgomerie, with Samuel Coates as a deputy. Samuel left in July 2008^[5] to become a speech writer for David Cameron, and is now the party's head of digital. In November 2008, Jonathan Isaby joined as a co-editor.^[6] In 2009, Paul Goodman became the Executive Editor of ConservativeHome. He was the Conservative MP for Wycombe between 2001 and 2010.^[7]

Agenda

The site took a leading role in co-ordinating grassroots support in opposing Michael Howard's attempt to abolish the 'one man one vote' rule in the 2005 Conservative Party leadership election.^[8]

ConservativeHome was critical of the A list and believes that Conservative Party Leader David Cameron is in danger of alienating working class Conservative voters,^[9][10][11] and has pressed Cameron for specific pledges on tax cuts.^[12]

It was credited with the most accurate record of MP affiliation during the 2005 Conservative Leadership election, and it also was the first to reveal the names on the "A-list" of candidates.^[13][14] The Conservative chairman Francis Maude described it during the leadership election as "the only place to find out what’s going on".^[8]

Business

In September 2009 Lord Ashcroft the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party took a controlling stake of 57.5% in PoliticsHome, the company which owns and operates ConservativeHome.^[15]

The site does not appear in the Alexa webratings as being within the top 100,000 British websites, and accordingly the number of visitors to the site is unclear.^[16] The site claims that it gets 250,000 unique visitors a year.^[17]

Controversy

A Lefty Lexicon, a satirical article published in August 2006 on the site and written by Inigo Wilson, a man described as a "community affairs for a large telecoms company",^[18] was soon criticised by the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPACUK).^[19] MPAC members discovered that Wilson was Community Affairs Manager for phone company Orange, and pressured the company to dismiss him. Mr Wilson was initially suspended for the comments,^[20] but later reinstated.^[21]

In February 2012 ConservativeHome called for Andrew Lansley to be replaced as health secretary and the health care bill to be abandoned.^[17]

ConservativeHomeUSA

In 2010, ConservativeHome launched an American site, ConservativeHomeUSA, which is edited by Ryan Streeter and Montgomerie. Contributors have included John Thune, Roger Bate, Herbert London, David Frum and many other Republican and conservative think-tank and media figures.^[22]

References