ConservativeHome

ConservativeHome
Web address	http://www.conservativehome.com
Commercial?	No
Type of site	Blog
Created by	Tim Montgomerie
Launched	2005
Alexa rank	5,870 [1] (UK 10/2015)
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 then Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party took a controlling stake of 57.5% in PoliticsHome, the company which owns and operates ConservativeHome.^[15] In 2011, Ashcroft sold PoliticsHome to Dod's and retained ConservativeHome.^[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 for the Health and Social Care Bill to be abandoned.^[17]