Douglas Carswell - Influence in The Conservative Party

Influence in The Conservative Party

According to conservative commentator Charles Moore, Carswell has had significant influence over Coalition government policy. Moore credits Carswell, together with MEP Daniel Hannan, as the architects behind the idea of a Great Repeal Bill, as well as the idea of a ""Contract with Britain" offered during the election, the "recall" of MPs who have displeased their constituents, open primaries for the selection of candidates, and plans for elected police commissioners.". According to Moore's analysis not only is "The localism of the Carswell/Hannan "direct democracy" movement is now good Coalition orthodoxy", but Cameron's policy guru, Steve Hilton, "has enthusiastically lifted several bits of The Plan", the best-selling moderniser book written by Carswell and co-author Daniel Hannan.

Even before the formation of the Coalition, the influence of Carswell's ideas was evident in speeches made by David Cameron – most notably a speech to the Open University made by David Cameron in Milton Keynes in May 2009. Blogger Guido Fawkes, who describes The Plan as a "huge hit, an Amazon bestseller and the all-time best-selling publish-on-demand publication ever sold by Amazon", also noted the influence of the book on Conservative thinking.

Carswell has frequently been invited to speak at conferences and seminars on a range of policy topics in which he has no formal role within the party, such as reform of the criminal justice system, constitutional reform, defence and local government.

In July 2009, the Conservatives announced they would be using full, open primary contests to select candidates for the first time, another illustration of the way that ideas in The Plan have been adopted by the Conservatives.

Significantly, the new Coalition Government's legislative agenda announced in the Queen's Speech in May 2010, included two ideas originally put forward by Carswell. Carswell and Hannan were the first to suggest a Great Repeal Bill in The Plan. They proposed that the Bill should be a wiki-Bill, with members of the public directly contributing to the list of laws and regulations to be repealed.

Also included in the Queen's Speech were proposals to put a "directly elected individual" in charge of local policing. Carswell was the first British Conservative to propose this idea in print in his October 2002 pamphlet Direct Democracy; empowering people to make their lives better.

Carswell was the first to demand that Commons select committees should have power to approve Whitehall department budgets and confirm appointments of senior officials. He insisted that the new head of the Office of Budget Responsibility be subjected to a confirmation hearing by the Treasury select committee, an innovation accepted by Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.