Gavin Rice

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Articles

Why Britain needs growth

2 months ago | spectator.co.uk | Gavin Rice

‘Growth’ can be a confusing word. It’s intangible, obscure, hard to visualise. It happens slowly, often imperceptibly, over a political cycle – when it happens at all. The changes needed to achieve it can be tough and involve trade-offs. Often voters feel those changes will not directly benefit them, or may even make their lives worse – whether it’s new housing developments, HS2, a new runway at Heathrow or new nuclear power stations.
Gavin Rice: The road back will be hard, but not impossible, if Conservatives can target the right voters

Oct 10, 2024 | conservativehome.com | Gavin Rice

Gavin Rice is the Project Director of “Future of Conservatism” at the think tank Onward. This week on ConservativeHome I’ve been laying out some of the key findings from Onward’s major post-election analysis, Breaking Blue. The second piece focused on which voter groups the Conservatives most urgently need to win back and their priorities. Liberal Democrat and Reform defectors are more likely to come back to the Tories, and these voters are actually more similar than they are different.
Gavin Rice: Winning back voters we lost has to be a battle on two fronts

Oct 9, 2024 | conservativehome.com | Gavin Rice

Gavin Rice is the Project Director of “Future of Conservatism” at the think tank Onward. I have been laying out for ConservativeHome readers some of the key findings of Breaking Blue, Onward’s major post-election analysis. In the first instalment of this three-part series for ConservativeHome, I explained how the 2019 vote splintered in multiple directions, with the party suffering its biggest losses with the groups with which it normally does best – older, white, Leave-voting homeowners.
Gavin Rice: To get back in contention Conservatives need to understand how they lost and who they lost

Oct 8, 2024 | conservativehome.com | Gavin Rice

Gavin Rice is Project Director of “Future of Conservatism” at the think tank Onward. Throughout last week’s surprisingly upbeat Conservative Party conference one question dominated: who should lead the party in the fightback after its worst ever defeat? But a second, equally important, question was less discussed.
Breaking Blue - Report - Onward

Sep 28, 2024 | ukonward.com | Sebastian Payne |James Kanagasooriam |Shivani Menon |Gavin Rice

In July 2024 the Conservative Party suffered its worst ever electoral defeat. It now faces an existential “sink or swim” moment. How did this happen? Breaking Blue, the largest UK post-election study of its kind, reveals the short, medium, and longer-term causes of the historic outcome and the route back to power for the centre-right. In a major collaboration with Focaldata and JL Partners, Onward has conducted comprehensive quantitative and qualitative research with over 24,000 participants.
The pace of decline is accelerating

Sep 13, 2024 | conservativereader.substack.com | Gavin Rice

In The Telegraph, Nick Timothy says Britain must have an industrial strategy or face decline. This is where even good industrial strategy can become contentious. For it requires the rejection of the laissez-faire policies beloved in the Treasury. Our sustained trade deficit – which ballooned not under Margaret Thatcher, as often assumed, but Tony Blair – causes a vicious cycle of disinvestment and deindustrialisation.
Gavin Rice: Britain needs an industrial strategy that supports manufacturing, not just innovation

Jun 27, 2024 | conservativehome.com | Gavin Rice

Gavin Rice is Director of the Future of Conservatism Project at Onward and a former Special Adviser. “Trump doesn’t get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs”. So tweeted Joe Biden in 2019, after Donald Trump announced $80 billion worth tariffs on a wide range of Chinese-manufactured goods.
Reimagining conservative economics

May 3, 2024 | conservativereader.substack.com | Gavin Rice

At ConservativeHome, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove makes the case for reformed markets in service to families, communities and the national interest. So we need to make the case against the drift back to socialism and permanently lower growth with renewed vigour. But we also need to renew the case for markets and capitalism, recognising there is more to do to bolster manufacturing, guarantee energy security, incentivise investment in innovation, and extend home ownership.
Failing to get a flight to Rwanda would be hugely damaging for Sunak

Jan 16, 2024 | politicshome.com | Caitlin Doherty |Gavin Rice

4 min read “Why can’t the government just close the border – after all, it has an 80-seat majority?” This is the question many frustrated voters are (justifiably) asking as ministers gear up for another parliamentary battle to stop the boats. But that’s exactly what the Prime Minister is seeking to achieve; wielding his majority to declare Rwanda a safe country for legal purposes.
Britain’s addiction to mass migration is becoming dangerous

Nov 20, 2023 | telegraph.co.uk | Gavin Rice

As Rishi Sunak seeks desperately to prove he can get a grip on Britain’s sea border, it’s easy to forget the other border crisis. While less prominent than the small boats, the scale of legal net migration is a much bigger problem. And unlike asylum policy, it’s something our Government is entirely in control of. Yet, since 2019, net migration has almost tripled. The Conservative manifesto in that year said that Britain would welcome highly skilled workers, it’s true.