Dubbed by ConservativeHome as ‘Cameron’s Children’, 74 new Conservative MPs were elected in 2015. They make up over a fifth of the parliamentary party and as such who they are, what they think and what they go on to do will help shape the direction of the Conservative Party for some time to come.
One ofthe main features of media focus on the new Tory intake has been that 27 of them are women. This includes some who won very high-profile seats, including Andrea Jenkyns who ousted Ed Balls by just 422 votes and Dr Tania Mathias who ended Vince Cable’s Commons career in another tight vote. The 2015 intake is also markedly more ethnically diverse. Seven of the 74 MPs are non-white and include the first ever MP of Chinese origin, Alan Mak. Whilst this only makes up 9 per cent of the new intake, this is something of an improvement on the 2010 numbers.
Rightly or wrongly, Tories face greater scrutiny of their educational histories than MPs of other parties. Across all MPs, 32 per cent of UK-educated MPs attended independent schools and 26 per cent went to Oxbridge. For the Conservatives, the numbers are 48% and 34% for private schools and Oxbridge attendance respectively. The party’s representation remains heavily out of sync with the public at large.
So far few of the new intake have made much of a splash and seem to be keeping their cards firmly to their chests while they work out what it is they want to achieve as MPs. There are a few exceptions – Johnny Mercer’s maiden speech made an impassioned and moving pitch to tackle veterans’ issues and improve mental health provision – but overall, there is something of a blank slate. This is very different to the 2010 intake who were much more outspoken and keen to stake their claims early on.
As noted elsewhere in this collection, the 2010 intake felt they owed little to Cameron, and were vigorously independently minded. The 2015 intake arguably has a higher degree of loyalty and have won their seats through campaigns that required a high degree of adherence to diktat from Lynton Crosby’s operation.
The 2015 intake will feel that they owe their seats to David Cameron in a way that wasn’t the case for the 2010 intake. This is likely to make the Class of 2015 a much more loyal bunch – there is, after all, a reason they’ve been referred to as ‘Cameron’s Children’. Indeed one of them, Oliver Dowden, is a former Deputy Chief of Staff to Cameron – unusual in a relatively SPAD-free candidates list.
However, they are not without their own minds – and perhaps other loyalties. Two of the new intake are stalwart London politicians. Victoria Borwick was Deputy Mayor of London until May this year and Kit Malthouse was Deputy Mayor for Business and Enterprise until March. Both of them, and particularly Borwick, will be close to Boris Johnson and could potentially be useful allies for the Mayor in parliament.
The general Cameronian loyalty of the new intake is perhaps most clearly evident in the lack of any real input from them on the issue of Europe, which, unsurprisingly, is already the most politically divisive issue for the wider party in the new Parliament. There are exceptions – Craig MacKinlay, the former UKIP founding member who defeated Farage in South Thanet springs to mind – but the new intake should make life easier, rather than harder, for the party leadership as the referendum approaches.
Overall the new Conservative intake does suggest a shift in the party towards becoming one which is more reflective of wider British society, at least in terms of the gender and ethnicity of its MPs, if not quite in terms of educational background. This suggests that the party is becoming more open and will make it much more appealing to those minority groups that previously might have seen Labour as their natural home.
It also looks as though, while a few MPs may take a more rebellious tone once the post-election dust has settled, the new MPs will largely toe the party line. This intake broadly seems like one that will help the party to stick to a Cameroonian course, ensuring that its appeal to the centre-ground, aspirational working and middle classes is maintained. It is this course that won the party the election and, if it is maintained and reflected again in the candidates for 2020, is one that Labour should be concerned about.