Wednesday 18th May 2011 | 15:41

Why the Tories must get crime right

'Project Blueprint' by Lord Ashcroft, released yesterday, on how to win a Conservative majority in 2015, is useful in gauging the political importance of Ken Clarke's controversial comments on rape today. The study includes a poll of Conservative Considerers; voters who had thought about voting Tory in 2010, but has decided not to. Among the questions, this crucial group of voters were asked to what extent a range of issues were a priority for the respondents themselves, across a 5-point scale – and then to what extent they saw the issue as a priority for the Conservatives.

In order to gauge Conservative weakness issue-by-issue with these swing voters, we need to take into account the importance of the issue, as well the extent to which the Conservatives aren't matching expectations. To this end, I’ve created a Priority Comparison Index, taking into account both the average gap between voters' own priorities and how they see those of the Conservatives - and how important that issue is for them. In some ways, such an index is likely to always be in minus figures, as voters are instinctively unlikely to think politicians care about important issues as much as they do.

This shows, for instance, that much as ‘improving the NHS’ is overall the area of most significant gap in perceived priorities, the fact that ‘getting the economy growing and creating jobs’ is more important to Considers, makes it the issue of most significant weakness.

These two issues of Health and Growth stand out as the issues where the Conservatives seem most crucially out of touch, at the bottom of the scale – with ‘dealing with crime’ only narrowly behind. There is then a fairly significant gap before ‘improving schools’. The most successful important issue for the Conservatives is, perhaps unsurprisingly, ‘cutting the deficit and debt’.

On growth, the Conservatives are in many ways hostages to private sector fortunes, but will want to improve in their loudly explaining what they’re doing to create new jobs – indeed, it was Nick Clegg who was allowed to launch the Regional Growth Fund. Labour’s no doubt recognises this key chink in Cameron’s armour, by pushing the line that the government has no strategy for growth.

The Conservatives seem to have finally realised the extent to which they were vulnerable on healthcare, and the legislative pause has seen David Cameron make a number of high-profile appearances defending his commitment to the NHS.

The presence of Crime as the third weakest issue on this index will be of profound concern to CCHQ – and the biggest danger of Ken Clarke’s comments today is surely that the party seems completely out of touch on the issue.

Indeed, quotes from focus groups run by Lord Ashcroft included: “they’re cutting the police and letting more people out of jail early”; “how can you be tough on crime when you’re taking money from the police?”; “they’re on about not sending so many down and letting more out.”

As I’ve argued before, outside the Westminster bubble, issues like selling off the forests don’t matter nearly as much as key voter priorities like healthcare and jobs. There is little doubt that Conservative strategists will want to reassert their credentials on crime in the coming months - what part Ken Clarke will play in that is a different question.