Tory Revival
A few points to make on how to rebuild the Tories:
1) Take a page from the Republicans. Build strong local parties. Right now, most local parties are moribund.
2) Adopt Michael Gove's suggestion of open candidate selection. Today, most young Tories go into a variety of careers other than politics. Many may sympathize with the Tories, but just don't have the time or opportunities (as CF is a mostly student crowd) to work extensively with the party.
3) Boost pay for CCO workers. Right now, CCO's Bright Young Things (as Evelyn Waugh used it, not the complementary term) are at least the 3rd XI, if not below. Instead of a professional squad of courageous thinkers and individuals willing to accomodate different viewpoints, the BYT/CF is full of cliquish self-absorbed troglodytes who don't have the time of day for a new party member. With a bit more money, CCO can attract a higher grade of young Tory, as right now, its pay scales are rather miserable for a London job. After all, look at the careers of most of the former dauphins of the Tories (Portillo, et al), and most started as advisors from the CCO level. Right now, I wouldn't trust one to lead, well, CF. Certainly better value for money than more mousepads or billboards.
4) Bring back the YCs (Young Conservatives). When YCs and Student Tories were combined into CF (Conservative Future), the student wing took charge. Most of the young professionals interested in talking politics or networking have lost interest in this crowd which now concentrates on drinking and nightclubbing, even though, oddly enough, most of CF's leadership have graduated from university. There's also far too much of an elitist sheen to CF/YCs, as they don't reach out to the working-class Tories.
5) Stronger polling techniques. As mentioned in previous post.
6) Go right. From a simple marketing perspective, there isn't much of a difference between the New Tories and New Labour. Why vote for the Tories to enact an agenda which is Labour's core competence. The Tories need to regain their reputation for economic prudence. All this pandering to race is probably insulting to the groups targeted. After all, didn't Condi Rice say she was glad to be with a party which liked her for who she was, not for the colour of her skin? If we really want to target the ethnic minorities, we can target shared values (responsibility and self-reliance), or shared economic opportunity (as many of them do own small businesses). This by no means excludes gays or women.
7) Utilize old soldiers. There are quite a few former activists/CCO workers dispersed through the country who can be quite useful. Given their wealth of experience, they can help advise the party in their spare time. Given the quality of the current CCO crowd, who know all, their experience would be very useful.
Lastly, hasn't the Tory breakaway party (The New Party) had its name used before by a fascist party of Mr Oswald Mosley?