Tories move away from famous Crosby Textor polling firm

London: They have been credited with masterminding the political victories of John Howard, David Cameron, Boris Johnson and John Key but Britain's Tories are moving on from the famous Australian strategists Crosby Textor, saying the model of "subcontracting" election campaigns to expensive outside consultants is past its use-by date.

The shift comes after a furious blame game in both Australia and Britain between the governments and the pollsters over the cause of the horror results for the Coalition in 2016 and the Tories in 2017.

While the Liberal Party in Australia still uses the firm for polling and focus groups, Britain's Conservatives say Sir Lynton Crosby, dubbed "The Wizard of Oz", will not longer be running their campaigns.

Sir Lynton Crosby is a familiar face in conservative politics in the United Kingdom and Australia. Credit: Steve Back

James Cleverly, the Conservative party's deputy chairman told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, the party had come to the conclusion it needed its own "in-house, election-winning capability" following the 2017 poll where the government lost its majority.

"The subcontracting of the election to someone else, it never really happened like that, I know that was the perception, it never really happened like that [but] that's definitely not how it's going to happen in future," he said.

Mr Cleverly said the party was now taking local and mayoral elections more seriously, meaning they needed to be in campaign mode virtually every year.

"You don't have that feast and famine mentality anymore which we used to have, where you had quiet years between general elections and then you pulled out the big guns for general elections.

"Now in that kind of pattern, getting political consultants, like Lynton...works, as a pattern it works when you've big elections then gaps between elections."

He said it was also the case that voters were making up their minds well before the official election campaign had got underway. Australia has seen a similar trend with a huge surge in prepolling over the last decade.

"Again, that doesn't lend itself to kind of buying in political consultants in the couple of months before polling day," Mr Cleverly said.

"So the move away from political consultants is a byproduct of the changing nature of UK politics.

"And also Lynton, quite famously said, 'you can't fatten a pig on market day', which basically means if you're not doing the hard work between elections it doesn't matter how much money you spend on an election guru, they can't turn around an election if you're not already on the road to winning it," he said.

However Mr Cleverly said the Tories would continue to bring in pollsters, communications experts and campaign logistics staff for the "white hot heat of the campaign".

Sir Lynton, a former director of the Liberal Party in Australia, formed his firm with Mark Textor in 2002, having already overseen Mr Howard's 1996, 1998 and 2001 wins. Now rebranded as CT group, the company also operates in Milan and Washington D.C.

Mr Textor has retreated from the political front line, and will not be involved in this year's federal election in Australia.

The London-based Sir Lynton enjoyed a close relationship with the Tories under former prime minister David Cameron, who knighted him in 2016. But the firm has fallen out of favour with the party under Theresa May's premiership. Recently, the British press have reported the firm is masterminding Boris Johnson's leadership campaign and working to kill-off Ms May's Brexit plan.

Mr Johnson was among scores of prominent Tories, including Ms May's cabinet ally Amber Rudd, who attended Crosby Textor's Christmas party at the Victoria and Albert museum in Kensington last year.