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The new Tories are genuine localists: 92% of them believe that local councils should be given more power. Perhaps that's not surprising, because that's party policy. But 38% of them are also in favour of replacing VAT with a local sales tax and moving towards making local councils self-financing (with 36% against). This goes way beyond party policy (although it is a proposal in Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell's book The Plan).
They want the number of MPs cut: 74% say there are too many MPs. Again, this is party policy, but there's always been some doubt as to whether a newly elected Tory majority would really vote to cut the number of MPs and do some of their number out of a job. This result suggests that they would.
They think Tory MPs should face open reselection contests: 54% say they would be willing to go through a full reselection procedure, open to all challengers, if elected as an MP, and only 35% say they are opposed. This is another idea being promoted by Hannan and Carswell.
They want to scrap inheritance tax: David Cameron is being relentlessly attacked by Labour for his proposal to raise the inheritance tax threshold (the "tax cut for millionaires", as Labour calls it). But 63% of Tory candidates say that inheritance tax is wrong in principle and should be abolished altogether. Only 28% disagree.
They are very pro-nuclear: When Gordon Brown committed himself to building a new generation of nuclear power stations last year, the Tory frontbench offered only lukewarm support. But the candidates are more gung-ho. 81% say the Tories "must support greater use of nuclear energy".
They support road pricing: Remember the 1.6m people who signed a Downing Street petition objecting to road pricing? Well, the Tory candidates are willing to ignore them. 50% say it is "worth considering" road pricing on some motorways in return for a cut in road tax.
That said, I suspect that the most significant finding in the survey could be the one relating to spending cuts. Cameron has said that he will protect spending on health and international development, but that other departments will face cuts. But the Tory candidates have different priorities. When asked which policy areas should be immune from cuts, they replied: International development: 4%
Schools: 23%
Health: 34%
Defence: 39%
(These figures are marginally different from the ones given to the Guardian yesterday, because ConservativeHome didn't have all the replies at that stage.)
If the Tories win the election, Cameron is going to have to make some savage public spending cuts. As he decides what to do to the defence budget, he will be considering reports like this one, from the Royal United Services Institute, yesterday, predicting 10-15% cuts in Ministry of Defence spending, and this one, from the Institute for Public Policy Research, on Monday, saying that defence programmes worth at least £24bn ought to be reviewed with a view to making cuts.
Perhaps just as importantly, he will be looking at the opinion polls, like this one from YouGov last week, showing that defence comes top, by a clear margin, when voters are asked to say which part of the public sector ought to face the biggest cuts.
Yet Tory candidates – the people who will be serving as backbenchers if Cameron wins the election – think defence ought to be bottom of the list when cuts are being delivered.
Cameron still hasn't won the election. But if he does, it's looking very possible that the first big revolt of his administration (and perhaps even the first ministerial resignation?) will come over the issue of defence cuts.
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