“I disagree about “Compasionate Conservatism”; the Tories simply don’t have any policies at all, let alone any that support this.”

It is a fact that the Conservatives don’t really have any policies. People voted in this by-election *despite* the Conservatives’ policy-free zone.

People want to kick Labour, and after 11 years people are starting to forget how much they hated the Tories.

Whilst I’m sure it’s part of Cameron’s cunning plan, I don’t think the Tories can pull off a compassionate Conservative narrative without any policies. And I don’t think people voted Tory this time because they believed in compassionate Conservatism.

Perhaps the Tory leaflets should lay into the so-called People’s Budget?

Interest in what Thatcher did is declining, and sharp. As the party has moved on, it becomes irrelevant. It’s as desperate as Tories still talking about the Winter of Discontent in 1997.

…”Bear in mind that ICM survey was conducted May 7 and 8 (Wednesday and Thursday) – and I don’t think we started putting literature out in any great volumes until this weekend.

Yes, as a baseline it’s rubbish – but we’ve started with worse and won before!

I’d expect us to be doing a lot better than this by polling day. That Labour % still has a long way to fall, believe me!”

…”Interesting result as a baseline – not sure taht its as good for the Tories as they hoped. Expect all of those votes are very soft and all to play for – looks like a three way fight to me.”

…”Niall,

“Local” polls are notoriously unreliable – so I shouldn’t get too hung up about this one.

I might just as well point you to a poll on the crewe.tv blog, which has us in … er … the lead!

Or some anecdotal feedback from Tory phone canvassing which (allegedly) has us a close second, with Labour third!”

… “I disagree about “Compasionate Conservatism”; the Tories simply don’t have any policies at all, let alone any that support this.

For the right or the wrong reasons, I think you’re over-egging the pudding about the Conservative’s theme and our apparent lack”

Seriously folks it is time to put an END to this misplaced optimism and start taking the Tory revival for the serious risk to us that it our vote. Particularly Cameron’s message of “liberal, compassionate Conservatism”. There was a time when a majority of people who voted Labour at the last three general elections would never have considered voting Conservative but Cameron is articulating Liberal themes more effectively than we are and is luring a vote that instead of naturally going to the Lib Dems is passing by us to the Tories.

Enough of finding comfort and rays of light in bad defeats and more creating a well defined “Liberal” narrative for today’s political landscape. If we’re going to lure Labour (and Conservative) voters at the next general election we must have a clear purpose. To limply protest that “we’re Liberals” and fight plucky local campaigns is not going to wash at the next election.

The Lib Dems won Romsey from the Conservatives during a Labour government. Sandra Gidley’s victory cannot be put down to a protest vote, because the Tories were in opposition. It was a positive vote for the Lib Dems which has endured.

Henley is closely analogous. It is a Tory seat where the Lib Dems are a fairly distant challenger, but where there is potential. Johnson overperformed in 2005, giving a false appearance of invincibility. Much of the constituency is comprised of small, socially mixed towns with a fair bit of new housing. The town of Henley is one small part of it, and not all of that is “posh”.

Cameron has the effrontery to claim that his party is “green”. Well, perhaps we will shortly be reminding Henley voters that it was a Tory government that tried to relax the Green Belt to make way for commuter towns outside Oxford. And it was a Tory government that tried to build the M40 across Ot Moor. Given half a chance, Cameron would let his big business friends do the same and worse.

You see, that’s the problem when you selectively use swing figures for your own advantage.

If you had just used the two parties who topped the poll no-one would have bothered mentioning how highlighting just one of the LibDem swing figures looks like clutching at straws.

The other factor you have to consider is how much of the 2008 LibDem vote is made up of the 2005 LibDem vote.

If it is a case of a large section of the ’05 LibDem vote going to the Tories and the ’08 LibDem vote being given some ballast from defecting Labour voters who wanted to make a protest then a bigger problem may be on the horizon. It’s more than probable that in a general election the LibDems that went Tory last night do so again but the Labour voters that went LibDem return to Labour.

Result? A disastrous squeeze..

Why are you so obsessed that a “local man” was “ditched”, and replaced by an “outsider” ??

Marc Godwin lives in Buxton … Derbyshire. 25 miles from the constituency. He was replaced (following the party’s rules for by-elections) by Elizabeth Shenton who lives in Newcastle … Staffordshire. 10 miles from the constituency.

Try following the facts.

“When the Conservatives were losing byelections by even bigger margins (remember David Rendel’s 66% in Newbury?) they dismissed these results as protest votes and insisted they would win the seats back at the next General Election.”

The point is that the Tories were whistling in the dark to keep up their spirits. Newbury was not won back until 2005, and these by-election defeats, unless my memory is faulty, presaged the Labour landslide of 1997.

We need to be scrupulously honest either to deserve any mandate or to credibly hold others to account.

Anyway, let’s move on, I have no intention of debating a page on the Daily Mash.

“it doesn’t stop him being as selfish, arrogant and nasty as the next Conservative”

“The next Conservative” being those folks on the Crewe council estates who deserted Labour but didn’t choose the LibDems. Do you really think that language like this helps win the argument? Can you not concede that it perhaps betrays an attitude that underlies why they didn’t vote LibDem? Your tone is as inappropriate as that of the Labour “Toff” campaign – that also resulted in failure. Where’s the dialogue?

There are lots of reasons to attack Edward Timpson. He’s a Tory for crying out loud! He joined a party that has no policies, no principles and did all the bad things we like to remember them doing. Who his parents are/were could not matter less. Michael Howard was the son of asylum seekers who took refuge here from persecution and benefited from our open society to become a cabinet minister – it doesn’t stop him being as selfish, arrogant and nasty as the next Conservative.

http://tinyurl.com/5hbhnf

On pure numbers that would give the tories a 200 majority as we slip from 63 to 55 at a general election.

Wasn’t Bromley the same?

The next big thing that will happen in british politics is not the Henley by-election but the defenestration of Gordon Brown.

That will happen because without it the country is going to the Tories by default.

And the battle at the next election will not be to get labour out but to stop the Tories winning a massive majority – saying “me too” to Cameron is the short road to Lib Dem annilihation.

That’s enough to win Henley. If you don’t know why, then you haven’t been to Henley.