2 big stories

Are right-wing political campaigners not only using Russian attack lines, but using the same tactics to discredit their opponents? Here’s a story from the United States, see what you think…

Test, track, trace and isolate is allegedly the Government’s strategy to deal with the coronavirus. That requires a network of contact tracers, 18,000 of whom were supposed to be in place and operating imminently. It’s a pity that they’ve not been recruited yet…

2 social media posts

Today, two differing views of the Party’s Internal Review into the 2019 General Election campaign.

Nick Tyrone is rather more impressed than he had expected to be…

I’ll start with this basic, overarching review: it is much, much better than I thought it would be. I should caveat that remark by saying my expectations were pretty low going in. I had cynically thought that the conclusions the report would come to as to what went wrong in December would be some painfully Lib Demy stuff along the lines of “we didn’t deliver enough leaflets” and/or “we should have been more progressive”. Instead the report is relatively bold.

Andrew Page, on the other hand, isn’t anywhere near as keen…

The review, headed by Lady Thornhill, found that over-optimism and improbable polling lay behind some of the party’s subsequent difficulties. This is not remotely surprising, and many of us (myself included) were very uneasy with the apparent willingness to go to the polls in December. I spent verly little time actively campaigning, mainly because I had other plans already made for December but also because I lacked any confidence in the strategy being pursued. It was plainly obvious that we were being not only outspent, but out-thought by the Conservatives. I was completely disengaged from the campaign and its core messages (as much as any were discernible), but not necessarily from the election itself. Certain realities should have been obvious – and were indeed obvious to me, but clearly weren’t to the people leading our party.

You pays your money, you takes your choice, I suppose…