Why is Michael Ashcroft considered an election winning expert?

By Mark Pack | Tue 28th August 2007 - 1:50 pm

Lord Ashcroft, the controverisal former Conservative Treasurer and now Deputy Chairman, is back in the news again. Over the weekend, the Daily Mail ran a piece about internal Conservative disagrements over his role and there’s been plenty of criticism of him on Conservative Home, some of which made The Guardian.

Defenders of Ashcroft essentially say: he knows what it takes to win elections so having Ashcroft in charge and the serial losers being given the push is a good thing.

But how good is Ashcroft?

Well, here’s his own account of his record supporting target seats at the 2005 general election:

The national swing from Labour to Conservatives was 3.2 per cent, yet the swing in the seats which we supported was 3.8 per cent.
Dirty Politics, Dirty Times by Michael Ashcroft, p.296

You read that right: by his own admission, all his expertise and money achieved was a paltry o.6 per cent extra swing.

Given the campaign I ran at the general election secured a Labour to Liberal Democrats swing that was 9.8 points above the national average, I guess that makes me 16.3 times better than Lord Ashcroft 🙂

Do drop me a line Michael; my consultancy rates would be very competitive…

3 Comments

Norfolk Blogger 28th Aug '07 - 4:37pm

It would be worth working out how much he and his off shore companies spent to achieve a 0.6% increase.

Certainly his funding in North Norfolk was not well spent.
MatGB 29th Aug '07 - 12:08am

Isn’t it normal to expect an accentuated swing in target/contested seats?

That’s pretty pathetic overall.

Um, Mark? Any chance you could, um, delete this post or something? Make it members only? They might be Stupid, but they’re not that stupid. Are they?
A voice from Lothian 29th Aug '07 - 7:04am

Let the Tories dream they are campaign geniuses. Grant Schnaps (sic) anyone…