The election is providing no shortage of time-lapse gaffes, where online activity of some vintage has come back to haunt candidates and activists alike. It’s no surprise that Stuart Penketh, the Conservative candidate for Ellesmere Port and Neston, tried to delete his Grey Funnel Line blog.
When not describing third-world debt relief as “letting tyrants off the hook”, it seemed Penketh used his blog to sling around racist insults. Likening the town of Radcliffe in Greater Manchester to war-torn Vietnam, Penketh uses the word “gook”, a derogatory term for South-East Asians:
According to this morning’s FT, the Conservatives are so anxious not to have to work with the Liberal Democrats that they are eying a post-election deal with the SNP, Plaid Cymru and even the DUP. Worried that Cameron will fail to gain an overall majority, Tory strategists are drawing up contingency plans with almost anything on offer to avoid having to face up to electoral reform.
Both the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists have made it clear that their price for working with any of the three main parties at Westminster would be a relative increase in the funding allocated to Scotland and Wales. The DUP are likewise going to seek more money for the Northern Ireland Assembly. This will not be easy for a government attempting to reduce the country’s huge deficit, whilst attemping not to upset its shire heartlands.
Now he’s been suspended by the Conservatives again, this time for homophobic comments, although given where we are in the electoral timetable his name will remain on the ballot in North Ayrshire and Arran and there will be no alternative Conservative candidate put up.
Hence Eric Pickles telling the media the weekend that there was no Lib Dem surge detectable in the Conservative Party’s canvassing and Boris Johnson writing in the Telegraph that Nick Clegg was “by far the worst”. Yeah right.
Go right! Go right!
Hence William Hague warning of a European Union inspired catastrophe if the Lib Dems win. Guess he’s not on talking terms with Eric Pickles or Boris Johnson, because how could the Lib Dems win if they are both right? But also I guess he’s hoping we’ve all forgotten the number of …
THE WRATH of the Perthshire business community came down on Perth and North Perthshire’s Tory General Election candidate Peter Lyburn yesterday after he used names on an open letter without permission, The Courier can reveal.
One of the prominent business people who feels “used” is Perthshire Chamber of Commerce president Paul Shields.
A letter, sent to The Courier and other newspapers on Thursday by Mr Lyburn, was critical of Labour’s planned 1% rise in National Insurance and supported Conservative plans to thwart it…
Mr Shields declared, “I haven’t seen an open letter. I haven’t signed an
The Conservative manifesto is a blueprint for fake change. It is a depressing and dishonest con with a massive spending black hole at its centre, threatening an inevitable hike in VAT.
In the attached document, we detail where the Conservatives have failed to justify their promises, and why they should not be trusted with the keys to No. 10.
Commenting, Nick Clegg’s Chief of Staff, Danny Alexander said:
“The truth is that you cannot trust the Conservatives. David Cameron simply believes it is his turn to take over in the same way the two old parties have taken turns for
Six months ago Lib Dem Voice featured Mrs Christine Roberts, a Tory councillor in the Cotswolds who landed herself in hot water after publicly labelling her Lib Dem opponents “morons”, and then refusing to apologise. Well, it turns out this wasn’t the first time she’d made gratutiously insults – only on the other occasions it was her residents who complained of her behaviour.
FORMER Fairford mayor Chris Roberts has been found guilty of breaching the councillors code of conduct following her involvement in the Village Green saga. … Fairford Environmental Societ members Suzanne Jones and
A tax-break for married couples, is how the Tories are trying to spin it. The reality could scarcely be different – here are the groups of people the Tories are now officially classifying as undeserving:
Two married teachers bringing up a child.
A co-habiting couple who have lived together for years but not married.
People whose partners have abandoned them and their children.
A widow whose husband has died in Afghanistan.
But perhaps I’m being unfair … after all the Tories will reward some people at the expense of those clearly undeserving groups:
Those happily married for 50 years.
Over a million people in Britain who have separated but are still legally married.
Somebody who abandons their partner and children and then remarries.
The Tories’ feeble defence of their Edwardian tax-war on groups in society they regard as unworthy is that it their £150 a year will help solve the much-talked about ‘Broken Britain’ – so what will the Tory policy do for those living in poverty?
Continuing my occasional series of opinion poll results that newspapers have paid for but then not published (all for reasons of space you understand, nothing to do with editorial lines and not liking the result, oh no of course not) we have the latest YouGov poll for The Sun:
Do you think the following will or will not happen if the Conservatives win the coming election?
The number of crimes committed each year will fall: 22% will, 47% will not – net -25%
The quality of education in state schools will improve: 25% will, 46% will not – net -21%
Britain’s economy will …
On the day that the Lib Dems tried to smoke out the Tories’ true position on whether they’ll jack-up VAT by 3% – annual cost to the average household, £389 – to pay for their unfunded tax-cuts, David Cameron was joined by a man worth £45m who rather likes the Tories’ promise to cut taxes for the wealthiest at the expense of everyone else.
Full marks to Lib Dem HQ who were smartly on the case to splice the two stories memorably together:
Lib Dem blogger Mark Thompson had his own pithy take on it:
Only the day after David Cameron admitted he does not expect the Conservatives to do well in Scotland, one of his leading candidates has quit the Conservative Party.
In today’s Sunday Herald Heather MacLeod, who has resigned after a “bitter and bloody” feud with fellow Conservatives, said she felt “complete and utter disgust” with a section of the Scottish Conservatives:
She also accused the Scottish party of failing to match leader David Cameron’s progress and said she had concerns about an allegedly inappropriate relationship between two senior Tories.
“Croydon Central seat promises to be one of the most open and unpredictable in the country,” says Croydon Today, in response to the decision of the sitting MP to contest the constituency again. Andrew Pelling, also a former London Assembly member, snook home as a Tory in 2005 but in 2007 had the parliamentary whip withdrawn following his arrest after his wife alleged assault. No charges were ever brought, but at the end of that year Pelling declared that he would not seek re-election.
Well, now that he’s confirmed persistent rumours that he would change
Conservative MEPs have consistently voted against a string of measures to protect women’s rights.
Analysis of the record of 25 Tory members of the European Parliament this year shows they voted against, or abstained, eight times on issues relating to sexual equality, family-friendly working hours, maternity leave and reproductive health – often in clear defiance of official Conservative Party policy.
The MEPs also failed to back an EU resolution expressing concern about homophobic attacks in Croatia, which is seeking EU membership…
On 25 February, 22 out of 25 Tory MEPs voted against a resolution calling for the EU
Oh dear. You’d have thought a party funded by non-doms like Lord Ascroft and Zac Goldsmith would at least have the money to throw at professional, vote-winning advertising. Thankfully, though the Tories may preach value-for-money to others, they show zero signs of putting it into effect themselves.
Example One: Political posters
The Tories, after all, are the party which brought us the most famous British advertising slogan of all times: Labour Isn’t Working.
Yet their most recent attempt – the confused and confusing “I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS” – brought universal derision thanks to the weak message, the air-brushed Dave image, and the crowd-sourced satirical efforts courtesy mydavidcameron.com.
The result: the Tories have sidelined advertising agency Euro RSCG just weeks before polling day, and reverted to the tried-and-tested M&C Saatchi.
Example Two: Online campaigning
Time was the Tories were lauded as the party which ‘got’ Web 2.0: they dominated the blogosphere, had thrown money at their Internet strategy. Those days seem so far away now.
This week, the Tories launched CashGordon, a doomed exercise which can perhaps be filed under, ‘It seemed a good idea at the time’. (Or, alternatively, ‘This is what happens when you let kids run the place.’)
First came the news that the Tories’ CashGordon had used an off-the-shelf template developed by a US anti-healthcare lobbyist. Not great timing in the week President Obama is being praised to the skies for defeating US anti-healthcare lobbyists.
Then it dawned on the Tories that perhaps allowing anyone to post a Tweet to their site without moderation wasn’t perhaps such a great idea – Twitter users flooded the site with obscene messages, and code that allowed the site to be hacked and redirected.
And then the final humiliation: the exposure that the girlfriend of Samuel Coates, the Tories’ online campaigning guru, had phoned the employers of a Twitter user threatening litigation against him for tweeting to the site.
The result:CashGordon dies a miserable death.
Example Three: Fundraising videos
Tory blogger Iain Dale highlights today the video of Tory candidate Anthony Calvert, intended to inspire donations to his campaign to unseat Labour’s Ed Balls. Here’s the video:
Are you up to speed with the mess the Tories made out of trying to use social media yesterday? They launched a website trying to criticise Gordon Brown for something or other. Part of the site included a twitter feed so that any twitter user using the hashtag #cashgordon could get their words on the site. Users quickly found out that these were not screened before going live, which meant you could get anti-Tory sentiment onto the Tory website. And then the more technically minded twitterati discovered that if you included some code in your tweet, you …
Tories buy campaigning package off the shelf from US company.
Company also does some rather right wing work. This is either outrageous (Right wing? You shock me!) or unsurprising (Americans? Right wing? You surprise me!)
Package as launched by Tories includes unmoderated twitter stream.
Unflattering tweets start appearing.
Site pulled.
Lesson for the day: unmoderated feeds of content on political sites bring tears before bedtime. Those who have been awake for the last decade may not wish to call this “news”.
PS Myself, I’d have been suspicious of a US supplier that advertisers a “one pager” which is actually two …
I’ve already reviewed two of the titles in the new seven book series from biteback: Why Vote Liberal Democrat and Why Vote. But what to make of the other fives titles – covers Labour, Conservative, Green, SNP and Plaid? (Although a UKIP book was also publicised, it never got published as UKIP failed to produce the necessary copy.)
Both the Labour and Conservative books are ‘unofficial’ in the sense that they are by prominent party members, but ones who have no official role in the party’s policy or campaigning decisions – Rachel Reeves, Labour …
The Observer today carries a story about the curious lack of photos of the Conservatives’ black and asian candidates in Barking and Dagenham.
The candidates exist (to the Tories’ credit) and their names and contact numbers are on the leaflets, but the photos are all white.
The Conservatives denied that the move amounted to deliberate “airbrushing” of ethnic minority candidates. They insisted that the lack of photographs of their non-white candidates on all campaign calendars dropped through letter boxes was because their list of candidates had not been completed when the material was published. But they could
The opinion polls are up-and-down day-in-day-out at the moment, making it almost impossible to say with any confidence whether we are firmly in hung parliament territory, or whether the most likely result is still a Tory victory at the coming general election. But one thing is beyond doubt: the last six months has seen a substantial narrowing in the Tories’ opinion poll lead.
In October 2009, the Tories were polling at around 42%, Labour at 28% – a convincing Tory lead of 14%. Last month, the Tories were at 39%, Labour at 31%, a 3% swing from the …
The constituency of Hyndburn, Lancashire has been left “without a functioning Conservative Association” after its entire leadership resigned in protest at a selection shortlist forced upon them by Tory high command. The list excluded the Conservative leader of Hyndburn Borough Council, Peter Britcliffe, who had made no secret of his desire to contest the seat.
Andy Rankine is the Liberal Democrat candidate for Hyndburn. You can get in touch, read news or offer to help via his Facebook page or the local party website.
Over at The Observer today, the Lib Dems’ newest MEP Edward McMillan-Scott, former leader of the Tories in Europe, writes about why he had to leave David Cameron’s party in protest at their extreme views. Here’s an excerpt:
It was chilling to hear say to one very senior spokesman at an EU meeting some years ago: “We can say what we like here, but it will be different when we are in government.” I should have left then, instead of carrying on the pro-European fight from within.
My decision to join the Liberal Democrats this weekend was made easier by the
What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:
Tories in Devon and Cornwall set themselves a target of raising £13,000 in an Obama-style online donate-now campaign, perhaps in an attempt to wean themselves off the Ashcroft millions. How much did they raise?
Stephen Glenn picks up on the news that Lord Paul has said he will voluntarily end his non-dom status from April, whether required to or not, and asks what it means for the Tory “they do it too” defence.
Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.
With the question of how well Lord Ashcroft’s marginal seats campaign for the Conservatives really is doing back in the news, now seems a good time to remind people of this which I wrote in 2007:
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
So far, it’s true to say, that despite heavy negative coverage for the Conservative Party day after day about Lord Ashcroft, there hasn’t been much sign of damage to the Conservatives in the opinion polls.
In some ways that reflects the degree to which the issue plays to natural political cleavages: is doing everything you can within the law to avoid paying taxes acceptable? Plenty of Conservatives will answer “yes”, so discovering quite what lengths Ashcroft went to – and the fact of him being a Parliamentarian – doesn’t really damage their view of the party.
Two different stories today, unconnected in one way but both – particularly when put together – speaking volumes for the current state of the Conservative Party. Obviously, panic or disagreements are in no way involved. Not at all.
First we have ConservativeHome’s take on the party starting to use YouGov in addition to Populus:
Up until now now the Cameron team has had only Populus telling them what the outside world was thinking. The intelligence from Populus was brought to them by the same team who run operations in the party’s marginal seats. In other words our marginal seats operation wasn’t
David Cameron’s Tories were accused last night of dog-whistle politics after the Conservative leader appeared on the front of flyers saying the floodgates had been opened to mass immigration. Critics say the flyers are alarmist and misleading because they imply limits could be imposed on entrants from EU countries such as Poland.
Last night, the party’s frontbench was forced to distance itself from the hard-hitting material, which was put out under the name of Cameron’s home affairs spokesman, Andrew Rosindell …
The Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne, said: “These flyers play to people’s worst fears in an
By Stephen Tall
| Sun 28th February 2010 - 2:15 pm
Today’s YouGov poll in the Sunday Times suggests the Tory lead over Labour has amost disappeared, and that Labour may even end up the largest party after the general election (which would reflect the exclusive LDV election prediction published here at the start of February).
Nor is today’s poll a flash-in-the-pan. None of the last 12 polls has shown the Tories reaching 40%, the psychologically crucial hurdle most feel they need to be able to clear to be sure of a working Commons majority. Only one of those polls has shown Labour below 30%, and – sigh of …
Iain Martin’s general election commentary for the Wall Street Journal is rapidly become a must-read for me due to his record of unearthing useful bits of extra information that shed an extra light on the big political stories.
Advisers close to U.S. President Barack Obama have been drafted by David Cameron to help the Conservatives in their election campaign against Gordon Brown and Labour.
The Tories have signed a contract with Squier, Knapp, Dunn Communications—a Washington-based Democrat-leaning political consultancy— to help
Not very, if the “Scrap ID cards” campaign on MyConservatives.com is anything to go by. At the time of writing, it has raised only £100 towards its £5,000 target and got the signatures of just 46 people.
Oh, and no – it’s not a new campaign that has only just been added. Indeed, from the statistics on the embedded YouTube film, the campaign looks to have been there since 28 September, which makes it one third of a signature per day.
By Stephen Tall
| Wed 17th February 2010 - 2:02 pm
Bless Nick Herbert: he’s doing his best today to make the claim that the Tories’ attitudes to homosexuality have changed, and that gay people should trust the party. The trouble is Nick has to contend with the reality of the Tories’ voting record – which, as the Lib Dems have pointed out, shows what the Tory party really believes.
The voting records of current Tory MPs who are standing again in 2010 show that:
One in six voted against the repeal of Section 28 in 2003 – including David Cameron and a third of the Tory shadow cabinet;
Mary Reid Thanks Jennie - excellent post, reminding us of our liberal credentials. Do write for us again!...
Meg Thomas How does society share the costs?? In my day ( I was a juniour doctor in the late 70s/80s) this wasn't called care. It was called nursing and there were seve...
Institute of Urban T Thank you, Caron, for sharing this. Morven-May’s maiden speech is an incredibly powerful and brave defense for millions of forgotten chronic illness sufferers...
Tristan Ward " changes the law to make the Equality Act’s definition of sex trans inclusive"
What exactly does this mean?
If you are asking for the law to say that a...
Mick Taylor @Matt(Bristol). There are times to stand up against populism, especially where the words and actions of one group severely negatively affect another. You wouldn...
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Debt-ridden graduates claim they are seen as cash cows
Why non-fiction books need their indexes
Changes in status: Local Elections wrap up
Mary Reid 
Meg Thomas 
Institute of Urban T 
Tristan Ward 
Mick Taylor 