January 6th, 2009 —
Michael Crick has received a leaked document from the Tory high command which reveals a secret Conservative candidates “watch list”. Here’s what he says in full:
The Conservative Party high command is so worried about some of David Cameron’s Parliamentary candidates that they’ve started holding meetings every two weeks to monitor what they call a “watch-list” of those “have the potential to embarrass the Party”.
This is revealed in the minutes - leaked to Newsnight (download them here (pdf)) - of a meeting of senior national officials - the party’s deputy chairmen and vice chairmen - held on 28 October last year.
The minutes say:
“Care needs to be taken over the candidates that have the potential to embarrass the Party - there will now be a fortnightly meeting to assess the watch-list of candidates, and the reasons they are on the list needs to be taken into consideration.”
And the document shows that a Conservative Central Office official has even been appointed to keep a close eye on what these potential trouble-makers get up to:
“The public output e.g. blogs, websites, press releases of candidates will [sic] now to be monitored by a new member of the CRD team,” the minutes read. “Let JM or Stephen Gilbert know if there are any problems with candidates - de-selection should be the last option.” [JM is probably John Maples MP, the Deputy Chairman in charge of candidates.]
The minutes make it clear, however, that Central Office thinks that local associations are often a bigger problem than individual candidates.
“But there is nothing to deal with the awkward associations - senior volunteers to help?”
And the party is taking measures to keep their potential candidates on message, even before they have been elected, according to the leaked report - by arranging for candidates to meet the Chief Whip at Westminster, Patrick McLoughlin:
“The Chief [Whip] is keen to meet with the candidates so they can get used to being line-managed by the Whips’ Office.”
Line managed? An interesting phrase.
The minutes show that despite David Cameron’s slogan of ‘Power to the People’ - reiterated in spirit in his economy speech this week - when it comes to his own party organisation he is more centralist than ever, and that Central Office doesn’t fully trust its candidates or local associations. In monitoring candidates and their output so closely, the Conservatives have clearly adopted many of the techniques honed by Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair for New Labour in the 1990s. These were designed to ensure that the new Labour MPs elected in 1997 were less troublesome than many of their predecessors.
What will also concern many candidates and grassroots activists is the suggestion in the minutes that extra resources may have to be pumped into constituencies which have candidates who are female or come from ethnic minorities. This seems designed to save the party from the potential that such seats might be lost in disproportionate numbers.
“Of 250 candidates, 70 are women and 10 are of an ethnic minorities [sic] - something extra needs to be done to ensure that these ones are not lost.”
In response to a questions from Newsnight, a Conservative Party spokesman refused to identify the candidates with “the potential to embarrass the party”.
But he said: “It is quite standard for political parties to monitor their candidates - it would be extraordinary if they did not.”
January 6th, 2009 —
Iain doing his usual to Labour (labour spin etc) but pitching in heavily for David Davis AND Ken Clarke in David Cameron’s juddering reshuffle. I wonder what Dominic Grieve thinks of that?
There is no doubt in my mind that ConservativeHome reflects Conservative Party grass roots. And they want David Davis back. Let us see whether Iain’s campaign is a success.
January 6th, 2009 —
JP: Why won’t David Cameron let you make these announcements publicly?
GO: Well I…was there today, I’ve been involved in all these things…
JP: Yeah, you were listening, he was speaking?
GO: Well he is the leader of my party.
JP: OK. There’s a problem isn’t there? Something has happened since you had your unfortunate difficulties on a yacht and since then you have made one public speech about the economy, which is the role of the shadow chancellor, and he’s made nine?
GO: Well first of all I just completely reject, I don’t know where you’ve got that from.
JP: By totting up the number of speeches that have been made.
GO: Jeremy everyday, indeed today if you open the London Evening Standard there is an article by me which actually came out before David Cameron gave his speech, I was on the World At One, I have just done before doing this a whole stream of interviews on not only the BBC but believe it or not some other news organisations…
JP: You’re like the man who walks behind the horse with the bucket?
GO: Well…
JP: All these media interviews afterwards, the actual announcement of policy is made by the party leader. Why not by the shadow chancellor?
GO: Well I have to say this is the most meaningless line of questioning I have ever heard from you. The shadow chancellor and the party leader in this party, the Conservative Party, unlike what we saw with the Labour opposition ten years ago work incredibly closely together.
JP: George Osborne thank you.
January 6th, 2009 —
January 5th, 2009 —
January 5th, 2009 —
Guardian, 30th December 2008: Bring back Kenneth Clarke, party members tell Cameron as Tory reshuffle speculation grows
Telegraph, 5th January 2009: David Cameron faces revolt over moves to bring back Ken Clarke
January 4th, 2009 —
January 2nd, 2009 —
Well they have a very helpful military-style flow chart that might be useful for UK civil servants.
December 30th, 2008 —
Even though he has one of the best front pages to a political website I’ve seen in ages, Eric Pickles cannot escape a little scrutiny from the “Tories plan purge of town hall ‘fat cats’” story by Sam Coates in today’s times.
According to the story, the Tories will clamp down on the pay of local government Chief Executives. But take a look at the list. Six out of eight of the councils listed in the story are Conservative led ie they can sort it out now if they wanted. The luxury of opposition does not apply for Tories in all too many local authority areas these days. If Mr Pickles seeks to push down Chief Executive salaries, the Conservatives could sort it out now. I do hope that Mr Pickles will be challenged on this - he really should give an explanation unless he wants to earn the “Do Nothing” tag like his boss.
December 30th, 2008 —
A third of Conservative party activists think George Osborne should go, according to a ConservativeHome survey (usual caveats on accuracy to be considered).
The Guardian seem to have been the victims of spin or have just got the emphasis of the story out of kilter with what Tory members are actually saying. Their piece carries the headline “Bring back Kenneth Clarke, party members tell Cameron as Tory reshuffle speculation grows” but if you look at the survey more deeply, it shows you that nearly as many activists do not want Ken Clarke back.
3 out of 4 activists want David Davis back though. So the headline should really have been “Bring back David Davis, party members tell Cameron”.
There have been a number of informed stories this week suggesting that Mr Clarke is returning to shadow-government. Significantly for Westminster watchers, he’s slimmed down his portfolio of outside activities in recent months. This could be because he’s 68 and taking it easy or that he’s been quietly preparing for a return for some time.
Having been on the receiving end of reshuffle speculation, the one thing I do know is that nothing is certain until they’re done, so there may still be hope for Mr Davis but it doesn’t look promising for him today.
December 28th, 2008 —
“There will be no election promises of up-front unfunded tax cuts.”
George Osborne, The Times, September 2007
“My priority is to try to reverse the increase in National Insurance”
George Osborne, Sunday Times, 28th December 2008
December 28th, 2008 —
Woolworths was the meeting point. For almost a decade, a bunch of growing kids would congregate outside the polished shiny metal-framed retractable doors of the Kidderminster branch of Woolworths. Our Saturdays were spent flicking though vinyl records, games for the Atari and Spectrum and playing with the new gadgets from regimented rows of stalls on the shop floor.
If we were feeling flush, we’d run up the escalators to the second floor to buy a cup of the worst tasting coffee on the planet. And if a parent happened to stray by, we’d sting them for an insipid strawberry milkshake or a lifeless coca cola in a plastic cup.
So for me, the demise of Woolworths was as much the commemoration of adolescence as it was a reflection of the Made-in-the-USA downturn.
Yet as the respected New York Venture Capitalist, Fred Wilson writes on his blog, whilst the downturn is the main cause of many of the recent business failures, something more fundamental is happening:
“Clearly the economic downturn is the direct cause of most of these failures but I believe it is the straw that broke the camel’s back in most cases. The internet, now closing in on 15 years old in its mainstream incarnation as the world wide web, is in many cases the underlying cause of these business failures. Bits of information flowing over a wire (or through the air) are just more efficient than physical infrastructure”
People stopped buying records and video games in Woolies years ago. Gone went the Kodak instamatic cameras at affordable prices. News is read online. Globalised manufacturing ensured that the household appliances they used to source more efficiently than their competitors, stopped being the cheapest; undermined by the ability for anyone to send an email to a sales representative of a shipping firm in China.
Globalisation in a connected world did for Woolies. When my son is a teenager, his friends will arrange to meet online and share their music tastes before pressing the ‘buy’ button. They’ll discover the world from their shared trust in favourite web sites.
We are entering an era of profound and irreversible change to the way people choose to live their lives and organise the world around them.
And there isn’t a politician on the planet who is going to stop this.
December 28th, 2008 —
….used to stay there, until Will Carling invents “rugby’s first virtual clubhouse”, a social networking site for rugby fans and players.
Rucku (geddit) uses the tools of social networking to wire up every rugby lad and lass in the land. In short, it has disaster written all over it and will therefore be a sensational triumph of new media.
Thank heavens I retired from apres-rugby before the invention of the interwebthingy.
