More Tory Muddle

You may or may not know Gideon made a speech today on the economy.

One would expect some meaty policy today from the Tories to distract from the recent missteps and to try and dominate the news cycle in response to the steadily tightening polls. The Tories trapse journos and hangers on over to the British Museum, and again, clearly, anyone of sound mind would expect this to be some 'clear blue water', the rushed release of a policy to retake the initiative.

Anyone of sound mind?


Rather, the hungry presspack are drip fed soundbite after soundbite, "benchmarks" to judge his economic performance on (Gideon, if your not careful, your going have to be emphasising 'our' performance, because you're going to be heading straight to the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship...), without any new policy or clarification of any of the V-Turns (I heard it's a U-turn with a point; ie: to win an election)

Which makes me wonder. The ComRes poll out last night which showed Labour trailing by only 7 also showed the rather worrying (for the blue team) statistic that:

82 percent of voters have doubts about Cameron’s economic policies and say he should do more to explain his plans

The Tories have had a terrible few days, and the reds do seem to be on the front foot now. Perhaps we should bastardize Clive Tyldesley? "...can Labour win...they always win..." This is the second half of injury time and it is Labour who seem to have the legs to run until injury time. Why not release a new policy? A big idea? Demonstrate Gordons beloved dividing lines?

Like I said, I was wondering, and sat on the train this evening it came to me. Maybe...maybe they don't have any? Maybe this is all they have? Maybe they have been poaching the knock ons (to mix my sporting metaphors) and now they are on the 22 they realise they have no creativity in the backline?

But the lack of beef is not all...

Within the speech, Osborne said:

I am delighted that Lord Stern has agreed to advise us...

So, perhaps something significant. A member of the House of Lords crossing the floor? Oh, no, he's a crossbencher, and, oh no...Lord Stern issues a statement saying that whilst he would be happy to work with both parties (he already consults on climate change policy with the government):

...I am not, and have no plans to be, an advisor to any political party.

Whoops.

No problem though, because Stelios of easyjet approves. (Oh, and 6 other CEO of FTSE 100 companies)

#Kerryin

For the lucky amongst you who have not been bitten by the need to read blogs and bloggers which you find repugnant maybe I should fill you in with a bit of background.

(The lovely) Kerry McCarthy MP, Labour's 'Twitter Tsar' came under sustained attack from right wing bloggers (Tory Bear and everyones favourite non-prospective parliamentary candidate Iain Dale to mention two) over her expenses amongst other things, and this led to the #Kerryout hashtag on Twitter. Her Tory opponent in the seat set up a page on MyConservatives.com and began rapidly raising money (although not that much; not quite £2k) The Tory Bloggers crowed, could this be the first constituency won through the power of internet fundraising and online politics? Would this prove how revolutionary and how so very right they all were?

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm?

The terrible twosome of the opposition parties was completed when the usual Fib Dem fictional leaflets appeared, stated that "...only the Lib Dems can beat Labour here...". Usually they show graphs of door-knockings, European Election results, or something else as equally irrelevant to the General Election. This time however, they did not take into account the boundary adjustments that considerable changed the demographic of the seat; dropping them from second to a few thousand behind the Tories in third. But since when have the Lib Dems been concerned with the truth?

Well, Kerry's opponent was Adeela Shafi. The Mirror has a scoop on her today:

A key member of David Cameron's new generation of women MPs has had three county court judgments against her since 2007 - including one for almost £325,000.

And her husband Ijaz Shafi was declared bankrupt in 2000.

Muslim lecturer Adeela Shafi was hand-picked by Cameron to open for him at the 2008 Tory Conference.

He then endorsed her as a Parliamentary candidate and campaigned in her Bristol East constituency along with his shadow cabinet team.

The excellent Political Scrapbook explains the significance clearer and simpler than I ever could:

The Insolvency Act 1986 and Enterprise Act 2002 outlaw undischarged bankrupts from standing for Westminster and provide for bankrupt MPs to be turfed out. Application for a bankruptcy petition by creditors (her husband was declared insolvent in 2000) could leave the Tories without a candidate or, should Shafi pull off a shock win in Bristol East, a Member of Parliament. Scrapbook doubts this is the kind of gamble voters will plump for on May 6.

The bombshell leaves Shafi open to allegations of recklessness from fellow Tories and recalls the recent case of the SNP’s original candidate in the Glasgow North East by-election, who was forced to stand down within five days of selection after failing to declare serious financial problems.

This is the kind of campaign development that party staffers dread and the stuff of absolute nightmares for election agents. What’s that sound?

The wheels coming off one of the Tories’ most visible campaigns.

The rather pathetic right wing campaign comes to an end. Shafi's position must be untenable now. I guess she has already spent most of the money she raised too so thats all wasted on signs and posters with her name on it. Funnily enough there is very little mention of the campaign on the right-wingnuts blogs at the moment, and what is hilarious, is that on the #Kerryout website, the live Twitter stream shows nothing but crowing texts from Labour activists. Score one for the good guys.

Never mind Tory Bear* and Daley, better luck next time. #KERRYIN

*Tory Bear smells a rat by the sound of his rather bitter Tweeting recently!

ooh clever, tip off the mirror, coordinated blog and twitter attack and phone bank on the same day. Labour machine kicks in!

Diddums. Thats right. #GameOn

The Long Campaign might just work in 2010

Seasoned political watchers will know that the reason for the length of the campaign in 1997 was because John Major and the bastard sons and daughters of Thatcher thought that it would show the public how flimsy new Labour was. That didn't work then but it seems it may work this time around, and it is a disaster all of Camerons making. (Or is it Osbournes, as he is the GE Coordinator?)

It was a Tory decision to begin the campaign so early in the new year: the posters, now ridiculed, the most obvious demonstration of this.

This has been followed by utter confusion over their policies on families and taxation, and things are slowly, starting to happen. A YouGov poll for the Telegraph show the gap now 7 points, CON 38%(-2), LAB 31%(nc), LDEM 19%(+1) and an IpsosMori poll shows it as 8 CON 40%(-3), LAB 32%(+6), LDEM 16%(-4).

Squeaky bum time for the Cameroons, and it's only the end of January.