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With the polls tightening and the Tories now just 2% ahead in key marginals, CCHQ has been forced into a corner and has approved a new message on immigration which is to be used by candidates on literature and the doorsteps. Tim Montgomerie has the full story over at ConHome.
The overall Tory policy on immigration remains the same, it’s just that a clear line has now been approved that has been deemed as ’safe’ to say out loud. The idea of reducing immigration from the current hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands is a good idea. Imposing annual quotas on immigration was Michael Howard’s downfall at the last election. The Tories remain committed to a national border protection police whose main task will be to crack down on illegal immigration which can someimes be a much bigger problem than immigration itself because of the associated crime and gang warfare that goes with it.
Clearly CCHQ are trying to do everything they can to improve the party’s position in the polls. Will it work? I don’t know and to be perfectly honest I would not be surprised if we get to May 7th and find a Tory government, but with only a slender majority of perhaps less than ten. If we have a hung parliament, I think the Conservatives would be the largest party and therefore Cameron would be PM and then I think we would see another election in October in order to try and get a more decisive result.
Clearly, the fight is on and as I have always said, Labour are always a force to be reckoned with. Yes, they have a substantially reduced grass roots base, but never underestimate Labour’s ability to bring people out on the streets from nowhere come polling day. What Labour appear to be doing is focussing their campaigns very closely. For example, Sandra Osborne, the incumbent in Ayr, Carrick & Cumnock has about 15 campaign team members canvassing with her on a weekly basis. That’s a similar level to many other Tory target seats, so Labour is not so dead and buried across the board as some would suggest.
If it’s money that’s going to win the election and the ability to spend on glossy leaflets, etc. then it’s the Tories who will win. In the last year, local associations alone raised a staggering £25m, and that’s before you consider central office funding and Ashcroft’s target seat funding.
However, if it’s the size of campaign teams, policy and ability to get the vote out on May 6th, then it’s anybody’s Downing Street.
Farage can always be relied on for a good show. This, like Hannan’s tirade against Brown is perhaps Farage’s finest hour yet. I doubt this speech, and his manner will go down too well with the people of Buckingham, but then you know what they say about the UKIP anyway…
Man alive, how can anyone take this man seriously? He is just a typical union thug dressed up as a politician. The sooner the Commons is rid of him the better, for both Hull and the country as a whole.
News broke late last week that Jack Dromey, Labour Party Secretary and husband of the equality campaigner (militant feminist) Harriet Harman has been selected to fight a Birmingham seat for Labour.
The whole thing has smacks of hypocrisy about it. Hatty has been going on and on about how wee need all women short-lists to encourage more women into parliament, then the only seat not to have such a case just so happens to be the seat her own husband is selected in.
So, of course we know that the Tories just hand out seats based on who your parents are and how disgraceful this is, so we couldn’t imagine the Labour party doing the same thing could we? Let’s run down a list of such Labour persons:
Mr & Mrs Ed Balls (Evette Cooper)
The Benn clan. Tony, then there’s Hilary, and now his daughter has been selected as well
Harriet Harmen and Jack Dromey
The list goes on and there are more examples which I wont bore you with. Anyhow, Labour aren’t guilty of keeping it in the family, surely not?
Regular readers of this blog will note that virtually since it’s birth in 2008, I have been calling for Cameron to announce policy ideas so that we and more importantly the country knew what his ideas would mean in practice.
Since Christmas I have not complained about the lack of policies. That is because we have been announcing a ton of policies since the new year. The problem is that it doesn’t seem to be washing with the public. Saturday’s YouGov poll put the Tories just 2 points ahead of Labour and only MORI have a Tory lead of double figures and even then it’s only 10 points.
I reckon the lack of reaction to the policy announcements has got very much to do with their timing. Now, I know that CCHQ is anxious to not announce policies too early for fear (and it’s a well founded fear) that Labour will simply steal them. However, I you suddenly announce so many policies so close to the election without any talk of them before now it starts to look like they’ve been cobbled together in a bit of a hurry.
I’m confident that the party has been sitting on these policies for quite some time and that they aren’t just hastily arranged announcements. However, we should have started to announce policies at the conference last October. I expected the shadow cabinet to make some announcements in their speeches, instead we got staged managed cloned speeches that all said “what we need is change”. I tell you, if I hear that stupid word again I’m going to go insane!
Anyway, I think Tim Montgomerie hit the right note when he said that the Tory leadership need to focus on the policies they’ve already announced rather than continuing to announce more and more policies. Having announced so many policies, what now needs to happen is tying them into the broader themes of the campaign and if they can do this successfully then the polls will improve again.
The election has not been won, or indeed lost. The Conservatives need to win 117 seats just to get a majority of 1. They need something like a 6.9% national swing just to get that slender majority and that’s no mean feat. I am confident in CCHQs abilities to conduct the election campaign properly. The campaign bulletins have been taken up a notch. On Friday evening, a 52 page ’summary’ of all the stories going on went out. Yes, it’s a top-down campaign and yes I don’t particuarly like it, but if that’s what is going to work then we just have to accept it.
If you need any further evidence of the Americanisation of UK politics then look no further than the news that team Cameron have secured the services of some of Obama’s election advisers. Again, I don’t like the Americanisation of the UK, but if these moves are going to shift Labour and give the country a chance to pick itself up off the ground then, again, it just has to be accepted.
Much hilarity was had by all on the Brussels trip and as ever on such trips there are certain phrases which feature heavily. This was no different, so I have compiled a list of quotes from the trip which stuck out the most. They ae in no particular order of funniness or times spoken.
Faceless Eurocrat
“NATO is no different to the European Army”
“we’re not allowed to quote Enoch Powell any more, but I’m going to anyway” – A legendary Conservative MEP
“hello lady you light of my life” – random restaurant owner
“I am Mr satisfaction” – another restaurant owner
I’m not sure what to say as I wasn’t really listening to the previous speech” – member of the EU Environment committee after being asked to reply to a speech
“I could go on about climate change for hours but it’s mostly boring so I won’t” – Roger Helmer MEP
There were many more that I could go on with. My favourite poster was an invitation to a special meeting of the inboard plenary on water. I was as astonished as everybody else.
p.s. The reason I haven’t posted a review of the trip yet is that I am just ridiculously busy with university work at the moment.
For those of you who still make their way to this blog via the address, toryboynews.co.uk, you will, from 8th March, need to re-point your browsers directly to greensdiary.co.uk as toryboynews.co.uk will cease to exist.
With the polls tightening and the Tories now just 2% ahead in key marginals, CCHQ has been forced into a corner and has approved a new message on immigration which is to be used by candidates on literature and the doorsteps. 
News broke late last week that Jack Dromey, Labour Party Secretary and husband of the equality campaigner (militant feminist) Harriet Harman has been selected to fight a Birmingham seat for Labour.
