News reaches me this afternoon that George Kynoch has been re-elected Deputy Chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party to serve a second two year term. He won the ballot by 2173 to 1500, a majority of 673 over Richard Cook, the defeated Conservative Candidate in East Renfrewshire.
It’s a bit of a shame as Richard is one of the few decent people in the Scottish Party who really has the right ideas about where the party needs to go after such a devastating performance at the General Election. Many in the party see George Kynoch as part of the problem in Scotland for the Conservatives so I’m not particularly sure how the party will rebuild itself now it’s stuck with him for another two years.
Someone in the Scottish Conservative Party needs to take responsibility for the dismal showing. The fact the the party only slightly increased the national share of the vote and gained no seats is an utter disgrace. One, preferably all of Anabel Goldie (leader), Andrew Fulton (Chairman), George Kynoch (Deputy Chairman) and Mark McInnes (Party Director) need to take the wrap. Put simply, they were the ones who designed the election strategy of 11 target seats (only 4-5 of which were realistic), they were the ones that claimed the party had emerged from it’s dark days and they are the ones who are now rallying around each other to save their own skin. The interests of the party are not to be found, the interests of the country is not to be found and frankly, with the same team in place at the Scottish Parliament elections next May, I struggle to see how the current group of 16 MSPs will get bigger, or even remain the same size given that Bill Aitken has announced he is not standing again and also that the party clearly has no idea how to go forward from here.
Without changes at the top, there will be no improvement and the party north of the border will continue to be the laughing stock of Scottish politics.
There are two very good reasons why this blog has not been updated since 6th April 2010:
I was incredibly busy with the general and local election campaigns so had no time to post anything of worth that hadn’t already been mentioned elsewhere in the blogsphere.
I am now recovering from yet another hip operation. As is the case with these things a fair amount of pain is involved and I’m therefore on high level prescription pain killers which effects my ability to concentrate and therefore write meaningful articles.
However, fear not, Green’s Diary is only on sabbatical and full service will return just as soon as I’m recovered enough. Obviously with such major surgery taking place, I have more things to worry about than running a blog.
When it returns in it’s fullness, GD will be changing form slightly. Instead of just being a political blog that focusses almost entirely on politics I will write about other subjects as well so that it will become a bit more of a true “Green’s Diary” than the current form.
The Green Show will also recommence. I trialled a few episodes of this a while ago using the Audioboo application on the iPhone and it proved to be incredibly simple to use. I’m looking to develop this podcast further and more details will be available soon.
I’ll be making a few changes to the blog’s interface, but nothing major. The first change is already in place and it means you can now log in with Facebook, Twitter, Google,etc. to post a comment. This is a very easy way to verify you are who you say you are and saves you having to create yet another account just for this blog.
I expect to restart blogging around September time, so don’t go far away from your screen.
So now we know, May 6th is the day the British electorate will finally get to cast it’s verdict on the Labour government.
After 13 years of Labour in power the country has been taken to the brink with the worst recession for decades, the highest peacetime borrowing ever, an education system that is a mockery, a transport system that only seems to get worse, a health system that has seen double investment yet a worse service and a society that is broken in so many ways.
On May 6th the British people have a clear choice. Five more years of Gordon Brown and his dithering and delaying or change with David Cameron and the Conservatives who have the energy, leadership and policies to get Britain moving again.
The Conservatives will stand up for the great ignored and listen to the needs of people.
Conservatives will govern with respect to the British people and only do what is best for them and the country.
It’s time for change. It’s time to vote Conservative.
The Chancellor’s Budget today was less of an economic report and more a p0litical fight with the opposition. With an election weeks away, it was always going to be a Labour party broadcast rather than a government’s budget, but the attacks on the opposition were simply disgusting. The constant “Mr deputy speaker, we have invested when the others wouldn’t have and the economy would have therefore been in a worse condition” nonsense was repeated many times by the chancellor.
We got the usual fuel, cigarettes and alcohol tax rises. Interestingly, the fuel duty increase is 3p by the end of the year, but staggered at three individual 1p rises – this is deliberate because it would not look good to have a 3p rise form 1 April – days before the election is called.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the budget, in an otherwise dull and uneventful statement was the announcement that the government is looking to sell off various assets including the Dartford crossing in order to provide more money in the system. The problem here is that the money raised is only for the short term as it is single use money. Once spent, it won’t recycle itself back into the treasury pot.
The main problem with the budget was it’s length. It’s dullness and general lack of anything new. What we have is a tired government, a government that has run out of ideas and a government that has run it’s course and now needs to call it a day and let someone else have a go at putting the country back on track.
Above all, what the chancellor fails to realise is that this is a phantom budget. A budget that will never get to legislation because in 43 days time the country goes to the polls to select a new government.
The stamp duty proposal has been completely copied out of Conservative policy. The government intends to continue to borrow over £100bn per year for the next 6 years. It continues to impose a tax on everything whether it’s cars, cider, phones or shoes. The country simply cannot go on like this.
I could go on, but it will be too boring – much like the Chancellor’s statement. In summary, today’s budget sums up this government. As Cameron quite rightly said, in 13 wasted years we have gone from top of the premier league to bottom of the conference league. It’s a disgrace, this government should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for taking this country down as far as it has.
What is clear is that Labour has done it again. For the fourth time, they have completely failed on the economy and have completely failed in their job of running the country. They are simply unfit to run this country and Britain does not need this Prime Minister, it needs a new direction under new leadership with new energy.
Today’s Guardian carries a letter from ‘leading’ lefties. It calls for a second stimulus package to ‘protect’ the economy and ‘stimulate growth’. It’s not a long letter (the arguments in favour of such things aren’t as you can imagine extensive), but it is perhaps best summed up in this sentence:
“A programme of government investment would not only stimulate the wider economy in the short term, but would increase long-term growth, thereby lowering the debt levels through a higher tax take.”
So, borrowing, £6,000 every second has stimulated the economy? The Government didn’t need to borrow in January did it? When will these idiots realise that you just can’t keep chucking money at a problem and hope it will fix itself? In just 56 days the country will have to make a decision. Do they want five more years of Gordon Brown and Labour who will put the recovery at risk by dithering on action? Or do they want the Conservatives and David Cameron who will act quickly to cut the deficit in order to keep things like mortgage rates lower for longer?
Incidentally, the list of people you might want to direct your abuse at for this ridiculous letter are as follows:
Colin Burgon MP
Alex Smith, Editor, Labourlist
Austin Mitchell MP
Anne Cryer MP
Alexandra Kemp, Chief Executive, West Norfolk Women and Carers’ Pensions Network (personal capacity)
Bellavia Ribeiro-Addy, NUS National Officer
Billy Hayes, General Secretary, CWU
Byron Taylor, National Trade Union Liaison Officer, Trade Union & Labour Party Liaison Organisation (TULO)
Cat Smith, Vice Chair, London Young Labour
Chris Edwards, Senior Research Fellow, UEA,
Chris McCafferty MP
Chris McLaughlin, Editor, Tribune
Christopher Cramer, Professor of Political Economy of Development, SOAS
Clifford Singer, Director, The Other TaxPayers’ Alliance
Colin Challen MP
Compass Youth Executive
Dave Anderson MP
David Drew MP
Dai Havard MP
Dave Prentis, General Secretary, Unison.
David Hamilton MP
Diane Abbott MP
Denis Murphy MP
Edward O’Hara MP
Ellie Gellard, Labour blogger
Grazia Ietto-Gillies, Emeritus Professor of Applied Economics, Director Centre for International Business Studies, London South Bank University
Glenda Jackson MP
Gerry Doherty, General Secretary, TSSA
Gordon Prentis MP
Prof. George Irvin, Univerity of London, SOAS.
Professor Ian Gough, Professorial Research Fellow, LSE
Hugh Lanning PCS Deputy General Secretary
Hywel Francis MP
Harriet Yeo, Labour Party NEC
Hilary Wainright, Co-Editor, Red Pepper
Ismail Erturk, Senior Lecturer in Banking, Manchester Business School
Janet Dean MP
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Jim Cousins MP
Jim Sheridan MP
Jon Cruddas MP
John Austin MP
John Ross, Editor, Socialist Economic Bulletin
John Weeks, Professor Emeritus of Economics, SOAS, University of London, and former director of the Centre for Development Policy and Research.
Jonathan Rutherford, Professor of Cultural Studies, Middlesex University
Katy Clark MP
Karen Buck MP
Keith Norman, General Secretary, ASLEF
Ken Livingstone
Kevin Maguire, Associate Editor, Mirror
Kelvin Hopkins MP
Martin McIvor, Editor, Renewal
Malcolm Sawyer, Professor of Economics, University of Leeds
Mehdi Hasan, Senior Editor (politics), New Statesman
Michael Connarty MP
Michael Meacher MP
Mick Shaw, President, FBU
Mike Wood MP
Michael Burke, Economist and contributor to Socialist Economic Bulletin
Neal Lawson, Chair, Compass
Neil MacKinnon, Chief Economist, VTB Capital
Paul Kenny, General Secretary, GMB
Paul Truswell MP
Paul Sagar, New Political Economy Network.
Pat Devine, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Manchester
Peter Kilfoyle MP
Peter Willsman Labour Party NEC
Prem Sikka, Professor of Accounting, University of Essex
Richard Ascough, Regional Secretary, South Eastern GMB
Richard Murphy, Director, Tax Research UK
Roger Berry MP
Robin Murray, Fellow, Young Foundation, Author of Danger and Opportunity:Crisis and the New Social Economy
Roger Godsiff MP
Ronnie Campbell MP
Sam Tarry, National Chair, Young Labour
Sunder Katwala, General Secretary, Fabian Society (personal capacity)
Susan Himmelweit, Professor of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, Open University
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.
Tory Boy News is the former name of Green’s Diary, but was retired a while ago when the name changed to Green’s Diary. From this coming Monday, toryboynews.co.uk will no longer point to this blog and all links via toryboynews.co.uk will cease to work.
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…
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. 
