Mar/10
16:07 37
Because he’s worth it? David Cameron uses Sky News camera lens to style his hair
Living up to an airbrushed version of yourself must be hard going. It’s therefore reassuring to see that Dave has been taking hairstyling tips from former US presidential hopeful John Edwards: never allow a live camera to compromise the status of your barnet. There was no mirror to hand but Dave gets extra points for improvising with the Sky News camera lens.
As Paul Waugh tweeted earlier:
Scrapbook has managed to track down some video!
The look on Dermot Murnaghan’s face sums it up: cringe!
UPDATE 16:35 Hats off to MyDavidCameron for this tweet: “Cameron in need of a hairbrush, not an airbrush!”
Mar/10
11:42 14
Macrory meltdown: Tory head of press proves David Cameron right with bizarre Twitter tirade
The Labour Party has inflicted some some pretty impressive wounds on itself over the last three years but it is clear now that these are eclipsed by the Ashcroft saga. If Scrapbook was a Conservative activist he would be spitting feathers and it seems one of their number finally lost patience this week, causing a storm with an email which led Channel 4 News yesterday evening: ”Didn’t David Cameron or his colleagues understand that it should have been sorted out years ago rather than in the middle of a general election campaign?”
This was yet another news item they could do without in what has been a nightmare week for the Conservatives. But one struggles to fathom what their (usually sane) head of press, Henry Macrory, was thinking when he flooded his Twitter stream with a torrent of weak personal attacks on the senior Conservative lobbyist responsible for the email:
If senior Conservative staffers think that this is a strategic way to kill a story off then the party might be in more serious trouble than everyone thinks. The episode was spotted quickly by several politicos, including Mark Pack from Lib Dem Voice:
“The first one I saw made me wonder if perhaps a message had been sent by mistake, or an intended private message broadcast to the world in error. But that doesn’t explain eleven tweets, nor does a momentary piece of bad judgement. It’s a pretty unappetising picture of how to handle a negative story: send a long series of personal jibes. Perhaps though it’s good that they were sent via Twitter; that way we can all see how the Conservative Party’s press operation conducts itself” – Mark Pack
What did David Cameron say about “too many twits”?
Mar/10
17:30 32
Which Tory misled Dave? Cameron told BBC in 2007: “I have had reassurances” on Ashcroft
UPDATE 22:04 More dirt: he’s now been accused of “systematic tax avoidance”. It’s on Sky News too!
Much kudos to James Cowley and Chris Paul, who have dug up this David Cameron/Andrew Marr exchange from 2007:
ANDREW MARR: What about Lord Ashcroft? Because it was promised by the former party leader, William Hague, and indeed by Lord Ashcroft, way back, that he would be registered in this country, and a lot of people feel that he’s not properly registered in that way. Are you absolutely happy and satisfied that he is in a position to be making the kind of funding commitment to your party that he is?
DAVID CAMERON: I am satisfied that the undertakings he gave are being met and I have had reassurances on that. But I would like to put it in context.
ANDREW MARR: Being met, but haven’t been met.
DAVID CAMERON: No, in terms of the reassurances that he is resident in the UK and pays taxes in the UK.
If, as widely reported, Cameron only found out that Ashcroft was a non-dom last month then whoever gave these reassurances was, at a very generous best, using Michael Gove’s misleading “resident but non-domiciled” dodge with the Tory leader or, at worst, lying to him.
That the Tories admit that they’ve been operating some form of “don’t ask, don’t tell” regime at the highest level of their party is damaging enough and underscores how dire the alternative case is: that they’ve been telling everyone porkies for ten years.
For someone, somewhere, this is drifting rapidly into resignation territory.
Mar/10
14:39 7
Ashcroft story trundles on with revelation that Hague kept non-dom status from Cameron
Conservative sighs of relief as their deputy chairman’s donations are ruled “legal and permissible” will be premature as the Tories have sustained a double blow on Ashcroft in the last hour. Not only will the peer be hauled before the Public Affairs Select Committee (chaired by the incisive Tony Wright) but Cathy Newman’s revelation that Cameron only knew of Ashcroft’s non-dom status “within the last month” has been picked up by the rolling news monster, with Laura Kuenssberg stating ”there is still potency in this … it ain’t over by any stretch of the imagination”.
With Channel 4 News citing pollsters this week as saying ”the daily relelations risk reinforcing suggestions that the Conservatives are a party for the rich, out of touch with reality”, this is only the latest misstep in a series of unforced errors on the part of the Conservative campaign, with The Spectator saying that “there are clear signs of, at best, Tory naivety in this whole affair”.
Hague’s first line of defence, that Ashcroft had kept him in the dark about his non-dom status, is looking pretty flimsy given that this is precisely what Yorkshire’s finest did to his party leader – for several months!
Enjoy these media images from the last 18 hours …
Jan/10
09:19 8
Airbrushed Cameron to eclipse dog-whistling Howard?
While Scrapbook doesn’t share the class-war sympathies of the angry young man/woman expressed above, the majority of Cameron poster sites this blogger is familiar with now have graffiti on them. With an online assault led by mydavidcameron.com now penetrating the mainstream with 33 pages of spoofs on MumsNet, has this early-doors ad spend eclipsed Are you thinking what we’re thinking? as the most ridiculed poster in recent political history?
Nice touch with the mud!
Photo credit: LM (she’d better not want NUJ rates!)
Jan/10
18:45 5
We is all in dis ting together, yeah?
Expect a veritable torrent of poster spoofs (from all sides) in between now and May. mydavidcameron.com have set the bar very high with their mixture of home-grown and reader submitted material. Here are Scrapbook’s choice picks:
Those of a creative bent can try their hand with this template (the font is Franklin Gothic Demi).
More over at mydavidcameron.com!
Jan/10
23:27 14
David Cameron reunited with long-lost younger brother
David Cameron with his younger and better looking sibling
David Cameron has expressed his joy at being reunited with his long-lost (younger and better looking) brother.
Speaking exclusively to Scrapbook, the Tory leader commented:
“One minute I was stalking Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell on Facebook and the next I was shocked to discover the profile of my younger brother. It’s been wonderful catching up on lost time but also fantastic luck that he can now front the first salvo of our gigantic paid advertising spend!”
Despite his photoshopped chiselled good looks it seems the younger Mr. Cameron took some persuasion to appear before the cameras:
“I’m thrilled that Dave asked me to front the latest Conservative campaign. I must say I did have initial reservations but the offer of clocking up a few airmiles courtesy of Lord Ashcroft was too much to resist. Dave reassures me the facilities on that private jet are quite something!”
Expect to see Dave’s brother soon on billboards near you.
Photo hat-tip: Daily Mirror
Nov/09
19:08 2
Leading Tory council chief: shadow cabinet “haven’t run a piss-up in a brewery”
Stephen Greenhalgh is the leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council and was appointed to head the Conservative councils’ innovation unit by David Cameron and Eric Pickles. Hang on a minute, what’s that sound? It’s the noise of a pencil drawing a line through a name on CCHQ’s Christmas card list:
“My mates are all in the shadow Cabinet, waiting to get those [ministerial] boxes, being terribly excited. I went to university with them, they haven’t run a piss-up in a brewery. They’re going to get a department of state, in one case running the finances of the nation.” – Stephen Greenhalgh
Soundbites like this are presumably not what Greenhalgh had in mind when he told ConservativeHome that Tories “need to find the right language, establish Conservative values and develop a new Conservative lexicon”.
Cameron, Osborne et al may not have run a brewery. But our local government hero may not find himself running their local government innovation unit in a few months. But Scrapbook can’t help but feel a bit sorry for Cllr Greenhalgh and his off-the-cuff remarks.
After all, it’s not like an event organised by a well known public sector magazine will have any journalists there(!)
UPDATE: More at The Telegraph, Finanical Times and LabourList.
Nov/09
09:17 3
Osborne has the Ex-Factor
Some say he once wrote an episode of Last of the Summer Wine, some say his children are half simian. All we know is that he can’t see in the dark. So thanks to Gavin Trait (whose fame precedes him) for this one on P45s:
Nov/09
16:43 11
Exclusive video: you won’t be laughing if they win
The Mirror are reporting that Labour are planning to depict Cameron and Osborne as comi-tragic X Factor contestants Jedward. In lightening fast time, Gavin Trait dispatched his minions to create the following slice of video genius:
Palin-O-Meter
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