Aug/10
16:14 5
Tory hypocrisy over sponsorship as party flogs conference packages to public sector bodies
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has found himself in a bit of a Pickle(s). Having slammed council spending on public relations as an ”outrageous waste of taxpayers’ cash”, Cameron’s pet northener (© Kevin Maguire 2010) has been accused of hypocrisy: the Conservative Party is charging local bodies thousands of pounds for hospitality, exhibition space and sponsorship at its annual conference.
After laying out plans to “name and shame” councils retaining external agencies, PR Week reports that the Tories have charged public organisations, including London 2012, Westminster City Council and Thames Gateway, for so-called hosting packages.
The offering to exhibitors with stalls illustrates the kind of hospitality on offer to those who can afford it. For a fee of between £4,900 to £10,450, you can avail yourself of a tour of the conference space given by a member of the ”frontbench team” or a “senior party official”, “complimentary photos” and access to a private area with “complimentary beverages”. The commercial opportunities section of the conference website is something of a smoking gun, with the party clearly setting its sights on taxpayers’ cash:
While all parties charge for these kinds of services, it is Reverend Pickles and the rest of the Tories that are preaching from the pulpit. Scrapbook are trying to get hold of details for public bodies paying them taxpayers’ money.
If you know anything then please let us know.
Aug/10
10:18 17
Is Eric Pickles a Sontaran from Doctor Who?
Those not sharing Tom Harris’ fondness for Doctor Who will be blissfully unaware that “Sontarans” are a fictional extra-terrestrial humanoids likened to “a talking baked potato”. The resemblance between our friends from outer space and Spud-U-Like Eric Pickles is not lost on The Mirror’s Kevin Maguire:
Indeed, the following scientific comparison seems to indicate the Sontarans may be Eric’s wrinklier, sun-loving cousins:
So does the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government hail not from West Yorkshire but, in fact, the southern spiral arm of the galaxy?
The people should be told!
Jun/10
19:29 12
Eric Pickles informs councils of cuts via press release
Eric Pickles must have missed Cameron’s pledge to “take the country with them” on cuts. A pretty good way to annoy local government staff is to inform them of plans to slash their budgets (and possibly their jobs) via press release. Some council chief executives received official notice an hour after their press officers. Western Morning News’ Matt Chorley reports:
Mr Pickles made the announcement in a written ministerial statement at 10.30am this morning, just as he began his debut at the despatch box.
I began phoning the big councils in my patch, and with each call the bemusement of the press officers grew.
They had no idea it was coming and were completely in the dark.
One wonders what Cllr Pickles would think?
UPDATE: A council officer has been in touch to confirm this story: ”The first the Labour leader of my inner-London borough knew of the cuts is when I read the press release out to him.”
Apr/10
12:43 14
Conservatives copy Wonderbra with manifesto launch projections onto Battersea Power Station
As this is written, David Cameron is taking questions from the media at the Tories’ manifesto launch at Battersea Power Station. Last night the party projected a series of messages onto the side of the building but, as PR Week reports, the monolith was used in exactly the same way 16 years ago for the launch of Wonderbra’s seminal Hello Boys campaign.
“We used Battersea and giant projections for the launch of the original Hello Boys campaign for Wonderbra in 1994. Who said there is no such thing as a new idea?” – Edelman CEO Robert Phillips
Having borrowed from a lingerie manufacturer, perhaps Tory front benchers should give something back?
First boob of the campaign?*
*Sorry. Do post your pun improvements in the comments!
UPDATE 13:05 As Anthony Painter spots, it isn’t even the first Tory launch at this venue!
Apr/10
23:26 3
Those Tory detective comparisons in full
The casting of David Cameron as DCI Gene Hunt led Scrapbook to wonder at other similarities between fictional law-men and prominent Conservatives …
This blogger hasn’t been sued (yet):
The characters depicted in this blog post are fictional. Any resemblance to real shadow chancellors is purely coincidental.
Mar/10
21:12 6
Brave Sir Donal ran away!
Ladies and gentlemen, Donal Blaney has left the building! The credentials of the UK’s #11 Conservative blogger as a freedom-to-offend commentator in the Rush Limbaugh mould were left in tatters yesterday after he pulled his blog at the behest of CCHQ. Visitors craving for the stylings of this p*** poor Richard Littlejohn are now greeted with the following:
So, why will those looking for bile about gays, muslims and immigrants now need to look elsewhere? The Young Briton’s Foundation (chief executive D. Blaney) has provided ideological and campaign training to 2,500 Conservative Party activists, including 11 Westminster candidates. Today’s Grauniad has done a number on the YBF, exposing the group – which aims to indoctrinate young Tories with a virulently right-wing agenda – as electoral kryptonite. Policies espoused by the YBF leadership include scrapping the NHS, the use of waterboarding by security services and a US-style liberal firearms regime. Anyone familiar with Blaney’s writing will be unsurprised to discover that many of the most damaging elements of the article were sourced from his blog.
This could be dismissed as a non-story were it not for the fact that “there is an informal understanding that the YBF is the main provider of training for young Conservative activists”. To compound the embarrassment, the latest gathering of the YBF was addressed this week by none other than Eric Pickles and Liam Fox, who number among six Tory frontbenchers to have spoken at group conferences since 2003. Blaney’s personal blog, resplendent in it’s ’Nasty Party’ worldview, also features endoresments from Daniel Hannan, Michael Gove and Douglas Carswell.
Sunder Katwala has done a brilliant job of setting YBF in the context of a ”long tradition of ‘so right-wing you probably think we’re joking’ wing-nuttery” in Conservative youth circles:
“Contrast Norman Tebbit closing down the Federation of Conservative Students for being too right-wing in 1982 with the extent to which the ProgCons engage and champion this Maggie’s Militants rump today … I doubt anybody could believe they are so ill-informed or lazy enough not to know about YBF’s right-wing “radicalisation” mission – which was causing CCHQ disquiet when IDS was leader – and exactly where they are coming from”.
The removal of his blog is some climbdown for Blaney, who has revelled in his image as a champion of (right wing) free speech and a bête noire to the left. Those wishing to crow express their feelings on the matter through the medium of song may find the following appropriate (video below so you can sing along):
Brave Sir Donal ran away.
Bravely ran away away.
When danger reared it’s ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Donal turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the braaaave, Sir Donal!
“He’s buggered off!”
“So he has, he’s scarpered!”
Feb/10
15:24 1
Pickles vs Strathclyde in Westminster North
There have been some engrossing accounts of the last 48 hour’s internecine warfare in Westminster North from Iain Martin and Paul Waugh. The detail that jumped out at Scrapbook, however, was this from Andy McSmith at the Independent:
The sense of crisis was heightened by the appearance of two members of the Shadow Cabinet: the party chairman, Eric Pickles, in support of Ms Cash, and Lord Strathclyde, a Westminster resident and the Tory leader in the House of Lords, reported to have sided with Mrs Sayers.
An A-list uber-Cameroon throwing a strop and trying to resign less than three months before an election is one thing. Two cabinet ministers decamping to the constituency to take sides is another.
This incident may yet become a key point of reference in the story of Cameron’s effort to wrest control from, in Joanne Cash’s words, “dinosaur” elements of the party. And this tale may not end well for Cash, whose inner circle status and desire for “total victory” in this spat may make her a target for traditionalists.
You honestly couldn’t make it up.
Feb/10
14:49 7
Rumours abound over Joanne Cash resignation
Speculation was rife last night that the pregnancy of Tory Joanne Cash was a factor in her being “forced out” as Conservative candidate in the crucial target seat of Westminster North. Reading the following excerpt from a Times article, however, is it surprising yesterday’s crisis meeting was attended by both Eric Pickles and Lord Strathclyde?
Another one to watch is Joanne Cash, the candidate for Westminster North. If Cash, a barrister specialising in media law, is elected she will arrive with a contacts book to die for. At her wedding last year to Octavius Black, the founder of the Mind Gym consultancy, Michael Gove, the Tory schools spokesman, gave the main speech.
Other guests included Andy Coulson, Cameron’s director of communications. Cash lives in Notting Hill, west London, yards from the home of George Osborne, the shadow chancellor. As well as being an assiduous social networker, the Oxford-educated Cash is a policy junkie, advising the front bench on legal issues.
The rumour mill has been working overtime in the last 17 hours. ConservativeHome reported before 10pm that the Tory top brass were “mounting effort to reverse [the] decision” while Tory Radio heard whisper this afternoon that she may be back in place as PPC by the end of the day. The Daily Mail, however, suggests tensions may have arisen over the appointment of local party officers, rather than Cash’s pregnancy; Paul Waugh notes a rather cryptic bio entry on her Twitter account – did Westminster North members take offence?
Either way, this won’t look good to voters less than three months before the election.
Will be interesting as to how they explain this one.
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.
Oct/09
22:21 1
Where’s the love? Hoodies curiously absent from the new Conservative Shop
Eric Pickles and Scrapbook are great chums, so it was no surprise when he emailed personally to say that the Conservative Party’s online shop had opened for business. While it’s certainly the place to go if you’re in the market for a “Release Your Inner Tory” t-shirt, a “Future Conservative Prime Minister” baby grow or a “We’re All in this Together” (yeah, right!) tea towel, one cannot help but be disappointed by the lack of hooded sweatshirts.
“Hug a hoodie” was, like, sooo 2006!
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