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!
Sep/09
18:08 3
Eric Pickles’ T-shirt competition: what didn’t win
Eric Pickles announced a Conservative campaign T-shirt competition on the Blue Blog at the end of August. CCHQ staffers have whittled the entries down and a selection are now open for a public vote. Shockingly, the creation below from The W*nk Rag did not make it through to the final shortlist:
In other Hannan related developments, our favourite MEP is a panelist at the Conservative conference ‘Twinge‘ (Twitter fringe) event.
He should practice squeezing gaffes into 140 characters.
Aug/09
17:49 3
He’s back! Pickles’ War Room Briefing (summer edition)
UPDATE: Great minds think alike. And so do ours!
Eric Pickles may look like a butcher kicked backwards through Marks & Spencer’s and set loose in SW1 but his War Room Briefings are required viewing and, though Scrapbook is loathe to admit it, rather good.
Pickles is the nearest thing that the Tories have to John Prescott: both are used well to get motivational campaign messages out to the grassroots, both get their words mixed up from time to time (listen carefully below) and neither would turn down a Greggs jumbo sausage roll.
Check out his “hello chums” wave at the start.
Pickles is really putting the ‘camp’ into ‘campaigning’!
Palin-O-Meter
Advertisment
