Tag Archives: tim montgomerie

It’s war! Cameroons plotting to launch Conservative Home rival

5:51pm Thu November 17th

A group of centrist Tory MPs are plotting to challenge the blogosphere quasi-monopoly of Conservative Home. Michael Crick reports that allies of David Cameron have been meeting “to establish a significant website which will do for the centre-left what Conservative Home does for the right” and that “substantial resources are available” to challenge Lord Ashcroft’s cash.

Designed to help Cameron take on backbench and grassroots right wingers, Scrapbook is hoping upon hope that the project will make for some popcorn-worthy internecine warfare. David Cameron’s antipathy for Conservative Home, edited by right-winger Tim Montgomerie, is well known. When asked about the use of force to curb Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s nuclear ambitions, Cameron once quipped:

“We’ll send planes to attack Iran, provided they bomb Conservative Home on the way back.”

The launch of this new political outfit online rather than in print has some poignance given the recent fate of paper-based lefty counterparts. With Tribune magazine facing a potentially uncertain future after being sold to staff for £1 to by owner Kevin McGrath and the socialist Morning Star potentially “going under by Christmas”, real questions remain as to the viability of small to medium size paper-based outlets.

Time will tell whether “2020 Conservatives” is more successful than Labour’s “2020 Vision” website, founded by those doyens of blogging, Alan Milburn and, errr, Charles Clarke.

Tory MEP Roger Helmer calls for rioters to be “shot on sight”

10:12am Tue August 9th

27 comments

Conservative MEP Roger Helmer is not known for a measured, thoughtful approach to public policy, but with his response to the London riots he has really excelled himself. In a tweet this morning, the mustachioed climate change denier sent a message to the Government’s emergency cabinet meeting saying rioters should be summarily executed:

Helmer’s comments were met with disbelief, even from the conservative blogosphere. Surely this was just a clumsy turn of phrase – he must be talking about non-lethal ammunition, right? Well, no. After being asked to clarify his comments by Conservative Home’s Tim Montgomerie, Roger confirmed that he was indeed seeking the death penalty for the worst rioters.

Given that the riot was started with police bullets, we wonder how helpful this will be.

Update: Yesterday, Mr Helmer posted on his blog proudly describing his recent visit to the “Solutions for the States” conference in New Orleans, after which he was invited for a morning’s shooting with the National Rifle Association. In the post, Roger proudly announces that he owns an NRA tie, emblazoned on which is a quote from the Second Amendment of the US Constitution:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”

His hosts also gave him a T-shirt bearing the slogan “The Second Amendment: America’s Original Homeland Security”

Perhaps this is where Roger acquired his new gun lust?

ConHome's left wing mole unmasked

11:13am Mon February 28th

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It’s amazing what a couple of glasses of free prosecco can achieve. Total Politics’ snapper at large Nick Pickles has caught über-feminista Laurie Penny plotting the revolution with, erm, family values Conservative Tim Montgomerie.

Must have been quite a meeting of minds.

Largest ever gathering of UK online activists to take place this weekend

9:58am Tue January 4th

8 comments

Inspired by the Netroots Nation conference held in the US by writers of the Daily Kos, Netroots UK, to be held in London this Saturday, promises to be the largest gathering of its kind in Britain. The event aims to “bring together hundreds of grassroots activists in central London for a day of workshops, discussions and networking activity.”

Political Scrapbook has organised a session on the “state of the blogosphere” where our editor Laurence Durnan will be joined by:

Tim Montgomerie, ConservativeHome
Sue Macmillan, consultant and former Labour Party head of new media
Mark Ferguson, LabourList
Donnacha DeLong, NUJ

Other items on the wide-ranging programme include practical hands-on training, through case studies and learning from campaigns, to wider strategy discussions. All this excitement will be followed by drinks courtesy of Obama’s web guys, Blue State Digital.

Tickets are £5 and can be grabbed here.

ConHome depicts Cameron "surrendering" in underpants

9:01am Fri October 29th

9 comments

Tim Montgomerie must be popular in Number 10 this morning:

Is it any wonder CCHQ is so paranoid about ConservativeHome?

The site’s position as the guardian of the activists does not pass unchallenged: one CCHQ employee demanded I refer to Montgomerie as “the self-appointed voice of the grassroots” … party staff worry about ConservativeHome’s ability to whip up outrage in the rightwing press. One former senior party press officer said “the Mail used to ring 100 constituency chairmen if they didn’t like what we were doing, and they’d get a story out of that. You know, ‘hard-working activists outraged’ stuff. Now they just need to ring Tim. The old ‘Tory splits’ stock story just got that much easier.”
The site could also act as a platform for rebels. One front-bench MP described its likely future role as a “serial harbourer of fugitives. I would expect Tim to back MPs who stand up to the whips in pursuit of the ConservativeHome agenda. God only knows what that means for our policies on climate change, Europe, on immigration or on defence.”

In the finest traditions of the party, it’s good to see the Tories having an, erm, vigorous debate about Europe again.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!

David Cameron's Militant Tendency? ConservativeHome threatens civil war over Europe

12:23pm Mon November 2nd

1 comment

UPDATE 13:22 Paul Waugh reports Cameron has just issued a non-denial denial on the “manifesto mandate” for EU renegotiation.

When Tim Montgomerie told a conference fringe event that ConservetiveHome would be “more disciplined” in the run up to the next general election, what he actually mean was that he’d be threatening civil war if he doesn’t get his own way on Europe:

“The effort to renegotiate must be real and all necessary guerilla tactics used to get our way out of arrangements that the British people have never okayed … If Britain’s relationship with the EU is fundamentally the same after five years of Conservative government the internal divisions that ended the last Tory period in government will look like a tea party in comparison” – Tim Montgomerie

As smug cheerleaders for a strident, anti-European conservatism, the left love to hate Hannan et al, who are viewed with schadenfreude as a political liability for Cameron. But, as Left Foot Forward reports, the consequences of Tory isolationism on Europe would be catastrophic if proposed renegotiation culminated in an opt out from the social chapter.

With the Conservatives – more than any time in the last fifteen years – looking poised to grasp power, it’s simply astonishing to see prominent figures queueing up to topple the apple cart.

More at Next Left, Left Foot Forward and Liberal Conspiracy with Montgomerie’s article here.