Archive for conservative party
Look carefully and this is actually rather good news for Liberal Democrats
The news: Tories expected to announceCampaign Managers to be employed in 40 target and 40 must keep seats #cpc12 — norman smith (@BBCNormanS) October 7, 2012 The reason: @bbcnormans That’s rather good news for Lib Dems – most of the 40 would be gains will be of Labour, so not aiming for many Lib Dem [...]
Latest Lib Dem membership figures and accounts
From today’s publication of party accounts by the Electoral Commission for national party organisations (i.e. excluding some of the component parts of the parties): Liberal Democrats Income £6,204,766 Expenditure £6,504,743 Surplus / (deficit) -£299,977* Membership 48,934** * There would have been a £217,473 surplus had it not been for a one-off write-off of a debt [...]
“Tory membership in crisis” – Independent
Today’s Independent reports: Three-quarters of local Conservative associations are losing activists as the party suffers a recruitment crisis which has seen membership halve since David Cameron became leader. The latest estimates put Conservative membership at between 130,000 and 170,000, compared with almost 300,000 shortly after Mr Cameron succeeded Michael Howard… Labour’s membership now stands at [...]
How does David Cameron charm the Liberal Democrats?
This week’s falling out between the coalition partners over Lords reform leaves David Cameron with two tricky problems to mull over the summer. The first, and most talked about, is how to get his party to back some measure of Lords reform else risk seeing Liberal Democrats outside ministerial ranks (and even some inside) see [...]
Conservative councillor derides NHS as “Marxist”
Conservative county councillor John Butcher (Surrey) has lashed out at the NHS in an email to fellow councillors and council officers, describing it as “a Marxist organisation” and “bound to fail”. He went on to call for health policies to be changed so as to bring about polarisation between those who live healthier and less [...]
A further spot of Tory bother in Reading
Following on from the resignation of one Tory councillor in Reading, a second has now quit too: Mark Ralph said he has quit the party because of its treatment of ousted Tory councillor Jamie Chowdhary by Reading East Conservative Association (RECA) and the attempts to terminate his own membership because he spoke out in support [...]
Reading Conservatives run into a spot of bother
The Reading Chronicle reports: LEADING Tory politician Jamie Chowdhary’s feud with his own party exploded … when he walked out of the Reading Borough Council chamber after pledging to take legal action against some of his colleagues… He told the council he plans to sue members of the local Conservative Party but did not name [...]
What do you think was the second most important reason why people didn’t vote Tory in the Cotswolds?
Between us, Stephen Tall (he of the Oxford Comma cartoon) and myself (purveyor of news about commas in election law and academic research), appear to be carving out a niche in political punctuation coverage. I fear it is all going to end in tears when someone puts our own punctuation habits under the microscope, but [...]
Bromley Council pulls a controversial novelty with a lollipop lady petition
Tsk, tsk, Bromley Conservatives. There is a council by-election campaign underway in Shortlands ward, Bromley where the excellent Anuja Prashar is the Liberal Democrat candidate. (So excellent, I’ll forgive her for organising a raffle once that broke all my Lib Dem raffle rules.) She has been campaigning against council plans to axe the lollipop ladies [...]
