Archive for lord ashcroft
More questions raised over Lord Ashcroft’s business empire
The business dealings of former Conservative Party Deputy Chairman and one of its biggest donors, Lord Ashcroft, are back in the news again. As The Observer reports: Fresh revelations have raised a series of questions about the links between the former Conservative deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft and a company responsible for luxury projects across a [...]
Campaign Corner: What campaigning books are worth reading?
The Campaign Corner series looks to give three tips about commonly asked campaign issues. Do get in touch if you have any questions you would like to suggest. Today’s Campaign Corner question: I prefer learning by reading rather than by hearing people speak at training sessions. What campaigning books would you recommend? Lots of possible answers, [...]
The best Conservative blog post of the week…
… came from Lord Ashcroft, taking to task fellow Conservatives for their obesssion with Europe: f there is one thing that unites Conservatives it is the desire to win the next general election outright. Certain things follow from this. The first is that we need more votes at the next election than we received at [...]
Liberal Democrat CONNECT
I thought a round-up of some of my posts and other background about the party’s new electoral database software, CONNECT, would be useful as they’ve been spread out over several months. First, the origins: following the party’s 2010 general election review, it was decided to get a new electoral database with three companies tendering for [...]
Only 3% swing to Tories in key Con/Lib Dem marginals
The detailed polling by Lord Ashcroft published today on ConservativeHome brings some encouraging news for the Liberal Democrats. In a set of key marginals held by the Conservatives and where the Liberal Democrats were second in 2010, there has only been a modest swing to the Conservatives since May 2010. In the eight seats polled, [...]
House of Lords reform: taking a look at the details
Yesterday Nick Clegg unveiled the Government’s proposals for reforming the House of Lords, an idea that David Cameron is on record as fully backing. The mere idea of introducing elections for half of our Parliament is shocking enough for some (letting the public decide who rules them? what a radical idea) that the details have [...]
What can we learn from Michael Ashcroft?
Controversial Conservative peer Michael Ashcroft has done campaigners in all parties a service with the frankness of his book on the 2010 general election, Minority Verdict. Though a short book, it contains some details of how the Conservative Party went about targeting swing voters in swing seats for last year’s contest. Aside from the subject’s inherent [...]
The four best books on the British general election of 2010
Over the last few months, I’ve read (and mostly reviewed on this site) all the books I’ve found published so far about the 2010 general election and the subsequent coalition negotiations, not to mention a fair number about the political events leading up to the general election over the preceding years. I’ve yet to read [...]
Want to run a successful campaign? Read Minority verdict by Michael Ashcroft
Michael Ashcroft’s book, Minority verdict: The Conservative Party, the voters and the 2010 election, should be on the reading list of anyone wanting to run an election campaign whether at local or national level in the next few years. The bulk of Lord Ashcroft’s book falls into three parts. First, there is an account of years [...]
The verdict of Liberal Democrat voters so far
“What annoyed me most was that they had intelligent policies and were not dogmatic, so I thought ‘how could you possibly go into coalition with the Tories?’” That quote, from a voter in a Liberal Democrat held seat, neatly summarises a view that is both held passionately by many Liberal Democrat voters but also irritates many [...]
