Land of Hope and Glory

Hat-Tip:

Donal Blaney

The censored version..

Well it's lacking in the booze and AK47's but YBF has just realeased this video:



Get involved here...

A worthy cause

General legend and

MSP John Lamont

is running the Great North Run for the Friends of the Borders General Hospital...

John is a great guy, if you've ever heard him speak you'll know what a laugh he is, it's very refreshing to get the odd politician willing to crack a joke that is actually funny.

Anyway he has been a good friend to CF and do sponsor him generously...

(Here)

Tory Bear is angry.

This has got to stop.

Granted there are only eleven people so far in this group but TB urges each and everyone of you to consider your membership of the Conservative Party. What made you join the Tories? Why are you involved now?

Is it just the shiny, glossy, fresh campaigns that both the Conservatives and Obama are running, because that is where the common ground lies.

TB has said it before and will say it until he goes blue... oh wait. Well he will say it again;

Obama is a socialist.
Tories don't like socialists

Obama has the most left leaning voting record of any Senator.
Tories don't like left leaning voting records.

The guy is a lightweight - Obama sat on a beach sipping cocktails firing off the occasional press release about the situation in Georgia, while Dave flew out there. (Granted he was going to Turkey but TB likes to think he would have gone anyway...)

There are a million and ones reasons not to support Obama, heck TB doesn't care if you don't support McCain either. To be honest (and it does need spelling out to some people - THIS-IS-NOT-OUR-ELECTION!) your support doesn't count for anything but why nail your such shallow and ill thought out political allegiances so blatantly to the mast?

The Conservative Party should not be a haven for people who support massive increases on middle class taxation, pulling troops out of Iraq before they can finish the job started and ripping up the rule books and shredding Constitution under a lame banner of so called "Change".

A text book politicians answer

London Spin

is going to be running an interview with Ed Hallam later today... TB has best bits though.

Interesting to note he does not rule out a leadership bid...

Q. How long do you think CLWCF will be your home ground, any ambitions to move to an area chair role or another branch?

A. My future will, I expect, always be with CLWCA for as long as I'm living in this region - and I have no plans to leave London! I'm still only a couple of months into my role as chairman so it's a little early to speculate on the future. I don't have any plans to go for an Area Chairmanship - so Oli Cooper can breathe easy, for now!

Q. London Spin is still receiving tip offs that you are due to launch a CF chairman campaign in early 2009, can you confirm once and for all that you will not be standing? Or is there more news to come on that front?

A. I'm afraid your sources are incorrect. I've set absolutely nothing in motion for a national chairmanship bid. Michael Rock is a close friend, and as well known I worked on his campaign, which is more my style and where my interests are. Those experiences have shown me just how much time and effort it takes to win the position, and then do the job. I applaud Michael for finding the time. Personally, I'm more interested in focusing on my career for now

reads like something Jack Straw would say...

What do you think?

EUSAless Wilf

TB can’t help but laugh at the fact Gordon is

bringing

the disgraced former Smith Institute director

Wilf Stevenson

into his Downing Street high command.

The words deckchairs and Titanic come to mind.

What tickled TB though was the fact Wilf is a former President of

EUSA - Edinburgh University Students Association

. A caledonian co-conspirator informs TB that this “bunch of kit-kat banning hippies... a fucking ridiculous organisation...” is attempting to work it’s way out

of some million quid in debt “overdrafts”, has been the strangle-hold of firstly commies (Brown’s followers actually wore uniforms- Brown shirts haha!) then Labour Students and now a coalition of militant socialist, green nationalists. This years President and

baronet heir

Adam “man of the people” Ramsay was only duly elected because he could afford (and cared enough,) to drag the process into thousands in legal fees to have his disqualification for sustained cheating overturned – The organisation is both almost financially and completely morally bankrupt. EUSA put out good stock in bonkers politicians – and TB has little doubt Wilf (famous for being totally useless!) will have cut his teeth at EUSA and be yet another spectacular cock-up for Brown.

In 2006 when Boris Johnson was standing for the

ancient position of Edinburgh University

Rector

, (Gordo was the first and last student to hold the office in 1974,) EUSA ignored their constitution and their charitable status (

sound familiar yet?

) to divert thousands of pounds of Association funds – money meant to be spent on improving the lives of students - to fighting their campaign against “evil” Tories, entitled “don’t wake up with a dumb-blonde.”

Then it just got nasty

Seems Wilf left quite a legacy at EUSA.

conservativefuture.com

Apologies for the lack of posts, going to be a light week as TB is all over the place. It's annoying when websites aren't updated isn't it? Given the fact that Tory Bear hasn't exactly been given his blog much attention in the last few days this point might be a bit cheeky, but has anyone else noticed the shocking state of

conservativefuture.com

?

The last update specifically about CF was from mid-April and anything that has subsequently been put up has just been pinched from Webcameron on

Conservatives.com

.

What is the point?

The

CF Executive blog

on the other hand is updated regularly and is a very welcome addition. It's professional, sensible and on message. If it is CF news you are after or information about what is going on nationally then the Exec blog is where you will find it. But again what is the point if it's not linked directly from the main site? Any young person interested in joining Conservative Future will simply stick that into Google and of course the first thing to come up is the .com site. The Exec blog comes up half way through page two behind countless local branch websites and eminent blogs about teddy bears. It's all very well maintaining a useful tool like the exec blog but it's a waste of time if no one knows it exists or can get to it easily and quickly.

TB has it on good authority that his daily hits are far higher than conservativefuture.com and the Exec blog put together. Here's an idea you can have for free- why not just redirect the .com address to the new blog and update it to include the resources available. It would take five minutes to do and make things a lot simpler, heck TB will even do it for you if you like?

TB can see absolutely no reason why this shouldn't be done, unless the exec aren't trusted to blog directly onto an official party page?

If that is the case, TB wonders which unelected, unaccountable coordinator thought that one up...

Revenge?

While the NUS is indoctrinating this year's student union sabbaticals with cold tea, curled-up sandwiches and the occasional sit down protest outside Heathrow,

The Young Britons' Foundation's

indoctrination in the USA sounds much more fun. Wild nights of passion, copious numbers of cigars and beers, shooting handguns, AK47s and MP5 sub-machine guns and yesterday it seems, renting a jet boat and buzzing around the bay at Santa Barbara at 60mph.

Not all of the YBFers went on the boat though... Part-time CCHQ Press Officer Richard Jackson thought he would do things with a Cameroon twist and hired a segway (top speed 12mph,) boasting of its environmentally friendly credentials. Having explained how impossible it was to fall off this ridiculous gadget, bad-boy Joseph Lynch managed to do precisely that - breaking his elbow in the process.

Rumours that a vengeful Ed Hallam had anything to do with this incident are strenuously denied.


UPDATE 00.17: Texts from Richard Jackson -

RJ: "You git."
TB: "Check out the update."
RJ: "Thanks and it actually goes 14mph..."
TB:"Oh god that is going to have to go up too!!! haha tb has sources everywhere"
RJ: "I don't care - it was so much fun to ride!"
TB: "haha and that.... Ah this is gold dust."
RJ: "No comment."


PS can someone out there bring Tory Bear a John MacCain '08 t-shirt back please?

An unexpected departure...

Anyone even contemplating getting involved in Conservative Future at a national level should read this farewell piece from CF guru and sage John Moorcraft:

"The new generation of national CF activists are so careerist it’s frightening. Fortunately, the organisation retains a certain charm below the national level and it is here where some of our best activists operate. Indeed, I would say the three most talented people I have met in the organisation have never been involved beyond branch level."

Read the rest

here

.

Seems John has emigrated to New Zealand. His research tome into the Conservative Party youth movement will be available very soon.

May the force be with you old bean...

Letters from America 2

TB's source across the pond got in touch again to offer another instalment of gossip from the Young Britons' Foundation USA Lads/Ladettes On Tour Activist Training 2008....

After Oliver Cooper's previous "activities" on the first half of the trip in Washington, TB learns that fellow travellers also did their best to cement the Special Relationship in their own special way. Indeed the late night antics of YBF's very own Christian May so offended a religious nutter that he is currently receiving hate mail for his 'lack of Christian morals."

Indeed Oliver "the stud" Cooper managed to ensnare his second American lady of the trip - something my co-conspirator tells me he'd be hard pressed to do back home. TB has been promised and will be publishing a special USA Totty-Watch in a couple of days. He is reliably informed it is worth the wait but we shall see eh boys?

But it hasn't all be McLovin, indeed there was a distinct lack of love and harmony yesterday between Joseph Lynch and Ed "ZanuCF" Hallam. While two YBFers frolicked in the pool, Lynch pushed Hallam in - fully suited and holding his phone, cash and passport etc…

TB understands that Lynch's punishment will involve some kind of waterboarding.

What the hell is he playing at?

Our esteemed Shadow Home Secretary is putting a bit of stick about today. He apparently speaks for all the party with his desire to give the police the power to:

-Use covert video or listening devices in premises or vehicles.
-Watch premises to identify or arrest suspects.
-Conduct visual surveillance of public locations.
-Patrol, in uniform or plain clothes.
-Use thermal imaging and X-ray technology.
-Conduct surveillance using visible CCTV cameras

TB nearly choked when he read this, he expects this sort of quasi-fascist big-brother bullshit from Gordo's lot but not from our side. Plain clothes goons on the roam? Doesn't this all sound just a tad

familiar

?

Even before Grieve has got his black leather gloves around the nation’s throat, there are already 266 separate provisions granting the state power to enter homes without permission, how did we let this happen?

Our Party should be the ones fighting this. Today's speech made a mockery of the DD4Freedom campaign.

The idea of "political obligation" is that there is (at least under certain circumstances,) an obligation to obey the government and its law even if, apart from this, there would be no moral obligation to do so. Well the circumstances in which these obligations are void has been reached.

We should be fighting the fact that innocent people have their DNA held on a database for criminals. We should not accept or that there is one CCTV camera for every 14 people. Or that you are photographed boarding a domestic flight.

“That which is not just is not law, and that which is not law ought not to be obeyed”

We should be wrenching the microchips out of our dustbins, spray-painting CCTV cameras and standing up together against this dominance of the liberal-fascists. The legislation that outlaws the right to stage a silent, one-person protest within one mile of the Palace of Westminster would not be much use if a million people turned up.

Come back DD.

"we must put our country's interest first"

Hilarious story on the

BBC website

...

Pin in the arse...

London’s Pin

is a new blog that has popped up over the weekend. It first came to Tory Bear's attention via a Facebook friend request.

Normally TB wouldn’t be too bothered about yet another CF blog emerging in his wake but this one is different…

It’s pretty personal and pretty nasty.

Written from the perspective of a supposed CCHQ “drawing pin” accidentally relegated from DC’s office to CF, the Pin is a funny concept. However something tells TB there is something slightly more malicious behind this blog.

Obviously it’s a clear rip-off/piss-take of

London Spin

, the brainchild of Steven George and the supposed “Broadsheet Tory Bear" - The bloody cheek!

Mr. George has now passed the editorial reigns to one Frank Gallagher. Frank apparently graduated from the University of Manchester with a 2:1 in journalism and cultural studies. Though he does not appear to be on Facebook. Which is a bit odd.

Despite the “Pin” being live only a matter a days, half of its posts directly attack, or at least take the piss out of either Steven George, Croydon CF, (to which he is personally and professionally very close to,) or London Spin itself – “a 'well respected' Blog, who has a readership in its 'tens'”

Now there is no denying that there must have been some bad-blood in Mr. George’s acrimonious departure from CWLCF and London’s Pin is clearly involved in CLWCF and focuses on the branch, his longest post yet has been about Ed Hallam’s hair. The only clue.

Let the witch-hunt begin.

A Tory Bear t-shirt to the first person to email the Pin’s true identity.

Don’t forget it’s now editor@torybear.com

www.torybear.com

In preparation for big pre-conference changes on this site you can now access it simply by going to www.torybear.com rather than the old blogspot address.

New email address - editor@torybear.com

Exciting stuff eh?

The Ed Hallam Phenomenon

Not content with his new position as Chair of CLWCF it seems Ed Hallam is already preparing for his next "election":

(click)

Lets hope he remembers his YBF training...

Nod to

Iain Dale

for the software.

Working Strife

"There will be no Working Life conference this year. We will be looking to hold events later in the year, but the cost and lack of interest in working life conference last year, means we are not going ahead this year.

However, we will be ‘re-launching’ Working Life shortly. The question is, what exactly we will be re-launching? That is where you come in. I firmly believe CF is at its best when we operate as a member led organisation, so I will be taking my led on Working Life from you - the members" writes Owen Meredith on the

NME blog

.

Over the last year the rumour-mill has generating all sorts of banter about last year's

cancelled conference.

Senior officials claimed to the incoming NME that that Party lost "thousands" through the cancellation, but TB has been talking to a source close to the former Chairman who has shed some light on the matter- "...there was literally zero support from CCHQ for the entire time I was on the exec." The conference was cancelled at a cost of £600 due to the fact that despite an impressive range of speakers, only eleven people applied. ("

There are still some places left!

" haha!)

TB's source said "I thought that Karen [Allen] and her team did a great job and had they had even the slightest bit of support from CCHQ they would have delivered but the fact is that CCHQ don't want to know about young professionals unless they are in donor clubs"

It is reassuring to know that the the web address

www.cfwlconference.co.uk

is clearly still owned by Conservative Future however the main reasoning behind this post was a call to arms more than anything. Member retention after university and increasing membership of those aged 25 to 30 is a vital part of CF's role. Something has to be done.

Owen's post gives more than a smack of desperation.

If you feel you can help, why not get

in touch

? Whatever the reasons for lasts years cock-up - and it doesn't strike TB as a lack of effort, the same mistakes can not be made again. TB fired off some emails on this subject and the response from those who should be keen Working Life members was not exactly a resounding thumbs up;

"it's been 6 months since they started, I am a young professional in London and this is the first time I have heard from the NME on working life...and I bet I'm not the only one."

Let us not forget that Karen Allen failed to get re-elected to the NME after taking the poisoned Working Life chalice, having previously topped the ballot.

Better pull your finger out Owen, you were 33 votes from the top...

It's Alive!!!

Russia Vs. Georgia

Congratulations to both Russia and Georgia who rather ironically both won medals at the Olympics today...

For shooting!

Interesting to note the Russian beat the Georgians for the silver.

No one beats the Chinese it seems.


Thanks once again to "the Barrister" for his ever dry humour.

Freedom isn't Free...

A tip-off from someone who has been asked to contribute led TB to Conservative Liberty - a website very much under construction.

Apparently it's the relaunch of a blog once run by Patrick Sullivan nearly five years ago. A little googling turned up very little content of this old blog but TB did find this on Samizdata:

Why Eastenders leads to Big Government

It's a great little article and hopefully Con-Lib will follow a similar path.

Just a week ago TB was calling for more for more factionalism and discussions about ideology amongst CFers, this alone would have been a welcome addition to the blog networks. However in what appears could be a double whammy, click on the picture below to see what else has recently been registered:

Are two libertarian blogs set to go head-to-head? This is a fantastic development if it is the case... nothing like a bit of competition to ensure high quality.

OK so the tables are turned on the Thatcherites, Pro-NUS folk and the Cameroons... where are your blogs?

Hold on a second....

Thank you to the ever useful "CFer" who pinged this into TB's inbox as soon as the last post was published:

(Click to enlarge)

Seems ABB is slightly more bothered by The Blue Guerilla than she let on in that interview. Yes that comment was appalling and totally beyond the pale and it's for reasons not dissimilar from this case that TB has comment moderation, but is threatening legal action the answer? A simple phone call would have been far more effective than hollow threats.

TB would like to think that this issue could be resolved amicably and the need for threats of legal action disappears from CF.