Thank you firstly to the 82 respondents to Tory Bear's first survey of how the CF National Management Committee have done in the first three months since their election. The results are a pretty accurate gauge of the CF electorate given that 768 people voted in the election, 9.3% of the those voters took part in this poll.
Respondents were asked to rate each NME member as either "good", "alright", "you're fired" or if they did not know who they are, or had not heard much from them, then "who?".
Starting in reverse order the Exec are ranked by their overall approval rating (the sum of their "good" and "alright" scores.)
Without further delay.. bringing up the rear... Cllr Steve Ricketts:
A pretty shoddy performance so far it seems from our man in Plymouth. Seems nobody has heard of him and even those that have don't seem too impressed. TB understands that Steve has expressed his concern to his NME colleagues that he feels some what out of the loop as Plymouth is a long way from the London centric organisation but despite this fact there is a hell of a lot of room for improvement here.
Approval Rating: 25.4%Next up it's Owen
"Delivering For Everyone - Aspiration For All"
Meredith:
Despite the endless press -releases in the latest news section of his ever hilarious
website,
Owen is failing to connect with the membership. A hefty 29.3% would also like to see him fired. Would put that rumoured Chairman bid on ice my friend and concentrate on proving your up to scratch here.
Approval Rating: 33.4%
With another large "who?" lingering over her, next we have Adele Douglas:
Adele has done wonders in Manchester but needs to work harder to improve her national profile it seems. Of those who do know her it's a pretty solid "alright" in this poll but TB reckons they could easily be converted to "good" with a little more action. The appeal of a candidate of CF age (
Stuart Penketh
,) standing in what is now a winnable seat, a campaign Adele is running the CF side of, should have CFers flocking to help out. Up the game a little and you'll go far.
Approval Rating: 43%
Chair of the CF poetry committee & Deputy Chairman Christian May is lingering mid-table:
Pretty average results for the Forward Together survivor. The Exec were clearly quite clever in over-promoting Christian to a position where he can't cause too much trouble. Having been one of only two of the FT slate elected, Mr May could have cut a divisive figure on the NME but good on him for clearly buckling down and getting on with the job.
Approval rating 46.9%
Next up it's Anastasia Beaumont-Bott:
These are by far the most interesting figures. Splitting almost exactly down the 25% lines - love her or hate her ABB is defiantly Miss Marmite of this survey! High profile projects such as LGBTory and Social Action have raised her profile no end in the last few months but still more people would like to see the back of her (26%) than think she is doing a good job (24.7%.) The rumours of what would be, given her age, an extraordinary bid for Chairman next year just won't go away. If it is a case of no-smoke-without-fire than TB's advice would be to sort out that 26% who aren't ABB fans, because if these figures were translated into votes- it will be FT town for you...
Approval Rating: 48.1%
If the Rock was DC then Richard Jackson would be Steve Hilton, or maybe Andy Coulson:
The first of this NME's co-options has proved to be a hit. The
CF Exec blog
is a great new inititive, as were the Twitter and Flickr updates from Henley. The strategic brains behind the Rock4CF phenomenon, and part time CCHQ Press Officer, Richard is clearly getting his teeth stuck into his new role as communications guru for the NME. Although 31.6% of respondents don't know who he is, that can hardly be held against him given the fact that he didn't have all the publicity of the election. The man behind the scenes image is one the suits him well and his excellent
Approval Rating of 62.1% is thoroughly deserved.
After the storming successes of Crewe and Henley the National Campaigns Coordinator Patrick Sullivan is your most highly rated member of the NME:
So the joke goes that the Tories didn't win by-elections and then they put Patrick in charge, well TB wouldn't go that far but you have to hand it to Mr Sullivan - he is doing an excellent job so far. Having tested out methods and found a solid formula during the Ealing by-election last summer, CF national campaigns have gone from strength to strength, especially for Boris and in Crewe. While de-camping around the country to fight on the front, Patrick has also juggled the pressure of relaunching the StudentLife committee, of which he is the co-chair. He has clearly got his name recognition sorted and it seems work hard,play hard is a winning formula! Approval Rating: 68.4%
Well done to Richard and Patrick for their approval ratings about 50%. Plenty of room for improvement amoungst the other members though - was hardly a glowing report. TB won't be doing these monthly but they will be held every so often. The final result for Chairman Michael Rock is
72.4% of respondants think he is doing a good job (giving him a score above 5/10) - solid.
Still to come from the survey are some re-election figures for the NME and a look at possible candidates for next time round, as well as the verdicts on Michael Lunn and Social Action.
TB is getting lashed this weekend so don't expect too much.