The EU Don't Want Our Money?
Yeah right.
Simon Cavalier-Jones is speaking at a big CF area meeting tonight in Leeds. TB understands the will be declaring he is running and giving a speech setting out his plans for CF and then asking for the endorsement Yorkshire CF. In terms of regions Yorkshire is on the biggest and most active and any candidate with their support has to be a runner in this election.
East Midlands CF have already endorsed his candidacy, so we're looking at the prospect of a Northern power base Not much is known about Cavalier-Jones, except that he is 25 and works in consultancy. He worked across the East Midlands on the target seat campaign during the elections. He is certainly looking like the outside candidate and is said to have a fair bit of cash behind his bid.
A somewhat old school PMQs today with some heightened exchanges. We're not back to the Dave and Gordon boxing bouts but a certain escalation from the subdued exchanges of the last two weeks.
Cameron's Star Trek joke fell a bit flat but wasn't a patch on the shocking delivery of Harman's lines. She needs to ditch the script and act quicker on her feet. Lots of grumpiness floating around in the chamber. Did that IPSA debate upset a few of the poor dears?
PS. TB will be on Sky News tonight chatting about banking reform with Will Straw from Left Foot Forward. Tune in at 7pm.
A US Congressman assaulting a student?
Lucky he had his mobile phone camera...
"In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come"You can see why he is so often glued to his auto-cue, almost every time he goes free-style he inserts his foot into his mouth. No end of New York police and fireman are cuing up to tear chunks out of the President for his insensitive remarks. It seems he has replaced his strategy of bashing the British by angering his own country.
Yesterday he said: I can {confirm {Caroline Nokes and I have had a sexual relationship. I have no further comment.The missing piece to complete the story. So then James how much did you get for selling it yourself?
This just hit TB's Blackberry:
Michelle Donelan will not stand for Conservative Future Chairman due to an impending career move which will act as a huge time constraint and requires her full attention. She wishes the candidates the best for their campaigns and hopes that Conservative Future can grow and flourish under their new Chairman.Intriguing...
After the utterly depressing start it was no surprise that today's PMQs was once again a subdued affair. With the excitement going on elsewhere today this wasn't the big show. The Labour Leadership closing nominations coupled with the Select Committee elections means minds were wandering elsewhere.
Harman, despite the best efforts of her comedian staffer, is still looking uncomfortable at the despatch box. She was muddled over redrawing boundaries and her argument was left wide open by the fact Labour had gone ahead with redrawing said boundaries on the very electoral register she now decries. There is a real fear on the left about the re balancing of constituencies. They have gerrymandered and manipulated the inner city system and are realising the game is up. Cue much hysteria.
High point had to be Dave's put down of Balls as the "new Alf Garnett of politics" though there was no subtle smack down of Harman like last week sadly. Balls's face after that was a classic though. The lack of Clegg is a good thing - a broad range of backbench questions certainly makes for a more interesting debate.
An uneventful no score draw though.
UPDATE: Late in the session Dave said the England flag will be flying over Downing St for the World Cup. So nice having a Prime Minister that the sporting world doesn't have to pray won't endorse a team or wish good luck in match. So long curse of Jonah.
Last week,
A press release from Ben Howlett's "Press Officer"... In TB's day people sent their own pres... ok ok he won't start:
At 5pm this afternoon an email was sent to the Conservative Party Co-Chairmen Baroness Warsi and Andrew Feldman, declaring that I would be standing as a potential candidate for the position of National Chairman of Conservative Future.Interesting he chooses to discuss the positive feedback from the email sent to grassroots hacks. Not sure the Essex councillor would like to read some of the emails TB got about it. TB will let the inevitable cat-fighting run its course without fuelling the fire just yet. Apparently there is some Labour leadership contest on too. Pah.
While I know that the election has not officially been called, the campaign appears to have started in earnest. Michael Rock has had a fantastic term of office and I would be proud to succeed him.
Over the weekend an email was sent to over 600 Branch Chairman and Executive Members across the country under the message of “Conservative Future – Your Voice”. I wanted to find out what matters most to Conservative Future members across the country from Aberdeen to Brighton, Wrexham to West Cornwall. These were contact details I have collected over the last 5 years of my involvement in Conservative Future as the President of Durham University Conservative Association and as a Branch Chairman in Essex. The intention was to find out what mattered most to members before I decided to stand for the position of Chairman.
I have only had positive feedback so far, a few people have asked me “why on earth do you want to?” but even they believe I will do a good job, so I would like to take this opportunity to prove them right.
The hundreds of responses to my email so far have all been extremely valuable. These responses will become the basis of a manifesto that will enable their views to be implemented. I will continue this continual engagement by spending the following months meeting branch members across the country, asking them their concerns and ideas.
I promise that I will try my best to reinstate a grassroots organisation and creating an organisation ideologically led by the members, that is why I intend to give Conservative Future back it’s voice.
A low key start for PMQs, but immediately it was clear that Cameron was careful to be seen to be answering questions given he attacked his predecessor so often for failing to give a straight answer. It was refreshing to see that when he didn't have an answer, instead of spouting reams of tractor stats he simply said he wasn't going to make something up on the spot and would get back to them.
Harman didn't seem as comfortable at the box as she was last week at the Queens Speech debate. Her tactics became clear immediately - she will go every week on the few things that Clegg and Cameron disagree on. A nice touch but will get old very quickly. It seems she will use these few opportunities in the limelight to push her warped sexist agenda which will of course provide a little light relief. She was sticking to a script and if she wants to do well at these bouts she has to be able to break away from the prepared lines - something she was incapable of doing today.
The times they are a'changing. The Commons was calm and people were paying attention. Could well have been to do with the horrendous news breaking from Cumbria or are we seeing a new type of PMQs. Nearly half of the MPs are new members who would have watched the tired old scenes of the last Parliament's PMQs and know how off putting those scenes were. Will they be able to keep it up though? We shall see...
A win for Dave? Yes, but it was hardly a battle. Nice smack down on Harman's last question... more please.
CCHQ will be pleased that there is a big field so far for Chairman of Conservative Future. What could possibly go wrong?
These lot haven't declared officially but TB has seen or heard the makings of their campaigns from:
Michelle Donelan
Ben Howlett
Kit Friend
James Morton
Simon Cavalier-Jones
Rumoured:
Patrick Sullivan
Oli Cooper
Fund-raising has started, though because the campaign is over the summer there will be none of the usual tactic of going to university braches, getting everyone drunk and promising them the world. Candidates are going to have to actually think up new ways of reaching out.
Little disappointed not to see Emma Carr on the list.
This whole story is a tragedy. No one, in any party, can doubt that an honourable and able man has gone. Those who had wanted fast fiscal consolidation have lost a trusted advocate. The government will be all the weaker for it.James Forsyth
The other person in the government who could do the job—Phillip Hammond—can’t because he is a Tory and the role is reserved for a Lib Dem. With the best will in the world, it is hard to imagine that Danny Alexander will be able to do the job with the ability that Laws was doing it.Matthew Parris is
Of course Mr Laws made an error of judgment. Hundreds of MPs have cocked up badly as parliamentarians scramble to keep abreast of violent and bewildering changes in the national mood. The present Defence Secretary handed back £22,000 in March. Hundreds have made repayments.Even old lefty Sir Michael White is
Meanwhile, other MPs across the United Kingdom are living, with a declared partner, in accommodation wholly or partially funded by the taxpayer — entirely within the rules.
So I regret his going and hope the Telegraph's more thoughtful readers are as unimpressed as I am. Perhaps the newspapers really are losing the plot in their – our – battle to retain sales share.
Keen bean
Given Obama seems to have enough problems trying to fix a hole, who knows how he will react if North Korea shell Seoul. Tomorrow evening
"Labour MP Stephen Pound has been accused of calling Arsenal’s former England defender Sol Campbell a “fairy” during a recent Premier League football match.Charming. Cue lefty outrage.. oh wait.. no, silence? Of course.
The recently re-elected Labour politician is said to have made the homophobic remark when his football team, Fulham, failed to overcome rivals Arsenal during a game at the Emirates Stadium in North London, last weekend.
The 61-year-old was heard making a string of offensive remarks whilst ranting from his £35,000-a-year executive box."
Here's a corker from a
If you can
TB was gearing up to rip chunks out of this vomit inducing piece on the
I am well aware that Ed Balls is not the most popular candidate for Labour leader. Vilification by the rightwing press has led to an image of Balls which many who know him personally, many of whom I’ve spoken to, do not recognise. This will be an opportunity for the public to see the real Ed. Quite simply, it will be a cold day in hell when Labour party members choose our leader based on his popularity in the sections of the media we rightly loathe. Ed has the hunger, the drive and the fire in the belly to lead our party back into Downing Street. It is perhaps just that which the rightwing media fear.However it seems
Allow me to correct this misapprehension. The truth is that most rightwing commentators would dearly love to see Ed Balls as the next Labour leader. Not only does he come across badly on television – a Stalinist thug trying, unsuccessfully, to seem human – but he’s fatally tainted by his close association with Gordon Brown. He would be a terrible electoral liability, worse even than the insufferably smug Diane Abbott. Next to him, Michael Foot seems positively Churchillian.What he said.
The problem is. he produces such an instant, visceral dislike that we find it impossible to stop ourselves pointing out how ghastly he is. We all recognise, I think, that we should either keep quiet or relentlessly attack his politics, allowing the Ellie Gerard’s of this world to portray him as the leadership candidate we fear the most. But we simply can’t repress our violent hatred of the man. To adapt a phrase of Edward Heath’s, he is the unacceptable face of socialism.
As
Vernon Coaker (Gedling)Aren't we missing someone there? Is there a reason his MP wife isn't on the list?
Sharon Hodgson (Washington & Sunderland West)
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East)
Iain Wright (Hartlepool)
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North)
David Wright (Telford)
Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham Perry Barr)
Andrew Gwynne (Denton & Reddish)
Helen Jones (Warrington North)
Eric Joyce (Falkirk)
Dave Anderson (Blaydon)
John Robertson (Glasgow North West)
Though in no way is TB as accurate as someone like err Tweetminster of YouGov at predicting election outcomes, the straw poll released this morning about the old upcoming CF Chairman election has thrown up some interesting results:
In coordination with
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