Lovely tie darling...

Machiavelli

has spotted an interesting wardrobe point about our esteemed Chancellor...

Has he been cashing in on the recession inspired price slashing on the High Street?

Seems so...

Brown cancels Christmas

Over at

LondonSpin

it is being reported that there will be no CF Christmas Party this year. Traditionally the scene of much debauchery and drunkenness this event will be sorely missed. Seems Guido will have to look elsewhere for this year's Christmas tottywatch too. Without a CF election anytime soon there will be no opportunity for pissed up hacks to buy votes with their cards behind the bar or for London Transport Police to wake up an anonymous CFer who was found, full of brandy, asleep outside Westminster tube like last year. In these times of economic difficulty TB can imagine how the thinking goes - drunk CFers + camera = tabloids, but it's not as if we didn't prove ourselves capable of behaving at conference. Absolutely no complacency there. None whatsoever. Move along people, nothing to see here.

Looks like TB will just have to go to Stringfellows with the YBF posse instead. Oh well.

UPDATE: 22.00 - the CF press machine never sleeps. Just heard that there will be a Christmas Party after all. Probably a Festive Season Celebration no doubt but a lash up is on the cards all the same.

Labour have done it again - the remix

Apologies for the light blogging today, here's why:

Osborne sticking it to Labour and a bit of trance... spread it around!

Just what you need for an idle Tuesday night.

What we should be doing...

As the dust settled after yesterdays PBR... Conservative Future hit the street. All major cities were covered, as were the main railway routes out of London. Once again CF has proven to truely be the ground army of the party...

More of this, less bitching please.

Wicked whispers...

In recent weeks with the Mandy come back, the NuLabour boyz have been back at the helm of the sinking Brown ship... Interesting to note then that Ed Balls' usual posistion next to the PM at these sorts of speeches has been usurped by ultra-Blarite James Purnell who whispered to Gordon throughout George Osborne's speech.

See for yourself

here.

WTF?

TB was rather surprised to find out he had been added to the

Hizb ut-Tahir

mailing list. Daily press briefings slagging of David Cameron's

"extremist"

views and generally laying into the Tories ping into his inbox. Now don't get me wrong but they bloody serious? 

Sorry but TB won't take lectures from an organisation that hates freedom, women and Israel. Can you please kindly remove him from your mailing list. TB has no time for the filth and lies that this organisation spreads. TB is sure you can continue with your crackpot dream of a world Islamic state without having to piss him off on a daily basis.

Go away.

Quote of the Day...

Tough competition today... Darling had some corkers but the prize really must go to Christian May: 

"Is cutting 3p off the price of McVities really going to cure this recession? No. The answer lies in flat tax my friend... but that is a debate for another day."

Cigarettes and alcohol

TB sadly missed this afternoon's fun of games around the Pre Budget Report. Having now got home to SkyNews it is clear to see that this sham tactic will soon unravel. Labour today announced their long term election strategy that will culminate in Brown going to the country in spring 2010 having fobbed off and bribed voters with gimmicks and cheques here and there. He might as well just post £20 pound notes instead of election material. Labour's frenzied and desperate struggle to remain in power will wound this nation at a critical time and don't for one second believe that the Brown and co are in this for the good of the country. The leaks and briefings before today were specifically designed to knock the Tories of course and try make George Osborne slip up. He survived though and put up a good response to this farce.

But somehow despite Mandy and Alistair pulling the strings Labour have still managed to cock this up. This attempt to buy voters can not and will not work. If Labour really were in it for the people then they would know that a 2.5% decrease in VAT is not going to solve a thing. Yes it might mean that the 52 inch plasma widescreen TV that you might have had your eye on for six months will be two hundred odd quid cheaper but that will not even be an option for the people the government should be helping. The VAT drop doesn't include food - the key area where people are struggling. The most insulting part of this charade however is the fact that the VAT cut will in part be funded by a RISE in fuel tax. 

What are they smoking in the Treasury?

Not only will the fuel duty rise but so will that on alcohol and fags. Lets move away for a second shall we from the cosiness of Westminster and the ridiculous head-in-the-clouds world our government lives in and look at who these rises are going to hit the hardest. Food, fuel, fags and booze - the four things that young people and people on lower incomes will spend most, if not all of their money on. They have now been spectacularly shafted by this government. No one wins with this budget - the poor get taxed more and the rich get taxed more. The government is deluded and no wonder the BBC pundits were describing this as

socialist budget

. 

Everyone pays, no one wins.

Outside Downing Street this morning...

Probably the worst chancellor in the world...

Just spotted this on

Prodicus

.. seems appropriate for today:

This is from commenter DominicJ at the 

Telegraph

. (07:58 on 24 November 2008)

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

"Because you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."

Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).

The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got one dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that is how our tax system works.

The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction.
Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up any more. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

Ahh Bristo...

Conhome

is reporting that two term CF chairman 2003-05

Paul Bristow

has been selected to fight Middlesbrough South. The Hammersmith and Fulham councillor will be up against an 8000 odd Labour majority. Having coordinated Conservative Future's campaign in the 2005 election across the country, Paul will no doubt put up a solid fight...

TB would like to wish him the best of luck...

Lord Foulkes to run for Rector

Rumours have been circulating around Edinburgh University about possible candidates for

Rector

- a position held by Gordon Brown, Gladstone and Churchill in the past and unsuccessfully attempted by Boris Johnson three years ago. Tories on campus haven't forgotten the smarting defeat of Boris by Green former MSP Mark Ballard after the students association broke charity law and diverted student funds to fight a bitter and partisan campaign against a "dumb blonde".

The Edinburgh Evening News is

reporting

that the Labour club will be putting up the veteran peer and MSP Lord George Foulkes. TB understands an investigation is underway within

Edinburgh University Conservatives

to find out who leaked the candidates they had approached to stand - Jeremy Clarkson, David Davis and errrh Mark from Peep Show. Reports of this first emerged in

Student

- the campus newspaper and have now spread to the local press.

Whatever happens and whoever the candidates ultimately are, this is already gearing up to be big battle... TB will keep you updated.

That's more like it...

Exciting news from

Political Betting

: 

CONSERVATIVES 42% (-1)
LABOUR 31% (+1)
LIB DEMS 19% (+1)

ICM reports an 11% Tory lead

What second honeymoon was that Mr Brown? 

Promoted and Published on Behalf of Tory Bear

More Regional Coordinator rumours circulating, TB wasn't going to print the one about Dan Patterson signing off emails already as "Yorkshire Regional" as couldn't get secondary verification but seems the CF's blogging minx has

gone there.

Wrong though apparently.

TB is still waiting for the call... Come on guys please can TB have the South-East?

Saturday night in...

TB is exhausted after a hard day of leafleting some very high student tenement buildings, up and down the stairs all day. Just watching the X-Factor and having a quiet one tonight but a couple of things have caught his eye... 

Firstly over at the

Coffee House

they are reporting that JFK's daughter

Caroline

could be Obama's appointment to be his ambassador to London. Ummm let's just imagine what would happen if Brown sent an ambassador to Washington who had family connections that support and fund Al-Qaeda... it wouldn't go down too well would it? So why then is it acceptable to turn a blind eye to the Kennedy family connections to the IRA and their open support for the violent campaign of murder and terrorism in the troubles?

Secondly despite Gordon's denial yesterday, the

Mail

reveal that Mandelson is actively thinking about a General Election and in fact will be the one that decides when it will be. Scary. TB will be furious if it is early in the new year...

Something tells him that finals and an election will not be a good mix...

Reaction to the BNP membership leak...

One member takes the news particularly badly:

Classic stuff once again from the Fuehrerbunker.

It's a tenner...

The first limited edition Tory Bear t-shirt is now up for grabs for the bargin price of a tenner from

here.

TB gear...

New t-shirt designs are up on the

merchendise section

.

Over the next few weeks limited addition political t-shirts will be avaiable from here. Keep an eye out...

Dropped the prices too...

Support our troops

Now TB has had a crack at people shamelessly just nicking content from the YBF site for content for their blogs but past hatchets have been buried now and

this is worthy

of reproduction: 

All over the country, left wing Students’ Unions are making ‘political statements’ by trying to block the OTC from operating and recruiting on campus. This. Is. Wrong. 

YBF exists to directly combat this kind of left wing issue politics. The military are a proud and vital part of our country, and at a time when the are overstretched and poorly treat by the Government, they need all the support they can get back home. Students’ Unions that are trying to pass these motions should be ashamed of themselves. 

YOU can help. If your university is trying to pass such motions, or if you know of campuses where this is going on, contact YBF immediately. Email Christian (christian@ybf.org.uk) and YBF can swing into action with its unique combination of resources, supporters and campaign experience. Don’t let them get away with it.

Can TB have a wristband please?

Exclusive: Regional Coordinators

The CF press release after the last meeting confirmed that Regional Coordinators would be in place by 1st December. No reference to how they were being selected or how to apply for the position was included, or subsequently explained. Except to a certain chosen few it seems.

Tory Bear got wind yesterday or rumours that James Morton had already been asked by Michael Rock to take up the appointed position. There will be no contest for the coordinators other than a check with CCHQ. Other candidates have been approached for positions around the country but at this time the South West region is the only one that can be confirmed. TB has ears everywhere so perhaps discussing his promotion in the pub wasn't the wisest idea...

TB's sources in the executive of Conservative Future adamantly state that they have not been consulted on the appointments, and as the next NME meeting is in January it seems they will not be able to veto any appointments put to them. As far as TB can tell the Chairman and Deputy Chairman and communications officer have drawn up the list and it will be put to the rest of the NME after the candidates have been selected and approached, making sure any opposition to the appointments from the NME would come too late.

The CF constitution clearly states it is an NME wide decision:

8.1 The NME shall in each Region appoint a CF Regional Coordinator responsible for:-

coordinating CF campaigning and political activities which cross Area boundaries;

assisting CF Area Chairmen in the organisation of activities which cross Area

boundaries

Stretching that pretty thin if it is indeed just a final nod the NME members will have.

As for the appointment of James Morton to the position, well TB was at school with him so knows him to no doubt be a good egg. Currently the Area Chairman of Devon and Cornwall it is a sensible decision for him to take over as RC in the interim. He caught up with James a couple of minutes ago but as he was on a tractor he couldn't really talk.

As for the rest of the country it seems Area Chairman have specifically not be consulted about who they would like to see appointed to their area and the decisions are coming very specifically from the top.

The RC's are due to be in place in 10 days... If you know anything about who it will be in your area do email in.