The ThunderDragon

Via the excellent, amusing, and ever-entertaining Tory Bear, I’ve come across what CF seems to regard as social action:

As part of the National Social Action day in Richmond, kindly being hosted by the Richmond Borough Conservatives, one of the many projects you can visit on the 20th is the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust in Barnes. On arrival you will be treated to a free guided tour of the centre, including a talk about the work and wildlife within the area, and then taken to an area of marshland where we will be helping to carry out essential conservation work to protect the land and the birds and wildlife which inhabit the area.

So if you fancy meeting some endangered ducks and getting to grips with some conservation work at the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust in Barnes - you know where we are.

Yes, this really is social action. Not.

If Conservative Future wishes to do social action, it should actually do social action, not a bit of stuff to ‘help the environment’. Social action doesn’t have to be hard or individual. There are more than enough charities and other organisations out there that do social action and just need more volunteers to help them.

CF should set up relationships with charities which provide these sort of services to those who need them - both national and local. And Conservatives of all ages should make an effort to get involved as well, wherever and whenever they can.

If we don’t, how can we possibly make any claims to be the party of society? We should do, not just say.

[FYI: At the time this post is published, I will be out doing my bit for society, as a Scout Leader.]

According to Tory Bear [the Guido Fawkes of Conservative Future]:

[The CF Steering Committee] have discussed in depth the prospect of removing the entire elections process from CF. Elections are apparently a) messy and dirty, b) cost too much - the ERS charge a hell of a lot and of the thousands of ballot papers sent out, only a fraction of them are returned and c) at the end of the day the big people’s Party don’t get the candidate they want.

TB has now heard this from two trusted and well wired sources.

If that has even the slightest inkling of truth, it is utterly reprehensible. What is the point of having a separate “youth” organisation within the party if its leaders are not to be chosen by its members?

The country is a democracy and the party is a democracy [well, pretty much] so why shouldn’t CF be one as well? Especially since it is already democratic, to remove the democratic element would be a huge step backwards - and rightly garner negative publicity.

Whilst all of their points are relatively valid, (a) and (c) can’t be helped and are an inevitable outcome of elections. They are unavoidable, and this argument is an argument against all democracy. However, (b) can be minimised at least - move the CF elections online and/or extend the term. Then not only is it saving money, but making the party look “innovative” and “forward moving” and other such phrases.

Very simply, removing the elections from CF would make it into a laughing stock, and be a travesty for a party that claims to support democracy.

Everyone has heard of “Bushisms“, the often stupid remarks made by George W Bush - such gems as “It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it” - but, until now, Brownisms have been missed. What is a Brownism?

Definition of Brownism: (braun’i(z’?m)

1. (verb) The subtle art of combining of words into sentences that are meant to deliberately mislead or confuse the general public.

Origins: A term coined to categorize all of Prime Minister Brown’s eccentric speech.

Example: A sample Brownism: “This will be a government of no spin.”

Notes: See also: Spin doctor; Machiavellian; dishonest.

And below, courtesy of Hertfordshire CF, is a list of the 20 best Brownisms:

20. “I will not allow house prices to get out of control and put at risk the sustainability of the future… the UK should not return to the instability, speculation and negative equity of the 1980s and 1990s” Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, November 1997

- Strangely enough, the UK housing market now faces years of instability and negative equity after the former Chancellor allowed rampant speculation to cause house prices to spiral out of control for 10 yrs.

19. “I am happy for there to be a leadership contest. I think there should be.” Gordon Brown, Interview with BBC’s Sunday AM, 10th Sept 2006.

- As everyone knows there was of course no leadership contest. The Prime Minister should be careful what he wishes for though, as he may well get his leadership contest over the next few months.

18. “I did maths for a year at university. I don’t think I was very good at it. And some people would say it shows.” Gordon Brown, April 2007

- It certainly does Prime Minister. A surprisingly candid admission from a man who lost $9 billion on his gold sales and then ran our economy for ten years, leaving just before the banking and housing sectors collapsed.

17. “The failure to support the reform treaty will leave the Czechoslovakian people isolated in Europe.” Gordon Brown, March 2008

- Looks like Geography wasn’t Gordon Brown’s strong point either. Our Prime Minister states his fears in Parliament for Czechoslovakia, a country that ceased to exist 15 years ago.

16. “There is nothing that you could say to me now that I could ever believe.” Gordon Brown to Tony Blair in October 2004, after British Prime Minister appeared to renege on a guarantee not to fight a third term of government.

- Prime Minister, trusts us we know how you feel. That’s how we feel about you both.

15. “The Arctic Monkeys really wake you up in the morning.” Gordon Brown on the Sheffield band, quoted in 2006 summer issue of New Woman magazine.

- Our Prime Minister’s reply when asked about his favourite music band. He was then embarrassingly unable to name a single track from their debut album beyond insisting that ‘they are very loud’.

Continue reading ‘Brownismsrgb’

The Conservative Future national elections are over, and the results are known.

Chairman
Michael David Rock

National Management Executive
Beaumont-Bott, Anastasia
Douglas, Adele
May, Christian
Meredith, Owen
Ricketts, Cllr Steve
Sullivan, Patrick

Congratulations to everyone who has been elected and good luck with running CF over the next year, and commiserations to those who weren’t elected.

But was it really the monkey wot won it?

Mike Rouse, who is carrying out polling on the Conservative Future elections [which you can sign up to take part in here], has the results of the first poll, held just prior to the Bristol hustings which are taking place tonight.

And the results for Chairman support is surprisingly one-sided, with one candidate in particular getting a huge level of support. However, whether this is a genuine reflection of his support or not remains to be seen - and it will be interesting to see how the poll results change in the run up to the election.

The level of support for National Chairman is as follows:

• Richardson, Matthew = 18.9%
• Rock, Michael = 73.0%
• Williams, Daryl = 8.1%

The rest of the results can be seen at Mike’s blog and here.

How much will these results effect the candidates, if at all? Maybe there will be some feedback after the Bristol hustings tonight, and maybe some change in the next poll result, which you can sign up to take part in here.

Since so many - like me - are unable to attend the Bristol hustings, maybe someone [like Mike?] Will live-blog the event or provide a summary of what has been said afterwards.

UPDATE: Mike also has an open yet anonymous poll which anyone can fill out without needing to register for the rest of the polling here.

UPDATE 2: Via John Moorcraft, there is a review of the hustings at CF Diary and photos at Nick Webb’s blog. No mention of Mike’s poll, though…

Are you a member of Conservative Future and interested in taking part in some polling during the run up to the election? If so, sign up with Mike Rouse.

Go, fill in the form, and participate in the first reliable Conservative Future polling!

Five days ago I blogged about something that was supposed to happen well, yesterday. But it appears that it simply hasn’t. CF Diary has nothing. The YouTube account has no new videos… so what happened? It’s not like this was just a YouTube video - it has been appearing everyone on MessageSpace ads too [which have an annoying habit of playing sounds without being asked to], so it must have been paid for.

Which means that there are two alternatives:

1. Nothing happened, or
2. No-one noticed.

Neither of which are really very good adverts for the individual(s) involved.

If, as seems extremely likely considering the video, this was supposed to be a launch of a CF election bid, so far they have proven that they don’t deserve my vote. Which, for Chairman, is currently going to Michael David Rock [it helps that I have met him], who has a kind of pseudo-blog, which I would strongly suggest that he upgrades to proper blog.

UPDATE: It seems it did happen, but no-one really noticed [via Mike Rouse]. They didn’t take the opportunity to update their YouTube account, and CF Diary still hasn’t got it up…

… until something happens.

Exactly what I have no idea, but presumably something to do with a CF candidate announcement. I wonder whether it will live up to the hype?

Note for whoever made the video: Do a new one for every day between now and Saturday, to build the suspense… Go on… [If you do, email me...]

via Caroline Hunt and CF Diary

Today I have been leafleting in Watford - my first time! I was leafleting to help the fantastic [and hilarious] Conservative PPC Ian Oakley take the seat away from the failing and useless Claire Ward.

It was great fun campaigning with other people, mostly Conservative Future members including a candidate for CF chairman, and will hopefully go some way towards getting more Conservative votes in Watford - and with less than two thousand votes between all three parties at the last parliamentary election [no matter what the Fib Dems claim], every vote counts!

One thing that that needs to be done is for the Watford Conservative website to get back online.

University campuses are often regarded as breeding grounds of the Left. But, really, they’re not all that much so any more. Certainly in my experience at Essex, once a hot-bed a Lefty radicalism, the lecturers were far more so than the students. But I don’t think that these new posters [via Shane Greer], produced by the Young Britons’ Foundation really work very well.

They don’t really mean anything, or say anything. I think they are underestimating and over-sexualising students by proposing such posters.

Shane thinks that they are “just the ticket for university conservative groups across the UK” because they are “fun, edgy, and… exciting”. I think they’re just pretty sad, really. They don’t seem “edgy” at all, but a retreat to mere sexualisation.

No-one is going to be persuaded to join the Conservative Party by pictures of topless men or girls looking deeply into the camera. They might be by posters which actually represent what the Conservatives mean. The Boris posters that were given out last year by Conservative Future societies at Freshers Fairs last year are far superior to this offering. At least they were actually somehow connected to the party itself, and not just a transparent attempt to be mildly pornographic.

Life’s better under a Conservative - but these posters aren’t the best way to make it happen.