Gazette

Roger Helmer launches his new book at "the headquarters of the occupying power"

By Jonathan Isaby
^{Follow Jonathan on Twitter}

Tuesday morning saw an august gathering inside the European Commission's recently-purchased London headquarters at 32 Smith Square - my first venture inside the former Conservative Central Office since its new proprietors took over.

The event - held inside the building's Churchill Room - was the launch of Roger Helmer MEP's new book, Sceptic at Large and it attracted a good crowd, including MPs Chris Heaton-Harris, Christopher Chope, Robert Goodwill and Heather Wheeler, along with UKIP leader, Nigel Farage MEP.

Roger - who apologised for holding the launch in what he called the "headquarters of the occupying power" - delivered a tour de force covering some of the topics he covers in the book, in particular his scepticism about the European Union and climate change.

The book covers his last few years in the European Parliament, and illustrates his battle against creeping European integration and struggle to warn the British people that their freedom and democracy are rapidly being eroded by Brussels.

Sceptic at Large is published by Bretwalda Books and is available to buy for £9.99 via Amazon.

David Cameron meets Conservative Future branch chairmen to thank them for their recent campaigning efforts

By Jonathan Isaby
^{Follow Jonathan on Twitter}

On Tuesday night, 150 branch, area and regional Conservative Future chairmen gathered at a central London hotel for a special reception with David Cameron as guest of honour.

The Prime Minister took the opportunity to thank CF members for their help during the recent local election and AV campaigns, telling his audience:

"I think it is great time to be a Conservative, it is a great time to be in CF. We are going to have some huge battles coming up in the next few years but when I look back over the last year, we haven’t just dealt with the deficit, started to reform our public services, formed a coalition, made difficult decisions, we have also managed to increase the number of Conservative councillors that we have and we have also managed, with your help, to win that fantastic referendum on AV.”

Other speakers included Conservative Party co-Chairman, Lord Feldman of Elstree; Conservative Party Vice-Chairman, Andrew Stephenson MP; and Tim Collins, the Managing Director of Bell Pottinger Public Affairs, who sponsored the event.

Afterwards, Ben Howlett, the CF National Chairman, told ConservativeHome:

“Conservative Future has grown from strength to strength over the last six months, we have more branches created per week than at any time in our history, we have increased memberships, helped secure victory for the No to AV Campaign and for more councillors up and down the country then we believed we would. It is no coincidence that Parliamentary candidates in the 2010 General Election won where they had a local Conservative Future Branch to help out."

Below David Cameron is pictured with the Conservative Future National Executive along with the President of CF Scotland.

Photos courtesy of Andrew Parsons

Theresa May helps Women2Win marks its fifth anniversary

By Jonathan Isaby
^{Follow Jonathan on Twitter}

Wednesday night saw a reception at the Mint Hotel in Westminster to mark the fifth anniversary of Women2Win, the organisation founded by Anne (now Baroness) Jenkin, Brooks Newmark MP and others in 2006 to encourage more women to stand as Conservative parliamentary candidates and enter the House of Commons.

Home Secretary and W2W President, Theresa May, gave a short address at the event in which she paid tribute in particular to Anne Jenkin for her efforts towards ensuring the increase in female representation on the Tory benches in the Commons from 17 to 49 after last year's general election.

She said that a greater diversity of representation in Parliament means a better quality of decisions being made, and observed that the women of the 2010 intake were a "feisty bunch" who were "making their voices heard".  

Mrs May was quick to emphasise that W2W was in no way about "squeezing second raters" into the House of Commons but about identifying and then supporting women with something to contribute to public life.

"We made a big step last year, but there is more to do and we need to carry on the process of ensuring greater diversity in the House of Commons," she concluded.

Cameron pokes fun at Boris and Ken (Clarke) at Tory summer party

By Tim Montgomerie
Follow Tim on Twitter.

Earlier this week the Conservative Party held its summer party at London's Natural History Museum.

The Daily Mail has pictures of Samantha Cameron arriving at the event and looking enchanting. It also has phoptographs of Boris arriving on his bike... and not looking quite so enchanting.

The Telegraph reports two jokes made by David Cameron at the event... at the expense of Boris and his Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke:

• “I was getting worried I hadn’t seen Boris... I kept asking, 'Has any one seen Boris?’ But then I learnt he had popped off to the museum’s Sexual Nature exhibition. Now, that’s no surprise, is it?”
• Looking at Ken Clarke: “It says something about how far we have come as a party that we can hold our summer event among all these dinosaurs in this museum and not give a toss what the press say, eh?”

Boom! Boom!

George Osborne hosts charity reception at Number 11 with footballer Phil Neville

By Matthew Barrett
^{Follow Matthew on Twitter}

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne hosted an event to raise money for the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, at 11 Downing Street yesterday. He was joined by the Everton and former Manchester United football player, Phil Neville, who was accompanied by his wife and children. 

Click on the images below to enlarge. 

Conservative MPs dominate victorious House of Commons Tug of War team

By Jonathan Isaby
^{Follow Jonathan on Twitter}

Last night saw the annual Lords v Commons Tug of War competition held in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support.

The Commons team, which beat the Lords in two straight pulls, was a Labour-free zone, made up of seven Conservative MPs and one Liberal Democrat. Acting as cheerleaders were fellow MPs Adam Holloway and Defence MInister Gerald Howarth, who was wearing black tie for the occasion.

The defeated Lords team, meanwhile, included Tory peers Lords Dobbs and Faulks.

Below is the victorious team: Jack Lopresti, John Hemming, Matthew Hancock, Daniel Poulter, Philip Lee, Tobias Ellwood, Andy Stephenson and Alec Shelbrooke.

Invitation to foreign policy event with Liam Fox, Andrew Mitchell and expert Q&A panel

A CONSERVATIVEHOME CONFERENCE

THE COALITION'S FOREIGN POLICY

A three hour overview of the Government's foreign, security and development policies

Monday 6th June, 11am to 2pm, Westminster

TWO KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Dr Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence

followed by

Andrew Mitchell, Secretary of State for International Development

EXPERT QUESTION AND ANSWER PANEL

With:

John Baron MP, Member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee

Justin Forsyth, Chief Executive of Save The Children

Bernard Jenkin MP, Former Shadow Defence Secretary

David Rennie, Political Editor of The Economist and former Brussels and Beijing correspondent

***

To reserve a place please email [email protected]

ConHome's Graeme Archer has won the Orwell Prize for blogging

By Matthew Barrett

Huge, huge, huge congratulations to Graeme Archer, who has won the 2011 Orwell Prize for blogging for his writing on ConservativeHome.

Graeme beat a very strong short-list:

• Cath Elliott of Too Much To Say For Myself
• Daniel Hannan MEP
• Duncan McLaren of Visiting Mabel
• Heresiarch of Heresy Corner
• Molly Bennett of Mid-Wife Crisis
• BBC Newsnight's Paul Mason

I'm sure all readers will join me in congratulating Graeme for this hugely deserved award!

8.30am on 18th May | Tim Montgomerie writes:

Over the years of editing ConservativeHome I'm proud of many things we have done. I'm proud we've given members a voice and a place to come together. I think of ConHome as the party conference that never stops. I'm proud of our campaigning for members' rights in the leadership election and other internal party selections. I'm proud of the way we've argued for a broader and more compassionate conservatism. I'm particularly proud that we've been able to encourage new talent. Putting former Deputy Editor Sam Coates on the map, for example, and now, in Matthew Barrett I think we've found another star of the future. It's also been a great privilege to give a platform to writers who otherwise might never have found an audience for their insight and eloquence. Graeme Archer has contributed many dazzling pieces over the years to ConservativeHome. He has made me laugh out loud. His writings have changed my mind about things. His writings have always been characterised by compassion. He has a great gift for relating his own experience of life with his political worldview. Thank you Graeme for all you've contributed to ConHome. You and writers like Andrew Lilico and Peter Cuthbertson have made this site what it is. I am delighted that your brilliance has been recognised.

And this is how it began, in May 2008...

"There is a beautifully camp scene in an old 1960s episode of Doctor Who, where Patrick Troughton, locked in a cave full of cybermen, is confronted with the treachery of two human logicians, who have deliberately sabotaged their comrades' spaceship in order to give them time to build an alliance with the ice-cold creatures of steel. Why on earth do you believe the cybermen will form an alliance with you? asks the Doctor, in bemused horror. Because we're logicians, and because such an alliance makes sense, they reply: everything yields to logic, doc-torrrr.

I was quite powerfully moved by that scene as a child, and it probably had more to do with my ultimate choice of career as a statistician as anything else. Secretly, shamefully, I rather empathised with the logical humans. It's taken many years of therapy (aka "life") for me to discover that love is somewhat more important than critical thinking. However, I do retain a sincere belief that evidence, measured numerically, can tell us something real about the hidden motivations of politicians. Please don't quote Disraeli at me: even he wasn't right about everything." [MORE...]

MPs mark St George's Day as they renew calls for it to be a bank holiday

By Jonathan Isaby

With the House of Commons only returning from its Easter recess today, MPs of all parties gathered in Parliament at lunchtime for a slightly belated celebration of St George's Day.

Romford Tory MP Andrew Rosindell (above, left) organised the event, at which he expressed delight at how St George's Day is increasingly being celebrated with the same gusto in England as other patron saints' days are across the rest of the UK.

He also gave the floor to Nadhim Zahawi (above, right), his colleague from Stratford-upon-Avon, who is now championing a Private Member's Bill - the St George's Day and St David's Day Bill - which would designate those days as a bank holiday in England and Wales respectively.

Apart from Rosindell and Zahawi, the Bill's introduction is initially being backed by other Tory MPs Claire Perry, Nick Boles, Brandon Lewis, Sajid Javid, Robert Buckland, Brian Binley and Robert Halfon, along with Keith Vaz (Labour), Simon Hughes (Lib Dem) and Jonathan Edwards (Plaid Cymru).

Below is the cake which was enjoyed by all at today's lunchtime reception.

The UK Liberty League - a new network of young libertarians - was launched at last weekend's Freedom Forum

Christiana Hambro, Development Manager for The Freedom Association, reports on last weekend's Freedom Forum in Birmingham.

Last weekend saw the official launch of the UK Liberty League, and with it a cohesive and coordinated young libertarian movement.

It was an overwhelming success. One hundred young freedom lovers and twenty speakers converged on Birmingham for three days of lectures, panels and workshops. The aim of the conference was to provide young, interested minds with new ideas, as well as to develop their skills, so as to be better able to spread their enthusiasm for liberty.

The idea behind the Freedom Forum came about nine months ago when Dr Stephen Davies at the IEA and I separately recognised that much more could be done to promote freedom amongst young people. Throughout the economic crisis, for obvious reasons, the arguments for less government spending and lower taxes have not gone down all that well. Luckily for the left, promises of endless spending and cash handouts sound great to most people on the street! That is, of course, until the country is nearly crushed under a mounting pile of debt.