'In comes Brown... income taxes' is the message on conservatives.com this morning and the graphic on the right (click it to enlarge it) is an encouragement to donate to the Conservative Party. Click here if you want to give.
Another way you can help is to join the new Campaign Together email list. I signed up yesterday.
Blair to Brown: purer than pure to dourer than dour.
Posted by: Simon Denis | June 29, 2007 at 09:58
What hypocrisy - the tories campaigning against tax increases, yet viciously attacking any idea of tax cuts.
We can't believe a word either Brown, Cameron or his Boy George say on tax!
Posted by: Hypocrite-finder general | June 29, 2007 at 10:16
Absolutely right. Gordo can just say 'I'm putting stability before tax cuts' and how do they reply ? I'm afraid my glossy and expensive begging letter went straight in the bin.
Posted by: johnC | June 29, 2007 at 10:38
This direct mail effort will fail. Whoever is responsible has not read enough about the basic principles of direct mail fundraising appeals.
One huge lesson learnt by US groups over twenty years is that the letter should be long (two pages at least), and the whole mailing should not look too professional or too glossy.
You can't expect people to respond to an expensive looking piece of direct mail asking for money when the mailing looks like it cost a lot of money (i.e. the group clearly doesn't need your £10 donation).
Organisations who want a successful return rate (of around 2-6%), have to "fake" an amateurish look on cheap paper (and not using expensive, branded window envelopes) that suggests you really need their money. This was nothing of the sort. Most smaller groups can't afford to get this sort of investment wrong.
Memo to CCHQ: do your homework guys - this was a poor effort.
Posted by: ThatcherBoy | June 29, 2007 at 10:39
I met the Treasurer of the party who told me to "get with the programme". You know, the programme where Cameron throws out all beliefs and is rewarded with 36% in the polls against a man who looks like Shrek.
Needless to say I have never given a penny again and donate lots of money instead to more worthy causes. With a muppet like that running the finances they'll need more than a glossy 500 word ad!
Posted by: Sack Cameron | June 29, 2007 at 11:01
Oh dear, you ARE fools. It is EASY to campaign against further tax rises. All you have to say is that enough has been taken, reforms must be enacted and labour has spent the money badly. Moreover, people are prepared to listen. A colleague of mine, trendy, fashionable, culturally left, asked me some weeks ago whether Brown would raise taxes. I suggested that he would. "Right," she replied, "I'm voting Tory." We'd lose the crucial million like her if we advance on Downing Street with the knives out.
Simply holding tax down neatly avoids all those tedious questions about who you would sack and what you would cut. Doubtless there are many persons and processes that might profitably be eased from the public pay roll but the electorate doesn't go in for Thatherite blood letting - not unless it has been seriously frightened and upset by the left. Blair's cleverness has been to ensure that this has not happened. Please, please, please try to think about the simple, practical politics of getting elected. And no, this is not lacking in principle. Even the Salisbury Review has carried articles suggesting that the lightest blue conservatism is surely preferable to any shade of pink or red. Or do you really want people to suffer and lose enough to vote in anger for abrupt and painful measures? If so, then I suggest that there are a number of fringe parties which will cater for your recherche tastes.
This, by the way, is not a volte face on my part. It was the betrayal of grammars which annoyed me and the absence of comment on migration. In the course of my initial angry outbursts, I may have suggested cutting taxes but it was simply blustering rhetoric. The rest of us who are conservative should admit this, square our shoulders and lend our strength to a man who at least refuses to tax us more. The alternative I have outlined and only the blind could say it is pretty.
Posted by: Simon Denis | June 29, 2007 at 11:30
Cameron will tax us more - the inevitable consequence of sharing the proceeds of growth. You can't.
Also more clearly on every flight I make as well!
Posted by: Sack Cameron | June 29, 2007 at 12:02
Myself and my friend thought it was hilariously ironic that the envelope was themed to How Much More Money Will Brown Take, and then the letter was another request for money!
Posted by: Nicholas Slide | June 29, 2007 at 12:04
Nicholas - "Myself and my friend thought"
You mean - "My friend and I"
I take it you didn't attend a grammar school?
Posted by: Nigel | June 29, 2007 at 12:13
Given his silly "Stop the NHS cuts campaign, and general pro tax stance, surely Cameron's appeal should be titled "Donate now AND pay later"?
Posted by: reality check | June 29, 2007 at 12:20
I agree with "hypocrite-finder general". How CCHQ had the brass neck to send out such a mailing is beyond me. It was full of sanctimonious and hypocritical crap. My reaction was the same as John C's. It went straight in the bin.
Posted by: Reality check | June 29, 2007 at 12:23
Nigel - "My friend and I"
Wot, Nigel, woz you there 2?
Posted by: Nicholas Slide | June 29, 2007 at 14:46
Gosh, I'd forgotten how many Lib-Lab trolls there are on ConHome.
For the record I responded to this mail shot with £20, so did my partner.
Posted by: GA | June 29, 2007 at 22:29