ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

This year's best April Fool

It was from PR Week:

"A lobbying consultancy has signed up Tory grandee Norman Tebbit in a bid to forge stronger links with David Cameron's Conservatives. Zeitgeist Public Affairs has appointed the former Tory cabinet minister as a non-executive director...

Tory insiders said Tebbit had been hired for his ability to ‘press the flesh’ and build bridges, thanks to diplomatic skills developed over decades in the party...

Former Hill & Knowlton consultant Prail set up Zeitgeist in 1989 with Anthony Lofo, a one-time aide to the disgraced Tory peer Jeffery Archer... It is understood that Prail and Lofo begun talks with Tebbit after meeting at Annabel’s, the exclusive nightclub in Berkeley Square, which is said to be a favourite haunt of Tebbit’s. The two lobbyists were introduced by former Labour cabinet minister David Blunkett - a close personal friend of Tebbit."

Funny insidery stuff from David Singleton.

Does The Telegraph have an infiltrator?

Look at the caption below the photo...

The link (until it's corrected).

"Oh boy, you know what conservatism is. Do I have to describe it? A belief in the old ways of doing things and all that sort of jazz."

A classic Boris soundbite from an interview for the Wall Street Journal.

PS We hope you didn't miss Boris' New Year message.

Gaffe of 2008

Our final 'picks' of the year. Over the last 48 hours we have picked our Backbenchers, Frontbenchers, Moments and Speeches of 2008 and Ones to Watch in 2009.

Jonathan Isaby's pick: I am making my award not for one particular gaffe, but rather am presenting it to 2008's gaffemaker-in-chief, Nick Clegg, who has managed to put his foot in it on three memorable occasions during the year. First there was that GQ interview with Piers Morgan, in which the Lib Dem leader admitted to having slept with "no more than thirty" women. This earned him the tabloid nickname Nick Cleggover and has made him open to mockery in the Commons ever since. Then there was the moment when he appeared on a television phone-in programme during his party conference and was asked the level of the weekly state pension. "I think it's about thirty quid now, isn't it?" he said - only to be told it was actually more than three times that amount. And most recently he was daft enough to spend an entire 90-minute plane journey from Gatwick to Inverness discussing the shortcomings of his frontbench team with his chief of staff, Danny Alexander - in full earshot of a Mirror journalist. The hack took copious notes and helpfully shared all Clegg's opinions with the paper's readers, leaving Clegg to spend an uncomfortable day on the phone apologising to his colleagues.

Tim Montgomerie's pick: It has to be Brown's 'we not only saved the world' gaffe at PMQs. CrownBlog had it up on YouTube within minutes. It was funny, of course, but it also pointed to the fact that Brown seemed to be the only person in Britain (excepting debt collectors) who was enjoying the worst recession in the developed world - a point made musically by this ConHome video. During 2009 we'll learn that Red Gordon couldn't even save Britain, let alone the world.

Edward Leigh MP as you've never seen him before

We thought you might like these images of Edward Leigh MP at the Christmas Day swim at The Serpentine. Respect!

Conservative MPs' Christmas reading list

There was much excitement over the summer about the reading list which Conservative MP Keith Simpson circulated from which he hoped colleagues would select their holiday reading.

So you may be interested to see the below, his Christmas reading list for Conservative MPs.

He emphasises that it is merely a "list of suggestions and there is no three line whip of compulsory reading with a Q and A exam when we return in January".

• Angus Hawkins - The Forgotten Prime Minister: The 14th Earl of Derby, Achievement, 1851-1869 (Oxford University Press, £30.00)
• David Torrance - George Younger: A Life Well Lived (Berlin £30.00)
• Sir David Mitchell - From House to House: The Endless Adventure of Politics and Wine (The Memoir Club £18.00)
• Bernard Donoughue - Downing Street Diary, Vol II (Jonathan Cape £30.00)
• David Marquand - Britain Since 1918: The Strange Career of British Democracy (Weidenfield and Nicholson £25.00)
• Giles Radice - The Tortoise and the Hares: Attlee, Bevin, Cripps, Dalton, Morrison (Politico’s Publishing Ltd £25.00)
• Chris Moncrieff - Wine, Women and Westminster: Behind the Scenes – Stories of MPs at Play over 50 years (J R Books £14.99)
• Matthew Parris and Prue Mason - Mission Accomplished!: Things Politicians Wish They Hadn’t Said (J R Books £8.99)
• Chris Patten - What Next? Surviving the Twenty-First Century (Allen Lane £25.00)
• Hugo Young - The Hugo Young Papers: Thirty Years of British Politics – Off the Record (Allen Lane £30.00)
• Niall Ferguson - The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (Allen Lane £25.00)
• David Loyn - Butcher and Bolt: Two Hundred years of Foreign Engagement in Afghanistan (Hutchinson £18.99)
• Hew Pike - From the Front Line: Family Letters and Diaries 1900 to the Falklands and Afghanistan (Pen and Sword £19.99)
• Conor Foley - The Thin Blue Line: How Humanitarianism Went to War (Verso books £14.99)   
• Richard Dowden - Africa Altered: States, Ordinary Miracles (Portobello Books, £25.00)
• Doris Kearns Goodwin - Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Simon and Schuster £11.00)
• Simon Schama - The American Future: A History (The Bodley Head £20.00)
• Robert Reich - Supercapitalism: The Battle for Democracy in an Age of Big Business (Icon Books £12.99)
• Alice Schroeder - The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (Bloomsbury £25.00)
• Bob Woodward - The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006 – 2008 (Simon Schuster £18.99) (This book complements his three previous works, Bush at War (2002), Plan of Attack (2004) and State of Denial (2006)).
• Bartin Gellman - Angler: The Shadow President of Dick Cheney (Allen Lane £25.00)
• James Harding - Alpha Dogs: How Spin Became a Global Business (Atlantic Books £22.00)
• Anthony J Badger - FDR: The First Hundred Days (Hill and Wang £16.99)
• Milton Friedman and Anne Jacobson Schwartz - The Great Contraction 1929 – 1933 (Princeton University Press, £11.00)
• Anthony Trollope - The Way We Live Now (Oxford Paperbacks, £7.99)
• Celia Haddon - The Joy of Cats (Hodder and Stoughton £9.99)

Simpson, a military historian, adds the following note at the end of the list in order that readers can decide over Christmas whether they are positionalists or manoeuvrists...

"Positional and Manoeuvre Warfare
Generally speaking positional warfare is one dimensional and about occupying ground and is mainly attritional.  Manoeuvre warfare is about operating in three dimensional space and mystifying and misleading your opponent.  Naturally, in warfare there will be times when you need to be a positionalist, not least to draw in your enemy and wear him down.  But the manoeuvrist approach is much thought of by today’s military who appreciate that our terrorist opponents certainly favour it as a method of waging war.
Naturally, you can’t draw exact parallels between military operations and politics but there are some interesting similarities, not least in balancing means and ends."



What should the online Brown shop sell?

Marking a year of Kevin Rudd our sister party in Australia have launched an online RuddShop and it has won some positive coverage.  The memorabilia that the shop promotes pokes fun at the Australian Labour PM's various faults and weaknesses.

If we had an online 'Brown Shop' what would it sell?

The modern Conservative Party caters for everyone

(In case you cannot read the leaflet inserted in the bottom left it's from the Conservative Humanist Association).

Coffee House has a photograph of David Miliband and his banana!

Boris Johnson is "pure party Viagra"

A list compiled by Tatler magazine has Boris Johnson as the most wanted party guest.  David Cameron comes in at Number 12 in Tatler's annual list of what the Daily Mail calls "the [100] most wanted Toffs in town".

Tatler’s editor Geordie Greig told The Mail: "Boris and Marina have become the most head-turning couple in Britain – and this is no longer just to do with his mad blond hairstyle. He has become a folk hero in London and beyond, and his letterbox has become almost choked with invitations."

So our question to you: Which Tory would you most like at your party and why? You could have David Willetts and his silver shoes.

Move over, Theresa

At a summer party last night, attended by David Cameron, one male member of the shadow cabinet wore these silver shoes.  Can any readers guess the identity of the proud owner?

11.30am: It was David Willetts.  Guests were invited to his home and asked to wear something bright.  The host certainly did so!  It was a great party, David.  Thanks for the invitation.

Furious MP in cow snub

Hoping to raise awareness of the bovine TB crisis Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury and Chairman of the APPG for Dairy Farmers, was hoping to bring a cow to the green outside Parliament as part of a demonstration with hundreds of farmers. The authorities blocked the idea however (download letter):

"I am furious that they are preventing me from highlighting the appalling situation of bovine TB in this country. Thousands of Dairy farmers around England are going bust as a result of this appalling disease and the government is not lifting a finger to deal with the crisis."

It is a serious issue. We've already noted one aspect of the Government's ambivalence towards rural Britain today. According to this DEFRA document almost 10000 animals were slaughtered between January and March this year on account of bovine tuberculosis. Farmers really feel that the DEFRA Minister - a vegetarian and MP for the rugged constituency of Leeds Central - understands their livelihoods.

(On CentreRight recently Alex Deane wrote in favour of culling badgers as a means of controlling bovine TB, and Graeme Archer against.)

Headcases

We've just added Headcases' portrayal of Nick Clegg to the PlayPolitical website.  Click here to watch the portrayals of Clegg, Cameron and Brown.  In summary: Cameron is mocked as aloof, Clegg as childish and
Brown as very boring.

Headcases broadcasts on Sunday at 10pm on ITV1.

Another unfortunate Whitehall logo

First Labour brought us the swastika logo and now this, designed for the Office of Government Communications:

A quick 90' clockwise rotation shows you the problem.

Hat-tip to The Register.

How Tory is your partner?

He was busy yesterday launching the new Tory ideas on school discipline but he was also writing a columnn for The Times in which he sets out a quiz that will help you decide whether your partner is too Tory, Tory enough or not at all Tory.  Here's our summary of Michael Gove's column:

Who is your favourite Today presenter?

• Simply Too Tory for words: “I never listen to anything on the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation other than when Vaughan Williams is Composer of the Week on the Third Programme"
• Just Tory Enough: “Evan Davis seems very balanced”
• Not Tory: “It's not about personalities; it's about issues, and until we move away from this presenter-led model of broadcasting to a more radically democratic way of holding power to account, we'll never get anywhere.”

Choice of holiday reading:

• Simply Too Tory for words: Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom
• Just Tory Enough: Young Stalin by Simon Sebag-Montefiore
• Not Tory: Anything actually by Josef Stalin

Ideal holiday destination:

• Simply Too Tory for words: The Wagner festival at Bayreuth
• Just Tory Enough: Cornwall
• Not Tory: “Holidays are a trick of the bourgeoisie to make the alienation of wage labour tolerable to those whose eyes have never been opened to the dream of justice - but if you're paying, it's got to be Goa, hasn't it?”

Favourite film:

• Simply Too Tory for words: "The Dam Busters - or, basically, any film in which Jerry gets it in the eye"
• Just Tory Enough: "The first Elizabeth, with Cate Blanchet"
• Not Tory: "The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Gandhi, The Patriot or Breaker Morant - or, basically, any film in which British imperialists get it in the eye."

So now you know.

They don't make 'em like they used to

To mark the 30th anniversary of the Conservative Party Archive at Oxford's Bodleian Library, the Conservative Party’s historic poster collection has been published online.

Click here to open the image-viewing browser to see over 600 digitised posters.

Lord Parkinson, Chairman of the Conservative Party Archive Trust, said:

"By placing these posters online, we hope to open up the study of Conservative history to a new generation. They show that Conservatives have always stood for freedom, for the rule of law and safeguarding our national identity. By contrast, Labour Governments throughout history have increased taxes and extended the intrusive state – Gordon Brown’s Government is no different."

Many of the posters echo current political issues...

Promoting National Socialism

Guido Fawkes has noted that on the day No.10 confirms the appointment of their new web guru, they sent out an email linking to an unfinished Downing Street online discussion forum called Promoting Prosperity, ahead of tomorrow's Progressive Governance Summit.

It's not a good day for whoever they paid a no doubt considerable sum to design the logo either....

11pm: The heavily-promoted website has now been password-protected.

1pm next day: Website finally back up with new logo. Guido rightly questioning why the taxpayer is paying for a self-described centre-left summit.

Lines for William Hague to use tomorrow against 'Harriet Stab-Proof Vest Harman'

We've already blogged on Harriet Harman's crazy decision to wear a stab-proof vest on a visit to her constituency but, with Gordon Brown away, she faces William Hague at PMQs tomorrow.  Let's feed him some lines...

And for some light relief...

Fill in the speech bubble from today's PMQs...

What politicians really mean when they say "I don't pay attention to opinion polls"

Over at Atlantic.com Dana Milbank has compiled "A Berlitz guide to Washington English".  Here are a few of her 'translations'...

I have great respect for the senior senator.
I am about to drill my elderly colleague a new one.

We have full confidence in his integrity.
We will cut him loose by nightfall.

I don’t pay attention to the polls.
My job-approval rating is 32 percent.

It’s time to stop playing politics.
The other party has a winning political issue.

As I said in my Wall Street Journal op-ed last week …
I am so important that I can quote myself.

Thank you for the very frank and candid discussion.
You just spit in my eye.

Other translations are welcome in the thread below...

Newspeak

"Political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness."

With that quotation from George Orwell, the Centre for Policy Studies introduces its 2008 guide to 'Newspeak' and "the language of bureaucracy [that] has long provided a convenient disguise for government action, or inaction."

Here are a few of the terms from the CPS' 2008 Lexicon:

Anti-social behaviour: Anything of which the government does not approve.

Bandwagon: Something a political opponent is jumping on when he is closely in tune with public opinion.

Blue skies thinking: Uncosted ideas for further government activity.

Community leader: A self-appointed or government-appointed leader of a community group.

Czar: The well-paid head of a quango appointed to demonstrate activity in dealing with a problem (not to be confused with solving a problem).

Dialogue (meaningful): The pretence of genuine two-way communication.

Guidance: Government interference.

Looked after children (referring to children in state care):  Children who are not looked after.

Multi-agency: No one's responsible.

All too true but not - in our humble opinion - quite as good as Inigo Wilson's famous Lefty Lexicon of August 2006.

Download a PDF of the CPS' Lexicon from here by clicking 'View'.

10am: The CPS' Jill Kirby writes about 'Newspeak' for today's Independent.

Brown and Bean

Earlier this week Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell spoke to a Tory gathering and suggested that there might be one or more parallels between Gordon Brown and Mr Bean...

"I have been doing some research on Mr Bean. And there are rather more parallels than you night expect.

First of all, his only friend is a Teddy Bear.   And a Teddy Bear has been the one media diversion over the last few days that has helped distract public attention from Brown’s woes.  May be he should make a bear his mascot?

Then there are the words of this reviewer: “Bean often seems unaware of basic aspects of the way the world works… [Sound familiar?]...  “The humour largely comes from his original and often absurd solutions to any problems and his total disregard for others when solving them, his pettiness and occasional malevolence.”  Now that does ring a bell.

Then there is his fondness for Latin mottos. Brown is proud of his alma mater’s Usque Conabor, which you will all know translates to not “I will cock things up” but to “I shall try to the utmost.”  But I am looking forward to the day when he adopts “Vale homo qui est faba.” You have got it: “Farewell man who is bean."

Related link: Brown as Bean posters

Mr Bean posters

Thanks to Chris Rowland (top), Chad Noble (middle) and Alan Collins (bottom) for the following three:

The Government of no talent, in limericks

After his valiant efforts on Friday's jokes post, reader John Leonard has penned a poetic tribute to Brown's Cabinet:

A dithering big ‘feartie’ called Brown,

Had a face that was always a frown,

His hands were all shaky,

His vision was flaky,

In short, a political clown.

The Home Sec’s name was Smiff,

She had an incredible tiff,

To defend Ian Blair,

Left her in despair,

And remembering that toke on a spliff.

In housing there was ‘nosey’ Cooper,

Who hired an army of snoopers,

But she’ll have her chips,

When they throw out her HIPS,

And she’ll end up a lavatory super.

Kate Moss mistakes David Cameron for a plumber

David Cameron is on Parkinson tonight - I'll open a thread once the programme starts at 10.45pm on ITV1.  The Tory leader appears alongside Lewis Hamilton, James Blunt and Ian McKellen but doesn't get a mention in the advance billing for the programme.

On the programme David Cameron talks about the time he met Kate Moss...

"I went to a charitable dinner the other night and Philip Green came up to me and said, 'Would you like to meet Kate Moss?' So I said, 'Well, of course I'd like to meet Kate Moss.' I went over to her table and on the way over I thought, what on earth am I going to say?

"And I remembered she actually has a house in my constituency and we'd had these terrible floods in West Oxfordshire and so I said, 'Very nice to meet you, very sorry about the flooding in your house. I know your local pub has been flooded, I've been to see the publican and I know you like to go to the pub and so I know it's going to re-open in six months.'

"So I went on like this, twittering on, and she turned around and said, 'God, you sound like a really useful guy, can I have your phone number?'"

Mr Cameron went on: "I went back to my table and said, 'The good news is, I met Kate Moss and she wanted my telephone number. The bad news is, I think she thinks I'm something to do with drainage.'"

Mr Cameron is also asked if his relationship with Gordon Brown resembles that of Hamilton V Alonso.  He discusses his privileged upbringing and the challenges of raising his own disabled son, Ivan.

Jokes for the weekend

Know any good political jokes? Here's an adaptation of an American one we saw on the ASI's blog:

A lobbyist on his way home from working in Parliament came to a stop in traffic and thought to himself, "Wow, this traffic jam seems worse than usual."

Then he noticed a police officer walking between the lines of stopped cars so he rolled down his window and asked, "Officer, what's the holdup?"

The officer replied, "The Prime Minister is depressed, so he stopped his motorcade and is threatening to douse himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He says no one believes his stories about why he bottled out of the election, or that he was planning his inheritance tax cut all along. So we're taking up a collection for him."

The lobbyist asked, "How much have you got so far?"

The officer replied, "About forty gallons, but a lot of people are still siphoning."

All in jest...