Many thanks to my dear pal Paul Walter for drawing my attention to this via Twitter. OK, I admit it, my iphone has changed my life! I am discovering a cornucopia of "things you always wanted to know but never dare ask" - following not only my favourite Lib Dems, but the likes of "I am trying really hard not to morph into a Lib Dem" Kevin Maguire, "if you think you're hard enuf" Charlie Whelan, "honest guv" Andrew Rawnsley "I used to be Linda Jack's fave MYP" Richard Angell and "one day I'll get a life" Chris Paul. Actually Chris.....just teasing......you are doin good, for anyone not following him - he will do your donkey work for you - well worth following even if he does your head in with his anti Lib Dem rhetoric from time to time :-)
So. Burbler extraordinaire lead me to this unbelievable piece of Tory reeeeealpolitik on Conservative home. If anything ever exposed their shallow, value free, excuse for a serious response to the very real problems this nation faces......this is it. Seriously - we need to get this on our billboards toot sweet!
A little analysis - when you plaster this all over your flagship website.............er...........Mr Mannering - get over here fast!
(1) Don’t panic! The Tories are still 7% ahead in the ConHome Poll of Polls. We’re almost certainly further ahead – where it counts - in the marginals
Ok......."almost certainly" code for - we really don't know. The totally hilarious assertion in this bit is "all the right policies are in place" - er right............would the Tories know a policy if it jumped up and bit them on the bottom? Have a look at their website and play spot the policy - or more exciting - spot the policy that will still be the policy int morning...
(2) Clarify the economic message. In the vote of Tory members I tested four descriptions of the party’s economic message. The official description, supplied to me by George Osborne's office, came bottom in the voting.
Yes, Mr O, he who fades into insignificance against Mr C.........even your loyalist supporters despair that the media rates our Mr C higher than you :-(
3) Raise the dangers of a hung parliament..............er, flippin 'eck, don't let the Lib Dems get a sniff of power, people might realise they really are the "real alternative"!
(4) Deploy the party's very sensible immigration policies. We may have overplayed it at the 2005 General Election but we are in danger of underplaying it this time. Now here they refer to the "sensible" policies of Chris Grayling - linking to this - One of the other crucial ingredients in the Tory commitment to end Labour's uncontrolled immigration policy is the introduction of a cap on the inflow from outside the EU. It may be impossible to set the cap exactly because the party has rightly promised to consult with business and the key public services on their needs for specialist and seasonal workers. We could, however, announce an overall target for net immigration. A commitment, for example, to limit net immigration to an average of 50,000 per year - within an annual flexible rage of 30,000 to 70,000 would be indicative to voters while allowing employers flexibility to influence the inflow of economic migrants.
The announcement should be made soon - to avoid being made in the heat of an election campaign - and ideally after a couple of good opinion polls. The worst time would be after a bad opinion poll and the announcement would then risk being presented as a panic measure. - You couldn't make it up!
5) Stop announcing new policies (unless we have a pledge as potent as the 2007 inheritance tax policy up our sleeves!) and focus on the best ones we already have. The Tories have loads of policies but we can’t go into a campaign with two hundred bullet points. We need to highlight just a few key pledges. Doesn't this just say it all?! The "potent 2007 inheritance tax policy" - yeah right - let's take care of the rich and the poor will take care of themselves a reverse of the take care of the pennies mantra if ever I heard it. And loads of policies................where, please, are they hiding? Certainly not on the Tory website,
.
(6) Hague is a golden asset. No Comment.
(7) Remind voters on a daily basis of Labour's failures. Yep
(8) Put someone in 100% charge of campaign co-ordination. I’m hearing lots of stories of too many chiefs in the Tory campaign (all able) but no overall chief. We don’t (alas) have Lynton Crosby co-ordinating this campaign but we need someone in absolute charge and able to give the campaign 100% attention. Who is that? George Bridges? The question needs answering and kinda now. WOT?!
(9) Cameron can show that he's stronger than Brown by being the election's straight-talker.
Straight talker...............are you havin a laugh??????
(10) This election is a choice between decline and recovery. Well, not entirely sure about this, but if this is the case, it would be really interesting to stack up the Os-spawn solution with the Capable solution.........
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