Tory Party Election Broadcast - Schoolboy error and a costly mistake

Whoever decided to make the last two Tory PEBs identical in style, 75% similar in content, have the same music and the same look in every way has, in my view, made a silly mistake.

As soon as the PEB started, my first thought was "I've seen this before". My wife lost interest (and she's not political in any way) and said she'd seen it too. I wonder how many other people felt that too ?

The problem is, as soon as someone thinks they've seen it before, they switch off, put the kettle on, lose interest in the finer details, and in some cases will think the Tories stupid for showing an identical PEB twice.

Now the more it went on I noticed a few subtle differences. There was some reference to a contract (they did something in Norwich North last year and I don't think it did anything to persuade people or change minds), and one new but at the end. But in essence, it seemed like the same PEB as before.

I was told on a Lib Dem campaign training day once to make sure every leaflet looks different from the previous one or else people will think they are the same leaflet they have already seen. The rule should also apply to election broadcasts.

In my opinion it was a schoolboy error, a silly mistake and a wasted opportunity by the Tories.

Three weeks later, the leaflet the Tories are still delivering in Broadland

I was staggered today to receive through my door a leaflet that the Tories were delivering when the election was first called more than three weeks ago.

This is the one and only non freepost leaflet that they have got out.

Compare this to the four leaflets we (Lib Dems) have delivered by hand in my ward and across the majority of Broadland with another leaflet having gone out in my ward over the weekend before the election was called.

I'll put the Lib Dem leaflets on my blog later.

Conservative Second Freepost - Broadland Constituency

Here is the Tories second Freepost leaflet going out in Broadland.

It does seem to use all the same photos as their first Freepost.

Nadine Dorries losing the plot ?

It appears that the Tories are starting to feel the pressure as it is reported HERE that Nadine Dorries rather "lost it" at a public meeting in her constituency when a Lib Dem councillor had the brazen nerve to walk in to the meeting to hear what she had to say.

So much for a more "open" style of politics that Dave promised.

Contradictions of the Tory Marriage Tax proposal - Explained via a short film

Yes, I am sure I could have done better, but this has taken me hours to do. Enjoy, share, pass it on to others please. It certainly highlight the unfairness of the Tories plans and the Lib Dems simple alternative.

VAT-Man and VAT-Man

More evidence of a Tory VAT increase

Even top people in the pro Tory Tax Payers Alliance (TPA) are of the opinion that a VAT rise under the Tories is inevitable.

Read more about it HERE on the ever exellent Liberal Burblings Blog.

Looks like the Tories will trample the recovery under foot with their VAT Tax Bombshell.

Tories to put VAT up

Loving these posters today.

Tory VAT Bombshell

Another poster ... detect a theme ?

With thanks to http://twitter.com/LibDemPress

Which party has been using cancer drugs as an election issue and has been caught telling fibs ? Step forward ...

Oh come on, we all know that the Tories will say just about anything to win the election. And after their attacks on Gordon Brown for misleading parliament last week you might expect the Tories would have attempted to take the moral high ground.

Sadly not.

It seems the Tories are prepared to even tell lies about cancer treatment and cancer drugs in order to win votes.

Surely trying to win votes by scaremangering ill people is a new all time low ?

Who will campaign against the Tories "Sky Tax" ?

After reading an article the other day about the Tories wanting to remove Ofcom's power to restrict and control the virtual monopoly Sky have in the pay tv sector in the UK, I wrote about the squalid deal the Tories appear to me to have done in order to get News International's support.

Now with Ofcom making recommendations on Sky and the fact that they must cut the wholesale prices of their sports content, one wonders if political parties will take the issue on and fight against the Tories plans for a "Sky tax". After all, if the Tories have their way and remove Ofcom's power to control Sky, Sky could continue to charge what they like. With estimates yesterday that a reduction in Sky's charges could save wholesale purchasers £7.00 a month, with at least £5.00 in savings for customers, that equates to a saving of £60 per year for each house who would be subscribed to Sky Sports.

So who will campaign against the Tories' "Sky Tax". After all, the Tories are campaigning against the £6 levy on phone bills to pay for high speed broadband, so a £60 charge seems somewhat hypocritical of the Tories, but it seems to be the price the consumer will have to pay for The Sun and the News of the World to back the Tories.

The sordid squalid deal that can explain the Murdoch empire's support of the Tories

Today the News of the World announced it would be backing the Tories at the next general election.

In the meantime, Ofcom are probing Sky TV and their stranglehold monopoly of the pay TV market with recommendations to force Sky to be more open to competition. You know, the same competition that "free market" thinkers, the ones the Tories claim to represent, say is the cornerstone of this country's business model.

The problem is, as the Robert Peston article makes clear, the Tories don't support Ofcom. Indeed, they may abolish Ofcom and allow Sky TV to maintain their monopoly position.

As Robert Peston writes;

This is what Mr Cameron said last July: "with a Conservative Government, Ofcom as we know it will cease to exist. Its remit will be restricted to its narrow technical and enforcement roles. It will no longer play a role in making policy."

Also, News Corporation's most-widely-read newspaper, the Sun ("wot won it"), has switched allegiance from Labour to the Tories - and is currently heaping opprobrium on the government in its pages with what reads like undisguised relish.

So it is clear to me the the Tories are buying support from the Murdoch empire in return for letting them dominate and have a monopoly position.

Of course, Cameron could prove me wrong by letting the Ofcom investigation in to Sky go ahead but what are the chances of that happening ?

Why are Tory councils paying fat cat wages to so many people ?

A few months ago it was widely reported that Tory run Suffolk County Council was offering a salary greater than that earned by the Prime Minsiter in order to recruit a new chief executive. Indeed they were offering their new chief executive £70,000 more than her predecessor !

Today, I read that Hertfordshire Council, another Tory Council, has more than double the number of top earners and increased the amount the council spends on top earners salaries from £5.5 million to £13.5 million in just four years !

The truth is, if you want a lower council tax, don't let the Tories run your lcoal council.

Double speak from Tory MEPs ?

According to THIS posting, Conservative MEPs think that it is not the role of MEPs speak out on issues in Africa.

However, THIS posting makes clear that Conservative MEPs do think it is the role of MEPs to speak out on issues in Africa.

I'm confused.

Is it because the Tories don't actually care about gay rights or am I reading too much in to this ?

P.S. And for the record, I agree 100% with Robert Sturdy. It's a shame his South West colleagues do not use their role and influence to speak out similarly against wrongs and injustices.

Tories prefer Labour to Lib Dems

Apparently there are so few differences between the Lib Dems and the Tories that the Tories are specially organising fundraising to unseat Lib Dems rather than fighting Labour.

Perhaps Conservative voters should take note that when it comes to winning seats of Labour or the Lib Dems, the Tories prefer to attack the Lib Dems.

Where were all the celebrity Tory PPCs in 1997 and 2001 ?

Isn't odd that in 1997 and 2001, all these ex Generals and sons/daughters/brothers/sisters of the glitterati, TV presenters and celebrity journalists were able to keep themselves as far from a Tory rosette as was humanly possible. But as soon as the Tories start doing well in the polls, there is suddenly a deluge of people with "names" or "medals" who trot themselves out as Tories, seemingly without ever done a days canvassing or delivering in a no hope ward in their lives.

It must be galling for many Tories who remained loyal in the lean years up to Cameron's leadership election in 2005 that they should be punished and in some cases be tarnished (and I particularly feel for Iain Dale in the case) with not having had a good result in difficult circumstances, only for a newcomer who doesn't have the nerve or the passion to fight a no hope seat waltz in waving a Tory membership card and get selected for plum seats.

The first question I would be asking of these political celebs is where were they in 1997 and 2001. Where were they in the darker days of the IDS leadership when the Tories were languishing in the polls ? Were they out campaigning for the Tories and if they weren't why not !

Wanted : One Term MP

Orpington Tories are selecting a new Tory candidate for the seat held currently by the Tories.

Anyone who knows politics will be aware that an enormous amount of Ashcroft money was spent in Orpington in recent years to keep it in the blu column and with a little bit more luck the Lib Dems might have picked the seat up in 1997 and 2001. Given the Lib Dem strength there are the fact that the Lib Dems are still within a reasonable striking range of winning in Orpington, I think the Tories are advertising for a one term MP.

A sign that the Tories don't listen

As Andrew Allison points out in his blog,

"If he had listened to the question, he would have given the appropriate answer. He didn't and he has paid the price."

To be fair, it's not just confined to the Tories, but as George Osborne also showed this morning on Radio FiveLive, irrespective of the question asked the consumate politician will answer the question they want to answer, not the one that is being asked.

In some ways I agree about Safety Cameras, but oh the hypocrisy

Having recently travelled down to London and seen the obsession some parts of the country have with installing speed cameras almost every couple of miles along some roads, I have to agree with the Tory idea that most speed cameras could be culled.

Whilst speeding is a crime, it is not a premeditated crime intended to be at the expense of someone else. I happen to think flashing signs, better road markings and the occasional risk that a police officer might be standing there with a speed gun does provide the necessary inducement to slow down.

The problem though, for the Tories is that whilst they might like to slag speed cameras off, at a local level the Tories are actually very keen to put them up and make money from them.

Take, for example, in Norfolk, where Tory run Norfolk County Council are themselves major partners in Norfolk Safety Camera Partnership. This same partnership is responsible for the recent placing of a camera on my route to work in an area which I have, in four years of travelling that route, never seen an accident or been held up at that point. Of course, with a good flow of traffic I think most people know why the camera was placed at that exact point, and I am sure it will be a money spinner for them.

The problem though that the Tories will face by abolishing camera is that they do provide a source of income for the police, the same police that will apparently have to make its share of cuts. So the prize that motorists will get as a result of having less speed cameras will be less police officers and less crime solved.

The Tories will have to learn that for every policy there is a knock on associated.

"Bash the teachers" - The Tories new policy

The idea that standards can be improved by sacking teachers, bringing in people who have received no teacher training and handing schools over to those organisations that have already proved cannot be trusted to run schools seems a daft idea. But not if you are a Tory education spokesman.

Read more HERE.

Would we sack privates in the army if a military operation failed ? Would we sack police officers if crime went up ? Would we sack firemen if a fire cannot be put out quickly ?

Then if all these daft things were done, would we replace these people with untrained people ?