Illusions Dispelled

Any illusion that ConservativeHome still spoke up for conservative values has been dispelled today with the introduction of a new front page banner on the website which reads ‘comprehensive coverage of Britain’s Conservative Party’.

Even before Samuel Coates had left the ConHome fold to work for David Cameron’s bland speechwriting team, the website had become almost entirely sycophantic towards the Conservative party leadership and the site’s front page often resembled little more than an MPs press release area.

In changing the text of the banner I suppose Tim Montgomerie has at least now had the decency to publicly admit that the true purpose of ConservativeHome is to pursue the interests of the Conservative party and that he will use his site to focus almost entirely on the David Cameron project which has itself very little in the way of conservatism behind it.

In recent months ConservativeHome’s pages seem to have been increasingly filled with the strange and often absurd witterings of those like Louise Bagshawe on CentreRight (a woman who is for some peculiar reason taken rather seriously by some few Conservative party members and MPs) and almost entirely devoid of critical comment and opinion. As such it is neither independent in content or comment and therefore, I would have thought, no longer a website that merits more than a cursory glance.

Top Ten Blogs

I have been relatively busy recently so here is a post which doesn’t really require too much thinking (by me anyway).

It is also a rare occasion when I will not in some way directly involve mention of the European Union (oh no, I did it again!) or what I would deem similarly serious political matters or events.

So, as it happens, I noticed that a few of the self obsessed egos who involved themselves in 18 Vanity Street (which amusingly collapsed last year) but chose not to move sideways onto Stephan Shakespeare’s PoliticsHome project have reappeared in the team behind a new magazine called TotalPolitics.

Rather unsurprisingly the TotalPolitics magazine (much like its staff) will really only be interested in the soap opera of the Westminster Village rather than anything that could be even considered vaguely serious. I am not the only one of this opinion.

Yet, despite the magazine being funded in part by Lord Ashcroft and released to much fan fare on some few blogs, I think it may now well be a good time to place your bets on how long it will be before it goes the way of Doughty Street down the pan.

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Divide And Rule

News has finally and officially broken that the Deputy Editor of ConservativeHome, Samuel Coates has accepted a job in David Cameron’s office as part of his speechwriting team.

Some websites have been wishing Sam Coates well, and I suppose for me not to do so would seem somewhat mean-hearted considering what a golden political opportunity this is for him. So, very well done and congratulations to you Sam – best of luck in your new position.

I remember once meeting Sam outside the Highcliffe hotel on the cliffs of Bournemouth at the Conservative Party Conference in 2006. The poor boy was standing by the garden gate handing out some expensively produced 18 Vanity (Doughty) Street adverts to those leaving that day’s conference proceedings.

I spoke to him for about ten minutes or so and thought he seemed like a decent enough chap – but then most of the people in this party do until you really get to know them. I have also been pretty certain for some time now that Sam would eventually move on from ConservativeHome to pastures new because he had been in a position to build up a long list of contacts.

However, one does have to express more than a little scepticism at the decision by Cameron’s office to bring young Sam into the inner fold. Taking nothing away from Sam who is I’m sure a fine upstanding young man with all the qualities a speechwriter requires, the motivation behind this is actually, I think, a classic case of divide and rule by David Cameron – a tactic of which Tony Blair and the Labour party have in the past been very fond.

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