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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Conservative Thames Victory

The Conservative candidate, John Howell has comfortably won the by-election in Henley as originally predicted with a small swing to the Conservatives while the Labour vote collapsed.

However, the Liberal Democrats share of the vote did also increase slightly despite the fact that they spent more time playing the man rather than the ball in what was for them a typically ‘negative’ by-election campaign.

While overall turnout fell it would appear that the Conservative vote held up reasonably well especially when considering that this was not a high profile by-election in the eyes of the national media in the same way as Crewe and Nantwich.

Much hard work and effort was put into this campaign by MPs and party activists who, much like David Cameron this morning, will no doubt be very pleased by this result as it vindicated their ‘positive’ campaigning approach without revealing actual policies.

This may hint that the Conservative voting electorate are in some respects optimistic that David Cameron will be more conservative in Government than he is saying he will be in opposition.

EU To Ban Eurosceptic Groups

Writing in the Telegraph on Tuesday, Bruno Waterfield uncovered fresh plans by MEPs to eliminate eurosceptics as an organised opposition within the European Parliament.

Richard North continued the story by pointing out that the affect of amending these parliamentary rules will probably be to prevent David Cameron from forming a new eurosceptic group as he had pledged during his party leadership campaign and breaking away from the EPP-ED.

Gawain Towler also talks us through the procedure of how the vote came to pass and the way in which Europhile Tory MEP, Timothy Kirkhope helped Labour’s Richard Corbett escape defeat. Whether this was intentional on Mr Kirkhope’s part is open to debate – though he had ample motivation since he has been against Cameron’s pledge to leave the EPP-ED from the start.

Rather sadly, a significant number of people in politics and the media (who probably should know much better) continue to have a fairly rose-tinted view of what they would like the European Union to be, rather than acknowledge what it has actually become. Despite all evidence to the contrary they persist in believing the Union to be a free trading area when it is not; a bastion of democratic ideals when it is not, and a co-operative but loose association of sovereign nations when it is not.

The sole aim of the EU’s fore-fathers and subsequent torch bearers always has and always will be ‘ever closer union’ and political integration. As a consequence EU institutions and supporters will not tolerate any dissent against their grand project which they have spent so much time and effort slowly constructing, and will often break their own rules of procedure simply to evade any semblance of democratic opposition.

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Now Where Have I Heard That Before?

David Cameron today announced that he was going to ‘make poverty history’ by pledging that a Conservative Government would remove three hundred thousand children from poverty through increases in the working tax credit.

Sam Coates over at ConservativeHome briefly expressed his unhappiness and disappointment that the media had chosen to cover the Ming Campbell resignation saga rather than this supposedly important Conservative announcement.

But really, does the media response surprise you all that much? Yes, the Ming story is about as interesting to many as watching paint dry – but then Cameron’s latest policy initiative isn’t exactly a box office blockbuster exhibiting outside the box thinking either.

What’s more, there was certainly a bizarre sense of déjà vu surrounding Cameron’s ‘Social Responsibility’ press conference. You can be forgiven for thinking that you’ve heard and seen something quite similar before - because quite probably you have. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown spent the past ten or so years making similar sounding claims.

It does all seem to be getting very crowded in that miniscule area some people refer to as the centre ground (in my opinion there is no such thing) – all the while as yet more and more people choose to abstain from voting.

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