Lib Dem councillors cross floor to Tories

This is a very interesting trend. Are the Lib Dems starting to implode? This is in the Guardan so not a paper one would normally expect to run a pro Conservative story but a very interesting development nevertheless, particularly as this happened before the election.

The debate for the future

It is not surprising that the loss of our third election has led to a major review of where we stand. Whilst the Lib Dems are arguing over whether or not their Local Income Tax policy cost them votes the Conservative party is of course reviewing the deeper question of where this historic party goes with its core beliefs.

For some time I have had asociations with the Centre for Social Justice, a think tank with legs, that was set up by Iain Duncan Smith when he lost the Leadership. If you click on the above title link it will take you to a report isued yesterday by the CSJ which I think contributes to this debate greatly. It is worth a read for those interested in Social Justice and figthing poverty, not through the leftstate interventionist model but through a Conservative party that gave us William Wilberforce (Anti Slavery Movement) and Lord Shaftesbury.

There is also a very interesting subject about the Social Justice aspect of the Conservative party at Conservative Home.

Davey Local Income Tax policy blamed for Lib Dem failure to make progress

The BBC reveals all

All parties have a lot to learn from this election and the Lib Dems are key amongst them. If they are serious about being a "real" party, let alone a "real" opposition, then they need to stop saying things to different people at different times.

In Kingston they hardly mentioned Local Income Tax, not surprisingly, but were attacked frequently for their hypocrisy over campaigning nationally for free personal care charges and then hiking them in Kingston and introducing means testing.

Who does what!

Every year the Council goes through a process of allocating councillors to seats on committees etc. for the next year. Different groups do this by different means. The Lib Dems I know select by vote within their group (presume it is propoprtional representation and must take all night with the number of councillors they have). Until Conservative Central Office modernised the group rules we used to do it through an appointments committee that made a recommendation to the group for signing off. That used to work OK but now we have a system where the Leader has to make a recommendation to group. You can imagine that whatever system you use it does lead to some who end up in places they do not like and others who are more than happy with the outcome. Under our system it is of course mainly the Leader who gets it in the neck!!

Still, we managed to acheieve the "reshuffle" with a lot less attraction and concern than Blair managed in his farce. First he renames a department and then they change it back again because no one liked the new name. Then apparently a procession of ministers told him they did not want to move and he apparently caved in. Does make you wonder who is really leading the country. What of Alan Milburn? Is his decision not to be in the Cabinet because he believes he can mount a challenge to Brown better from outside?

For Kingston the whole process ends with the election of a new Mayor and approval of all the new committee places for the next year. Kingston has some good information on the Mayor on their website. As for the people who run the Council well we have a new batch of them as well. So when it all goes wrong you now know who to complain to....click here for their names. Actually just realised they have not up dated the site yet but it is worth a look anyway.

Comment away

The comments are back! I have decided to turn the comments back on but be aware that these are monitored and any inappropriate use will lead to them being turned off again.

I also had not updated the blog for about two weeks, although I had been writing it as the campaign went along. I have now had the time to post up all the entries so you get a better picture of what went on.

Howard's Way

Michael Howards resignation is a mistake. At least it is a mistake for as long as there is not timetable for the rule changes and his going. He always talked of Accountability and how he would sack those who did not perform and now he has acted. But we also had a "Timetable for Action"

Who do I support? Well I do think we need to look hard at the direction, principle and values that we communicate to people before we start entering into personalities. What does that mean? We need to paint pictures for people about what a Conservative Government would mean to the country, what is our vision for this country in future decades. The world has changed and we need to understand that better. I need to give this some more thought over the net few days and may well return to this.

The Result

I did not come into this to lose, but lose we did. We secured the highest swing in the country from the LibDems to the Conservatives but when faced with the mountain of a majority we had it was inevitable that it was not going to be easy. You can see the result here.

As I said at the count; it was a great honour when I was first elected a Councillor in this Borough and it has been an even greater honour to be a Parliamentary candidate in the place I was born and brought up in. It is for that reason that defeat hurts more than had I not been from this town.

I have to thank so many people for this tremendous team effort. I have had a great campaign team writing great literature for us and a vastly improved delivery network. This positive result and new organisation sets us up well for the local elections next year. But I really have to thank those many people who I met on door steps and High Streets and who voted for me.

I am off to the beach now for some fresh non-political air.

The day is here!

Ouch – 4.00 am is a very strange time of day. We were up and delivering a Good Morning leaflet in highly targeted areas – New Malden, bits of St. Mark’s and Tolworth.

Back to the office for bacon, eggs, sausages and rolls. Felt a little better after that. Then home for a quick snooze and shower and a change.

Polling day is a very odd day. Each of our wards has a campaign centre and is registering those that are voting so they can start knocking up from about 11am to 12.

Did a tour of each of the centres. Polling felt very slow indeed to start with and at about 6.30 we were registering only a 30% turnout. Things hotted up later in the day and indeed even at 9.00pm there were a lot in the polling stations.

There is not a lot a candidate can do on days like this and so I decided to go to Church – today is Ascension Day!!

This evening I took my wife to dinner whilst the polls closed. We returned home and then wait the call from the agent at the count. Strangely calm again, as with last night not worried by the result really.

That's it now

Not much more that I can do. We have delivered our last. Went for a drink in St. James as we had finished a delivery there with the 12 of us out this evening in a team. Managed to convince my final drinker to vote for me.

Not long now before I need to be up again for our dawn raid.

Feel strange this evening; as if I know what the likely result will be tomorrow but am unable to fathom even the slightest idea “how much”.

The final stages of delivery

Spent today on our final deliveries. GOTV leaflets going out and really into operation “mop up” the paper and deliver where we can. There is a funny sense of unreality in these last few days as it begins to sink in that on Friday it will all be over. Mass delivery in Norbiton this evening.

Postal votes yesterday were not bad and from the sample we read it looked about 60/40, but who can tell. Postal votes having changed as much as they have it is a bit difficult to know what they indicate.

Kingston Churches with Jon Cole

No canvassing today as it is a Sunday!!

Delivering this afternoon and then off to the final campaign hustings for Kingston Churches Together, chaired by John Cole. Interesting hustings as there were few of what you would consider the traditional “Church” questions on abortion, euthanasia etc. There were the usual immigration and Iraq isues but also some on transport and also on the Lib Dem scheme for introducing means testing for personal care charges to the elderly and disabled. Ed Davey put up a defence but I think even he will admit he did not try that hard to defend this appalling policy.