Upping the pace...

Buried next to a

ridiculous story

about how Brown now has to pay his MPs £5000 to get them to vote for his expenses plan, TB spotted this in the Mail:

Seems the campaign is gaining traction... have you signed yet?

Blogs are the new black...

You may have noticed TB has been lacking in some serious substance recently, and posts rarely longer than forty words this week. Well his finals start tomorrow, his birthday, and thus the blog has suffered. Here's a guest post to keep you all going. TB is turning over the tables to the editors of the new blog

Keep Right Online

, that seeks "to right the wrongs of the past twelve years through informing on right of centre views."

Dear reader, allow me to regale you, with why blogs such as Tory Bear,

Iain Dale

,

Guido Fawkes

and

Keep Right Online

are fast becoming the staple of the right, while the left haven't quite gotten the hang of it. Progressive nothing. This is freedom of speech at its greatest.
Over the past year, the prominence of major Conservative bloggers such as

Hannan

,

Delingpole,

 

Guido

 [Ed. don't forget

Dizzy

, he's fab.] has given the right a (sorry to sound so clichéed) fresh new voice: one that people actively seek out, and one that is, in fact, so sensational that the mainstream media clamour for the latest breaking stories.

We saw it at Smeargate, we saw it at Crewe and Nantwich, we saw it after the Budget, and we'll see it again and again. Vibrant and energetic, giving way to independent opinions and without the 'party line' mandate, web 2.0 exploitation should be encouraged and fostered as one of THE best marketing tools we have.

That’s not to say it’s simply the medium. The quality of our journos and pseudo-journos is impressive to say the least. The

BUCF blog

,

Sassy Conservative

,

The Young Conservative

and more offer both wider scope, but also niche and targeted pieces: and we’re not even close to saturation on this. The average hits on ‘our’ sites are devastating to the soon-to-be opposition. We can only imagine how much money Tory Bear rakes in Google ads - eh, TB?

But be wary, dear blogger, of complacency, and certainly of embarrassment. CF itself is not without its renegades, and in reading these blogs, we offer a self-regulatory solution to our writers. We’d hardly like to see one go the way of

Miller 2.0

, or whatever that hack calls himself nowadays. (Can't wait for Miller: Reloaded.)

Going forward, over the course of the next eighteen months, we need to see a surge in how many people are visiting, debating and discussing views mentioned on these blogs or sharing videos and posts on Facebook/*insert social networking site of choice here*, and thus truly contributing to this 21st century library of opinion. You may not agree with some of the things you read, but, by jove, if you’re not informed or informing others upon your trip on the "series of tubes".

Elections are coming- in a variety of forms. We mustn't lose a grip on what I call the ‘informative scene’. Stoop to their levels, we shall not. The difference between left of centre blogs and our own? Substance. We have it; they don't even come close.

If you would like to write a guest post for Tory Bear get in touch.

Hannan's speech:

Shakespeare, Europe and Labour lies:

Teaching the people of Britain a new vocabulary, one speech at at time.

Tories! Live!

If you didn't make it to Spring Forum either, you can watch it live from 1.30 until 4.30. Speeches from Osborne, Hannan and Cameron all coming up:
(gone)
Back to the books for TB though.

 

UPDATE 15.45. Well that was an excellent revision break... Hannan gave a barnstorming speech about Europe and was given the biggest standing ovation of the day so far:

Video to follow.

This is Dan Han speaking II

Ok last post of the day about Hannan, promise. But if you watch one video on YouTube today, check out his address to the Freedom Association fringe meeting last night:

Via

Play Political

.

Hannan for Congress

It's pretty obvious that Daniel Hannan is a man the party should be listening to. His book "

The Plan

", that he wrote with Douglas Carswell MP, should be in DC's desk draw. His YouTube video has finally got the

remix

TB never had time to do, but it's his profile in America that is truly staggering. Just came across this

hilarious site

:

Back off America. He's ours.

Don't forget - to meet Daniel Hannan click here.

Horribly busy morning polishing up on Wittgenstein, but TB just had a click through the papers with a cup of coffee...

• Fraser Nelson wants to know what the plan is Dave in the NOTW.

• Nigel Lawson slams the Budget in The Telegraph
  .

• As does ummm Andrew Lloyd Webber in the Mail.

• The Mail also reports about Gordon's raging at DC and Clegg at the expenses meeting.

• The Times interviews Dave.

• Also the Times reports that the criminal Lords get slap on the wrist and no expenses for year. Diddums.

...and finally in true Mail style, check out which buildings did and didn't fly the St George's Cross the other day.

Lib Dem PPC does the right thing.

ConservativeHome is

reporting

that Norsheen Bhatti,

Liberal Democrat Campaigner

for Chelsea & Fulham, has joined the Conservatives and it seems she has some pretty

damning things

to say about Nick Clegg...

"When I heard you speak I realised that you as leader and the Liberal Democrats are the not the party I had once believed in and is so very out of touch with everyday life and people in our country.

"It saddens me to say but that day I lost all faith in you and the party and I can no longer continue to be a part of the Liberal Democrat party of today."

Will this be the first of many Lib Dems seeing the light?

This is Dan Han speaking...

TB sadly couldn't make it to Spring Forum, but so it came to be, that at the seventh hour, on the first day, the golden child doth speak:

Rousing stuff apparently.

Yes that's the point...

Remove the word "however" from the last paragraph, and that should be the wording of the manifesto. 

State funded yes, State controlled no.

When does this end?

London Conservative Future have a good little recruitment video out this weekend:

Check out their website

here

.

Looking for a summer job?

Dear all,

Liberal Youth have now decided the content of their Freshers campaign, and we're now looking for designers to take on either the whole project, or designers to take on individual campaigns.

Our campaign briefs are as follows:

Debt Busters

Our tuition fees/student debt campaign. It was decided that the campaign will have a Ghostbusters theme/format.

We need a logo for the campaign, which ideally can also go on a t-shirt, along with posters. We also want I.O.U. cards. So "I.O.U. a free education" signed by Gordon Brown.

"Choose the Lib Dems"

After discussing rewriting the "What Lib Dems Believe" (WLDB) leaflet we have that some of you may have seen, we decided we wanted to have a campaign built on the wider idea of why people should join/vote for the Lib Dems.

The campaign will be done in the style of Trainspotting, with posters done in the style of the famous Trainspotting ones. You may have seen the ones we've just done for the budget on Facebook. If not see

here

.

We want the WLDB leaflet redone as a business card sized fold-out leaflet, like the Make it Happen leaflets that were produced, but in keeping with the Trainspotting visual design.

"Let's Speak Up"
This will be our campaign on I.D. cards. We'll be re-working the "First they came for the writers, but I didn't speak up because I was not a writer.....and then they came for me. And there was nobody left to speak up for me" to something along the lines of:

"First they came for the airport workers. But I didn't speak up because I was not an airport worker. Then they came for the foreigners. But I didn't speak up because I was not a foreigner......Now they're coming for us. So let's speak up."

This is the one campaign where we're not set on a design, so is the one where you can be most creative.

Please send emails of interest/design ideas to elaine.bagshaw@liberalyouth.org

We will be making a final decision on designers on June 1st at the latest, but will appoint earlier if we find good people!

We are willing to negotiate on pay, but as we have a limited budget would appreciate volunteers or things in kind, e.g. you design for us, we'll do some delivery for you.

Apologies for the long post!

Best wishes,

Elaine Bagshaw
Chair, Liberal Youth
elaine.bagshaw@liberalyouth.org

Totty Watch winners - Week 2:

Tory Bear, the Acting Returning Officer for Researcher Totty Watch, hereby gives notice that the percentage of votes given for each candidate at the election of 24th April 2008 was as follows;

Jessie Lever: 19%
Victora Parker: 81%

Jack Colson: 65%
Paul Foote: 35%

And that Victoria Parker and Jack Colson have been duly elected to Westminster's Researcher of the Week.

Prizes are in the post to your MPs office. Get nominating contestants for next week's edition.

Every action has a consequence.

One of the most ridiculous images of the G20 protests was the hippies smashing up the nationalised RBS. In a completely and utterly counter productive measure, they ended up smashing government property, when in fact they were attempting to protest against the banks. Leaving the obvious hippies = idiots argument aside for another time, there is at least one bit of good news to emerge from that day.

The left have little or no grasp of the concept of other people's property. Whether it be their ridiculous views on taxation, that will now see citizens of this country being robbed of well over more than half of their income (once national insurance and council tax are considered.) Or how about their reckless invasion of airports that saw companies and people lose thousands of pounds in lost time and cancelled flights. Well it seems one of these pathetic Trotskyite fools is set to

learn the hard way

that every action has a consequence:

There is definitely no such thing as a free lunch for the, as of yet, unnamed girl who smashed up the RBS, and rightly so. If this girl, and the others that were involved, had thought for just one second; "Hang on, if I use this brick to smash up this bank, I myself will be prosecuted and bankrupt." Do you think she would have done it? Of course not. It is very rare that this sort of action is punished and this RBS case should be used a shining precedent. It sends a strong, clear message to every deluded, unwashed swampy.The right to protest is set in stone, however, that right cannot infringe upon the rights of others. If they do so...

You will pay.

Just go.

Bit slow on the

uptake

with this one but it seems that No10 petitions have allowed you to tell Brown to resign right from the Number 10 website:

Target one million. Do it.

Friday Fun: Tucker/McBride edition.

It's almost as if The Thick of It predicted everything:



Spin doctors should just stay away from computers.

Hat-Tip - The Silver Fox

Matt Drudge, Tory girls and errr Ed Balls.

That got your attention didn't it. Here's something to keep you amused while TB slaves away with his book learnin'. Tory Bear has been interviewed for the "5 minutes with..." section of the Conservative Future website:

What are you currently working on?

Finals! Interspersed with the occasional strategically placed Freedom of Information request.

Who is your political hero?

Derek Draper for his high moral values and the modesty he has shown in quietly working to further his cause. Nah just kidding, I have lots, Peel immediately comes to mind, for his far-sightedness and willingness to put the country before his backbenchers. I recommend you join the Peel Society; you get an excellent free pen. Matt Drudge is another; no one has done more to reinvent the wheel in terms of how political news is reported.

Read the whole thing

here

.

Totty Watch

TB is very busy today, but don't forget to vote for Researcher of the Week. 

Results later.

Puppets on a string...

Yesterday Nick Clegg said this in an email to members of the Liberal Democrats: 

"Today the Labour Party confirmed that they have run out of ideas and have condemned us to years of unemployment and a decade of debt. Their pick-and-mix budget of recycled announcements will do nothing to get us out of this recession and nothing that will help the poorest who are being hit hardest by it."

Fair enough. Not the greatest development with their argument, and not a patch on DC's response to the budget. However it seems that once the line was texted out that's what the Liberals were sticking to. For any youth movement to really appeal to young people, it cannot just be seen as a mouthpiece of  the party. If they are seen as blindly loyal they end up just looking like a bunch of jumped up hacks. New Labour tried to make their youth movements tow the line, but they got a short sharp shock on things like tuition fees. Conservative Future is far more libertarian than the Party leadership and are very vocal with their views, even if they don't completely fit the Cameron agenda.

The oh so "Liberal" Democrats have got their youth wing under the thumb though. Within moments of the line being announced, Chairman Elaine Bagshaw was out of the traps foghorning Cleggs words, almost verbatim to anyone who would listen:

The pathetic puppet couldn't even be bothered to think up her own words or arguments. Funny Sky News had no interest in anything Liberal Youth had to say.

CF on da telly...

Just spotted this clip from Sky News over at the

CF website

:

It seems the Lib Dem kids are so jealous of the attention that real political parties get that they have resorted to

name calling

. Bit rich coming from someone who looks like a Cheesy Wotsit:

Couldn't resist the inherent hypocrisy in that last sentence.