Who's the Brief?

The festive cheer is quick to wear off when you are constantly watching your back. It seems someone in CCHQ is a little scared about losing their job come May and is causing mischief. Steve Hilton, despite being chief soothsayer in Team Dave rarely gets a bad splash. It is often said that the less clothes you wear in CCHQ the more powerful you are. A good working example would be that James O’Shaughnessy, policy wonk, can sometimes get away without wearing a tie, while nobody would bat an eyelid if Steve Hilton strutted around in a pair of Speedos. Hence why it is strange that there would be such a bunfight across the pages of the

Times

about him needing to shore up against a suspected junior usurper.

For better or worse Hilton has Dave's ear more than even Coulson. TB would argue that perhaps this one-time green-voter may now have outlived his maximum usefulness. Having been so successful in enabling the party to get to the stage it is at now, perhaps someone else with a little more teeth needs to be allowed to do heavy work. The Obama style vacant nonsense might have sounded good in California but it seems some of the detail got lost via Skype.

The Tories have dominated the media coverage for the entire of 2010 so far, and this small blot is an unwelcome distraction, though it has to be said the briefing is about as subtle as Mandelson would conjures up. This sort of thing needs to be nipped in the bud right now. One of Labour's biggest weaknesses is the fact that they have been acting like ferrets in a sack for as long as anyone can remember. First they wanted to to get rid of Blair and then Brown. While this may be fascinating for avid viewers, it is extremely off putting to the wider public. The Tories need to be seen to be rising above petty internal squabbles and focus on bombarding Labour and the public with idea after idea, policy after policy.

Let the elbow barging wait until the prospect of forming a government is actually in the bag chaps.

James Macintyre Wins a Pulitzer

Exclusive!

he screamed out, but once again one of James Macintyre's stories has unravelled quicker than he could say "I didn't have sex with Derek Draper." Real grown up journo Macintyre is a little bit chuffed that he got hold of an advance copy of the menu choices that were emailed to attendees of last week's tory bloggers lunch that TB covered here. Sadly for the thirsty hack that was about the closest he got to a bit of detail.

Where to start? Well there certainly weren't thirty people there, Pickles definitely wasn't as TB would have had to hide under the table if he had been. Oh sod it - Shane and Keep Right Online have both said it all already. See their comprehensive rebuttals

here

and

here

. And if that wasn't enough checkout the comments underneath Macintyre's

original piece

from Tory Rascal, Louise Bagshaw, Donal Blaney and CCHQ's Sam Coates - all of whom were there.

Lastly a confession - Membersnet was mentioned, by TB. He was taking the piss out of it to the person sitting to his left.

The Morning After the Night Before

Apologies for the radio silence, TB has been nursing his aching limbs and battered paws this morning after last night's blog wars. What better way to see off the pain than a lunch with right-wing bloggers. A little too easily, they shook of their independence and gathered in the central lobby for a rather tasty session. CCHQ's online team and a few others, plus several of the top right-wing blogger types and twitterati got together for some game pie and as

KRO

put it, game chat.

Jeremy Hunt was keen to chat through the state of the current British blogosphere, what the Tories can learn from the US, and some err interesting ideas about how the righties online will progress after the next election if the Tories are in power. TB wonders whether such an optimistic outlook on how long the bloggers will toe the line is really realistic. On an aside Henry Macrory is seemingly a very modest chap as he failed to mention it was his birthday. Happy belated Birthday.

It was a session well worth having. While Labour bloggers and tweeters take their lines from Victoria Street, and if they are really lucky Downing Street, the organic growth of the right-wing blogosphere has meant it has been a much more disjointed growth. It was very useful to sit down for a rare and constructive chat. The closest the bloggers have come until now was Shane Greer's wedding.

TB is also rather chuffed with the miniature sellotape dispenser he got in his cracker, but that's beside the point.

A friendly test...

In what was billed as "A friendly test between two historical institutions. Fifty overs between two teams of gentleman cricketers" The Carlton Club, despite being after revenge for last years narrow defeat were once again beaten by The Conservative and Unionist Cricket Club.

The Carlton failed to make the 155 set by a team made of of CCHQ staffers, prominent chiefs of staff and press officers.

Third year lucky for The Carlton perhaps...