So here we are, the final furlong of Gordon’s first real electoral test. Up and down the country leaflets are being stuffed through letterboxes, no doubt canvassers are avoiding pitchforks and burning torch bearing mobs in certain constituencies, but it seems the Tories will prevail. If the propaganda being put out on the
Conservative Future website
is to be believed, the dress rehearsal is going swimmingly and CF is ready for the General Election.
But is that really the case?Depending on who you talk to, CF is apparently the strongest it’s ever been or totally and utterly dead, over, done. There is no doubt that the profile of the organisation is improving. There is finally a website that should have been in place years ago, it's informative and regularly updated and runs rings around anything put forward by the equivalent youth movements of the other parties. Membership is apparently on the increase from campuses and branches around the country. The Dave appeal is really working and in the last few years TB has been able to strut around, head held high, as a Tory, without having rocks thrown at him. But is this just a reflection of the momentum behind the national party or proof that Conservative Future is really making the inroads it should be at this stage in the electoral cycle?
When a youth wing of the Party was first created in 1946/47 it was with the sole intention of creating a streamlined and effective campaigning force that would see the Tories returned to power. It achieved this within five years, but things started to go wrong when it became overtly social or overtly politicised. We should be focussing on one thing and one thing only, and that is winning the General Election. The powers that be have assured TB that CF is ready and that at the drop of a hat the ground troops will be ready to serve. Rather worrying though is the recent decline in the numbers attending national campaign days. Apparently the strategy has changed. Instead of having big campaign days where people from across the country come together to blitz one target seat, local and regional campaign days are apparently now the way forward. In terms of numbers though, it is increasingly worrying to see events that a few years back would have had seventy or eighty activists trundling the streets all day, now attended by twenty or thirty people.
Has CF become too distracted by other things beside the hard work of the campaign trail? Events like media training cannot do any harm and are much needed in some cases, and while everyone loves a good knees up, there does seem to be a drop in the actual number of leaflets being put through doors. It isn’t all bad news though, this week has seen hundreds of people out and about helping the cause, but if that wasn’t happening the weekend before an election then CF really would be in trouble. One thing is for sure though, CF as a campaigning brand has taken a hit. No longer is it CF campaign days, instead its younger members of the Party going out and about with senior members, all hands to the deck. Some may argue that this is a good thing. Why should there be this perpetual focus on the organisation when at the end of the day someone who is forty wants to see a Conservative government just as much as someone who is eighteen? More probably.
One place that CF has grown in the last few months though is online. As mentioned earlier the website is now fully functional, with video and interviews with DC etc. While the main party website has some what tellingly not linked to it yet, it is vastly improved and a good hub for any young member to start online. Local branch websites have also greatly improved through the Rock manifesto promise of free blog platforms.
Birmingham Conservative Future
and the
North West regional blog
are leading lights in the online fight. Although some good coverage has come out of this cyber battle – particularly Michael Rock’s
recent piece
about the true place on the political compass of the BNP, it would be foolish to believe that while the internet will be important at the next election, it will be won solely online.
So what has been going on behind the scenes? While a brief glance at the news section of the CF website would lead you to think everything was hunky dory, the last few months have seen the inevitable blood and tears. Another leading activist was expelled after
allegedly wearing a Hitler moustache to a party
– a claim that the accused former Birmingham head honcho Dan O’Doherty vehemently denied. It was telling that the Mirror, although clearly having the picture, did not publish it, as it would have apparently weakened the story. That wasn’t good enough for CCHQ who having set a precedent with former, slightly err more high profile cases, were quick to move and expel O’Doherty. Punishment was swift for York chairman Ralph Buckle too, for the much lesser misdemeanour of
dressing up as Lord Tebbit.
So while misbehaviour gets attention, the backroom antics and “politics” of CF often very intentionally goes under the radar. While TB has been somewhat out of the loop for the last few months, there have been some interesting questions raised by the recent re-jigging of roles under taken by various members of the National Executive. Since the Rock administration had its term extended indefinitely, a quarter of original executive have now quit and another two are definitely showing signs of losing interest/patience/the will to live. The decision by CCHQ to put off a CF election, while understandable given the expense and tendency to end up in a bit of a mess, has not gone down well with the members, or the current exec it seems. There are reports of fatigue and a general loss of interest, hence why it is of no surprise to see two of the weaker members of the original line up already gone and rumours coming in thick and fast that Adele Douglas and Steve Ricketts are openly considering their positions. Loyal Christian May is helping the cause further a field through his work with
YBF
, and other than some recent radio appearances hasn’t been making the same impact he once did in the CF world. This leaves an interesting power quartet pulling the strings of the organisation in the shape of Chairman Michael Rock, his loyal co-option Richard Jackson, new kid on the exec block Edward Hallam and of course, CF’s finest drinker Patrick Sullivan. This was the backbone of the Rock campaign team, yet only Sullivan was originally elected to the executive… sniff sniff.
The CF constitution states very clearly (TB would like to link to it but it has been removed from the website,) that the Chairman is allowed three co-options in the course of his tenure. Jackson was taken on immediately without voting rights in order to handle the communication side of things. Hallam’s recent promotion, from no where to National Campaigns coordinator, is slightly murkier though. As far as TB can ascertain, when former campaigns honcho Sullivan broke his arm and was out of action for six weeks, Hallam, a long time supporter and close personal friend of Rock, stood in, upon Sullivan’s recommendation, in the campaigns role. At the end of the six weeks Rock cut a deal with Sullivan to see Hallam co-opted onto the executive full time as campaigns guru in return for Sullivan having full control of the students and universities portfolio. This hasn’t been greeted with universal support and certain executive members are up in arms about whether the whole move is even constitutional. There is meant to be a vote by simple majority for a co-option.
Problem is there hasn’t been an Exec meeting in over six months.One senior member of the exec told TB last night that this isn’t really a problem and if anything, more gets done without the meetings which tend to bring rather large egos together and are often messy and counter productive. Hallam is a formidable campaigner and looks set crank things up a notch in the run up the General. It would therefore be a shame if he was to be tainted with controversy. A statement of some sort needs to be put out clarifying exactly how the decision to have him co-opted was reached. TB can see no problem with the co-option, but like so many things in the last year or so in the CF world, the end result is often sullied by the ways and means in which it was achieved. Reforms. Cough. Another thing to consider is the fact that National Campaigns is an extremely important portfolio, arguably second only to Chairman. Hallam is bastion of soundness but will need to be much more “mainstream” in his role. For example
posting an interview
with the Chairman of UKIP Youth in the week before the European elections has led some eyebrows to be raised. Ed is also apparently standing for re-election of the flagship Cities of London and Westminster Conservative Future branch. Some might suggest that coordinating the entire CF election campaign would be a full time job but hey.
So even after a quite significant break down in communications and relations between Sullivan and Michael Rock/Jackson over the reforms, it seems that hatchets have been buried and it’s these four who will be responsible for the entire success, or failure, of the CF General Election campaign. Planning needs to have started months ago and high profile media stunts need to be ready to be put into action, right across the country with less than an hours notice. There is a possibility of the General Election happening this summer and despite whatever assurances are given from the top, TB has spoken to branches and members around the country who are not convinced that things are quite as ready as they could be.
In looking back over the last few months, it is impossible not to then look forward to the future of Conservative Future. Touch wood in less than ten months the Conservative Party will be in power, what then for its youth division? First things first - an internal election. TB spoke to Eric Pickles at Scottish Conference, and lets just say the prospect of holding an election before the General didn’t go down well and it was made very clear – it’s not going to happen. The argument that perhaps a little revitalisation at the top might help the election efforts fell on deaf ears. This won’t go down well with everyone but there is seemingly very little your average CF Joe can do about it. We all want a Tory government and don’t want to do anything to jeopardise that. That rules a strike out then. One thing that has to change though is the treatment that CF receives from the senior party. It is treated with a combination of disdain and impatience by many. You don’t hear many complaints when ten activists do an entire estate in a couple of hours though. CF needs fixed terms, and real fixed terms for its executive and it needs full control over its budget. Only then will the executive have the power to drive through real changes that the organisation needs and be fully accountable to the membership every twelve months.
There is a hell of a long way to go before we get to that stage though. Enough of the navel gazing – Conservative Future has done enough of that in the last year. The reforms, though brutal in their instigation are beginning to shine and now we have the serious hard work to do. The faces we have now are the faces that will run the General Election campaign, and like it or not, CF members must throw their full weight behind this team. The executive need to put past differences and petty battles behind them and fall into place as a streamlined unit.
So that’s what’s going on in the CF world. In case you were wondering.
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