Welcome to my blog. I am a former local journalist who now works in PR and a Conservative and community activist in Woking and Horsell. This blog will keep updated on local issues as well as my interests and quirky news stories.
There’s a strange inconsistency about the Lib Dem conference this time, not least in Chris Huhne – who for a member of the Association of Liberal Democrat Trade Unionists and the owner of no fewer than seven houses, seems remarkably keen to point out inconsistancies in others.
He has produced figures from the Home Office (that well-known Tory-supporting institution) that shows that between 1979 and 1997, crime rose by 81%. Now I understand why he used to write leaders for the Grauniad.
These figures ignore population increases and the fact that the Conservatives had to lead 1980s Britain through a period of considerable social and economic change. Anyone who has seen those iffy election graphs in Lib Dem Focus leaflets will know how well the party deals with statistics. Next Huhne will want to compare these figures with those from the last Liberal government of 1906-22 while completely ignoring the social upheavals that went on during that time.
The Lib Dem conference generally has been less a rallying cry for the faithful, less even a sensible policy debate and more of a constant headline-grabbing exercise – from the savage cuts to conman Cameron, from the mansion tax to this party of crime junk.
I think the truth is nearer this. Nick Clegg’s messages – surprisingly - are mixed and confused and the Lib Dems’ seemingly insatiable need to be all things to all people will unravel unless the party understands where it is positioning itself.
DC has been backward about coming forward with policies and criticised for it – but that is not the same thing. While there isn’t much out there at the moment, make no mistake – the Conservatives know exactly what they are going to do in 2010 and how to pitch it.
Whether or not many Lib Dems will go to the Tories I’m not sure. But if Pickles’s intention was to put the wind up the Lib Dems and get them in a spin, I think he has at least partially succeeded.
