The recent controversy with the Westminster North Conservatives attracted my attention as it appears to be a repeat of the Turnip Taliban affair. In the Turnip Taliban affair I fully supported the activists who simply wanted a local candidate with decent morals to represent them, as opposed to Elizabeth Truss who knew nothing of farming and the local area and who had conducted an affair with a sitting Conservative MP Mark Field.
This time the "A - Lister" is Joanne Cash. This woman is tipped to be Housing Minister in Cameron's cabinet and has no links with Westminster North. She came to light in the media recently for her childish antics where she used her links with "Call Me Dave" to force Amanda Sayers, the woman seeking another term as Chairwoman of the Association to resign. Cash had clearly won the battle but when was put forward for the vacant role of President of the Association. Cash then stormed announced she was resigning as the PPC and stormed out. This childish display, in my opinion, showed her to be unsuitable.
Despite this clearly being a local issue Eric Pickles, Chairman of the Conservatives, saw fit to come down to make sure that Cash was reinstated. David Cameron was also said to be on the phone and he was "livid". Despite Ms Sayers clearly offering a compromise the big wigs from Central office then forced her to resign as President.
Cash then goes on Twitter to announce she is reinstating herself as PPC and it was found in her bio to say "RIP Dinosaurs". These so called Dinosaurs are the back bone of the Conservative party. The ones who go out leafletting, holding coffee mornings and spend their time canvassing.
Above: Cash's Twitter Profile where she tells the Dinosaurs to RIP.
It's PC friendly, so called "modernisers" such as Cash, Cameron and Truss that are breaking our party apart. They ignore the hard work of local activists and treat them with contempt. Just look at the way Sir Jeremy Bagge was treated with the Turnip Taliban affair, he was actively persecuted by central office. We real Conservatives, us Dinosaurs, are hated by Cameron as he tries to impose Notting Hill, metropolitan candidates upon us to prove his contempt. Cameron is facing a Social Conservative challenge to his leadership as he continues to ignore us and he will be remembered as the Conservative leader who snatched defeat from the Jaws of victory.
Frankly the Westminster North Labour party should be sending a bottle of Champagne round to their Conservative counterparts and thanking them for letting them keep a seat. Central Office; LEAVE US ALONE and let us make up our own mind.
This is yet another example of CCHQ not being able to know where they'd be better off stepping back and letting people just get on with it. We're lucky to have bloody good PPCs where I live, but I really feel for constituencies where they've been lumped with people who fulfil HQ criteria, rather than being the best candidates for the seat.
ReplyDeleteOne need only look at Merlin for another example of HQ trying to play puppet-master and stuffing things up as a result:it's a CCHQ brainchild and an utter bloody fiasco - £5m and 2 versions, and still they've had to hand it to Deloittes to be fixed. Fileplan does the job 100x better, but they'd never be content with that, because they don't have control of it...
If we're not careful, we're going to see a sharp increase in the number of independent cllrs and defections to UKIP as the grassroots levitate away from Cameron and his ridiculous attempts to become Mr. Popularity, as you so rightly point out.