tories

you have to admire the tories, no really you have to. there is an election looming and for all their guile, cunning and planning the labour party (oops sorry i mean new labour) have gotten themselves into a pickle.
first off there is the internecine fighting between the blairites and the brownites – something that has seen gordon brown sidelined for the start of the campaigning in favour of the works of alan milburn and ali campbel.
secondly they have been caught napping in the lull before the election storm – there was the poster campaign that got them into trouble and then there was the tactic of the tories to pick on perceived “weaknesses” in the government’s strategy and performance.
this was all so good that people were beginning to whisper that the tories had a chance, they might just pull it off and overturn the government’s majority and there they would be making policy after so many years in the wilderness.

oh dear just ad the goal was in sight along comes … howard flight. flight was the tory party’s deputy chairman and was also responsible for getting money from the city into the tory party coffers.
now flight has had to resign his position and howard has taken the swift, if draconian, action of suspending him as an mp and not allowing him to fight his seat of south downs and arundel.
why has this come about? well because flight had been recorded it a meeting suggesting that the tory party planned extra spending cuts when they had gotten into power and these cuts had not been (and by implication of the revelation) would not have been mentioned during the election campaign. (oh the tories lie? well who would have thought that?)

of course what he said has enormous implications to the tory party for several reasons.
1] he was telling the truth which meant that the tory leadership is deliberately lying to the general public (see above for my view on that).
if this was the case then flight has shown a huge error in judgement and has proved he is not really capable of being a trusted member of the party.

2] flight was actually talking about what a hardliner party would do when it was in power, which either indicates that howard is there just to be the pleasant face of conservative policy (now there is a scary thought) or there are plans afoot to ease howard out if the party gets into power and a financially more radical conservative leadership will take over.

3] flight was just showing off to impress his right wing buddies.

any of the above proves he is not a man to be trusted and that howard had no real option but to get rid of him.
now you would have thought that sort of decisive leadership would have gone done well with the tory faithful, but no they are talking about it being brutal (lady o’cathan) or it being the nuclear option (norm “on yer bike” tebbit).
and what of flight? well he like so many before him has fallen on his sword… ooops nope that’s what used to happen, what he has done has called in his lawyers.

and this of course has lead to the potential act of flight standing as an independent against the official tory candidate.

and all of this has overshadowed the recent announcement of the conservative’s plans for increased maternity and childcare packages…..

it’s amazing once they were the kings of the election process and now try as they might somewhere or another they always seem to have someone who will do their best to make sure that they do not get into power. howard flight now joins such notables as john redwood, teresa gorman and iain duncan smith among others as people who make the tory party unelectable.
and long may they continue to come out of the party closet. howard flight let me buy you a drink for making sure the tories do not get in for another term.