Thursday, September 28, 2006

Nick Boles is Going on a Summer Holiday...

Potential Tory mayoral candidate Nicholas Boles is taking a Routemaster bus to the Tory conference next week and is inviting people to join him on it and tell him their views of how the Conservatives can beat Ken Livingstone. He's made clear he's there to listen rather than give people the benefit of his own views. He says...

I am in the process of learning as much as I can about the real issues facing London and Londoners as I consider whether to run for the Conservative Party candidacy for Mayor. As part of my deliberations I am eager to hear your ideas about what it will take for a Conservative challenger for the London Mayoralty to defeat Ken Livingstone in 2008.

Well you can safely say that Mr Boles will be noticed. The bus will be parked outside the Trouville Hotel if you would like to have an upper deck experience with Mr B.

11 comments:

Yak40 said...

Maybe he should invite Bill Clinton, he's got the answer, so he says.

Anonymous said...

Oooer Missus

Anonymous said...

Talking of Clinton - Iain - you need to check this out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dd2Xhm2mIE&NR
try and watch the accompanying clips. All my sympathy goes to the ex-pres but extraordinary none the less...

shergar said...

How to beat Red Ken like the mangy, flea-bitten cur he is?

Bring back the routemaster, Nic, and you're a shoo-in.

Anonymous said...

Nic Boles is a paradigm of everything that is contemptible about modern politics . He is an insider with a lifetime of policy wonking think tanking and nothing else . His background is obviously such as to make him an utterly unattractive candidate and I strongly suspect he think better of it and opt for cosy seat. I have previously mentioned the structural problems that in effect exclude working families from the political process . David Cameron’s rather token attempt to address this problem has become an embarrassing failure with the emergence of this feeble candidate .
It is only the insurmountable loathing that I have for King Ken Livingstone that will spur me to campaign on his behalf but it is the last thing David Cameron or the Conservative Party need .
This ghastly `management get together stunt ` is further evidence that this candidate is unqualified for the role and in my view surplus to requirements in any role .There are already far to many like him and I can hear already the laughter of the Local NuLabs . Liberals will be disappointed as they are resisting the Kings attempts to force unsustainable social housing upon us and wish we had not made such a hash of the selection.
Behind the growth of organised priestly policy bodies , Conservative (ugh) Future and other apprenticeships is the belief at heart that there is a natural ruling class and a natural rules .
Like the welfare state , this elitist system is one that will greatly appeal the Monarch and Prince Charles especially . The relevance of this remark is not pertaining to the royal family but as an indicator of the erosion of freedoms and rights the independent taxpayer once enjoyed . A compliant lower caste excluded by language class acquaintance and ( usually) capital is the sort of hierarchy upon which a king can sit most comfortably For the same reason the monarchy loved the welfare state and detested Margaret Thatcher.
I have made many of these points in a Mayoral application covered by the local press . It is a protest and only semi serious nonetheless if I do not receive the courtesy of some communication from the Conservative party I will……do nothing at all .
I will throw my toys out of the pram a bit though.

Sigh …

Bryan Appleyard said...

Another step down the road of the infantilising of politics, the dumb, condescending act to patronise the masses. The Tories are now racing down this road. It will get them in - but what's the point. Have considered wisdom, authority, calm, learning, cultivation etc etc? Buses at your soul.

Anonymous said...

Can I tell him that he won't win my vote with such tranparent populist gimmicks such as using a routemaster as his campaign bus?

Anonymous said...

Iain posts: "I am eager to hear your ideas about what it will take for a Conservative challenger for the London Mayoralty to defeat Ken Livingstone in 2008."

A silver bullet, a string of garlic, a cross and a sharpened stake, darling.

Bryan Appleyard said...

A sudden and startling collapse in the peculiar London form of sentimentality that sees in a cheeky chappy - in fact, one of Nietzsche's Last Men who say they have invented happiness and blink - a reasonable choice of man to run their city. You beat Garri Kasparov by not playing him at chess. Same with Ken.

Anonymous said...

"I am eager to hear your ideas about what it will take for a Conservative challenger for the London Mayoralty to defeat Ken Livingstone in 2008."

A serious candidate with some real electoral experience of winning and some real lifetime experience of delivering the kind of big services that is the job of the Mayor, perhaps? A Conservative whom the Mayor is actually afraid of perhaps?

Not a job for a failed little PPC whose vote fell in Hove actually who is a policy wonk for a living, I think.

Anonymous said...

Good to talk about defeating Livingstone but what's the point of talking to him about it?