I understand there will be a major announcement from CCHQ this afternoon. Andy Coulson, the ex-editor of the News of the World, is expected to be appointed Director of Communications for the Conservative Party.Analysis from Michael White, ConservativeHome, Guido Fawkes.
Sorry for lack of posts today. Have been recording all afternoon with Yasmin A-B. If you think the Nick Cohen interview was tetchy just wait till you see the one we've just done on Israel with the Daily Mail's John Torode.
63 comments:
He could make a good beginning by suggesting that major policy announcements should not be made while policy review committees are still deliberating.
Excellent - I look forward to widespread tapping of phones.
A professional at last. Grammargate showed how much we have needed one.
He immediately strikes me as an Eagle browed cunning Grand Vizier seeking to subvert the democratic process .Do we need another Marioneteer who with unseen lips speaks and with unseen hands forms the Puppet`s gestures.
Turn him shrieking into the sunlit courtyard and drive stake through his black heart say I.
Ahem...good luck
So what will happen to the Tories ? Will we now get screaming headlines, more best chested photos of the Tory frontbenchers and 2 part cd collections with every Tory leaflet.
Let's hope Sir Bernard Ingham is hovering in the wings ....
Alan Douglas
Iain Dale: (off topic)
I despair! You have Shane Greer run a programme on "Sexism in the Blogosphere" and don't have any women on the panel?!!!
Shane and his panelists suffer from methodological Myopia.
How on earth are men going to be able to intelligently comment on what it is like to be on the receiving end of misogyny? The don't, they inanely sit there and speculate about "technology" and "sweary language".
I would have thought your usuals Rachel North, Elle Seymour, Bel etc would be able to shed a bit more light on the matter than the shower of muppets you had.
Unbelievable.
Here comes the spin merchants ,I am dave no Iam tony no I am dave,oh what webs we spin when we truly want power at any cost,Conservatives are dead long live NUConservatives and king Dave.
Hang on, isn't he from Essex, didn't go to Eton? Some mistake surely.
The Tories undoubtedly needed to beef up their PR but isn't the golden rule of PR that those spinning the message should not become the story themselves. Given Mr Coulson's recent history isn't there a real danger that people will focus more on the messenger than the message. Was there no-one else?
Is he going to be "heir to Campbell"?
I hope to christ this man did not go to Eton and can speak the language of the ordinary voter!
Remember "Britain isn,t working "followed by a picture of a line of unemployed people?
That was a true message.
Bod Geldof as an advisor - admiration for Polly Toynbee - the heirs of Blair and now the phone-tap editor as their spin wiz.
Who the hell are these people who lead the Conservative Party? At least they could have given the job to Alistair Campbell.
Victor
Damn fine news! Media savvy and a Spurs fan! Well on board Andy
Another red top tabloid editor is in place to run the country - thought we'd learnt our lesson from the last one? The heir to Campbell indeed.
Royal Phone Tap Editor Becomes Camerons Chief Spin Doctor.
oh dear.
Excellent. Phone taps, hysteria and badly reserached stories here we come.
If he wrote the 'problem page' then his success and that of LibDave is assured.
Phone tapping a speciality! Knowledge of Hounding of pediatricians !!!
Honestly, why on gods earth are this Eton inspired crowd convinced that to follow'Blair' is the right approach? Don't they know Blair and all he stands for are hated out here in the real world?
Tories now stand for universal blandness! EU integration (NOTE absolutely no DEMANDS for a referendum on whatever the EU summit in June comes up with!)and further disintegration of what made this country great.
Where, by the way, do the LibTory party stand on the universtity lecturers who appear to be a law unto themselves?
Exactly the right tool to have in your bottom drawers in anticipation of the next Major Curry beanfeast?
Shane Greer run a programme on "Sexism in the Blogosphere" and don't have any women on the panel?!!!
Outrageous , what an opportunity for a wet tee shirt contest missed
What does it mean that he was 5th choice?
Iain are you a sky source or is this another case of the mainstream media nicking from the blogosphere again?!?!
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91211-1268348,00.html
New of the Screws? This should be fun...
Coulson? Wasn't he something to do with Watergate?
Aah - a disgraced hack. The Tory Alastair Campbell.
George Osborne was right, you lot really are following New Labour to the letter.
Definitely not OE - Beauchamps Comprehensive, Wickford!
Anon 11.28 - referendum on EU matters - see Cameron's comment on Webcameron "David's first forum responses". Please keep up!
He could immediately announce that announcements of announcements on blogs would immediately disqualify the perpetrators from :
(a) getting press releases
(b) attending conferences
(c) being PPCs
(d) going on TV as Tories
etc etc
Just a thought
Dominic Grieve is demanding that Buckinghamshire should be allowed to provide more grammar schools if required. Will he jump before he's briefed against?
Just a thought
Not a very sensible one.
...urrghh...2-branes face into camera & begin a wholesale upgrqade of the foot-shooting comp. that is the tories current tiff e.g. skool.
can we expec an xpertly crafted op-ed esay on this subjekt in the NOTW anetime soon..?
If this lunchtime is anything to go by Coulson has a job on his hands.
Anon says -
"Tories now stand for universal blandness! EU integration (NOTE absolutely no DEMANDS for a referendum on whatever the EU summit in June comes up with!)and further disintegration of what made this country great."
May 31, 2007 11:28 AM
________________
Quote below from David Cameron on 'David's Responses' on Webcameron:
"On Europe, it’s possible both to benefit from our membership of the EU and to press for reform of the EU. I’ve said we’ll restore Britain's opt-out from the European Social Chapter. We want to have control over social and employment legislation - so our businesses have the flexibility to compete. I’ve also said if Tony Blair and Gordon Brown negotiate a Treaty in the next few months that transfers new powers from Britain to the EU, and try to smuggle in bits of the Constitution by the back door, they should give people a say in a referendum. "
with recent issues over grammar schools, freedom of information bills and Patrick Mercer's stance on the armed forces it is reasonable to suggest that a greater degree of internal control might be a better thing to invest in at this point.... Maybe a giant whip?
Did I just hear on the radio correctly that D Grieve has written in his local paper that new grammar schools should be built in Beaconsfield if the population grew and more places were sought by parents?
And then, did I hear correctly that a Tory spokesman said that the policy allowed for more grammar schools to be built when there was this sort of justification?
I spy a man, or a crew, rowing backwards. Unedifying.
What a total horlicks. My bet is that this whole policy cock-up was caused by a cynical attempt at leftwards outreach, rather than any intellectual belief in what they were proposing, and in the full knowledge that it would be against the wishes and inclinations of the great majority of conservative voters (including those who have abstained at the last two elections).
Just the chap to deal with in the tap room of the Red Lyin'?
Polls iain are you commenting? latest Ipsos/Mori Tory, lead now 2% Labour coming up fast on the leftside. Is Dave about to get the IDS treatment,'The quiet man is here to stay and he's turning up the vol....aaaaaagh'
Hopefully we will have lots of tits on PPBs, the Old News of the Screws is keen on breasts
og - you have it exactly.
Willets said he didn't want to dictate to every local authority, and if they wanted to build a new grammar school they could. Local conditions need local solutions.
Of course this is incompatible with everything he's been saying for the last 2 weeks. What school isn't 'local' to somewhere?
Expect more furious back pedalling over the next few days.
Where can we see the latest Ipsos/Mori Poll?
Cheers Ed
Just a comment
Not a very good one mind
WOO HOO!!!!
Latest Ipsos/Mori poll gives Labour a 2 seat majority in the commons.
It's all over for the NuCons. The public hate a divided party and the NuCons are now riven from top to bottom.
"What does it mean that he was 5th choice?"
That four people were approached first and that somebody better look for vacancies in strawberry farming!
All bets off that The Sun will be supporting the Conservatives at the next General Election then?
So Andy Coulson is fifth choice?
So what? So is Cameron. After Major, Hague, Duncan-Smith and Howard, the Tories are used to scrabbling round for the fifth best option at the bottom of the barrel.
Quick - rearrange the deckchairs, Cameron's fresh coat of paint wasn't enough to stop the ship sinking after all.
Cheers Ed
Any time ;-)
Why would the Tories deliberately scupper one of the advantages they have (i.e. a vibrant blogosphere) by punishing bloggers for blogging?
Well Ed, it would be so that they got a clear run at their announcements and controlled them better than say, the G-Spot debate, which Kelvin McKenzie has incidentally offered a fair recovery on today - though setting or streaming really is the norm in state community schools as it is.
Anyway, it may be that Iain posted this pre-embargo with the full consent of the party machine. And, strangely enough I was being just a bit satirical in my initial comment.
Andrew Coulson has the juice (or some of it) on the Osborne Cameron coke stuff.
Better inside the tent.
Oh dear - he's an old Etonian!!!!
latest ipsos/mori on political betting
So who's going to be dressing up as the Fake Sheikh?
Huncky Duncky?
Essex boy, spurs fan and not an OE muppet - all points in his favour. Remains to be seen whether he is effective or gets sidelined by the posh kids who were very good in the debating society but have no idea about the realities of life.
Is the page 3 boy a member or just an ABD appointment?
This from Blairwatch.....
As the next step in their exciting quest to be the New New Labour ('Newer! Bluer! Thicker!), the Tories have ticked another couple of boxes with the appointment of Andy Coulson as their Director of Communications. Coulson, last seen exiting the editorship of the News of the Screws (prop: R. Murdoch) at a rate of knots after a bugging scandal, is seemingly their answer to Alastair Campbell, ten years late. Despite this, they deny anything of the sort, but if it quacks like an ex-tabloid journo turned spin doctor and looks like an ex-tabloid journo turned spin doctor, then it's Campbell 2 and they shouldn't try and deny it.
For any UK political hopeful this has the exciting twin effect of getting Murdoch and the tabloids where they should be in modern, go-ahead Britain - right at the heart of the important business of political presentation, but the rest of us can be excused a sense of enraged bafflement as to why the Tories should continue to trade under the banner 'Official Opposition' without a Trades Descriptions case being brought.
Iain
in case you have missed the change in sentiment politicians have just slumped again in the eyes of the public. Cameron was the great hope for this country and he appears to be flunking it badly. Anyone could beat Brown at a GE, literally anyone, yet Cameron is nosediving with the public.
Arise David Davis, pleas save us from the NuLab/NuCon scum.... we want politicians who actually believe in something, anything, just an honest joe who will speak his mind.......
What's all this about links between Coulson and Liam Fox? Nothing funny going on, I trust.
What's the payback for the exclusive?
we want politicians who actually believe in something, anything, just an honest joe who will speak his mind.......
Graham Brady.
Nice to see a boy from Wickford getting ahead.
The last time a Basildon boy nestled between the thighs of a Conservative leader he was called David Amess...
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