Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

The grievances of the Tory scorned may yet decide this leadership vote

By
James Kirkup


10 July 2016 • 9:30pm





David Cameron and Andrea Leadsom



David Cameron isn't quite saying it publicly, but he wants Conservative members to make Theresa May his successor. Will they listen, though?

After all, Mr Cameron has not treated them well. Yes, he led the Conservatives back into government and delivered the first Tory majority in 23 years, but what about the party outside Parliament, the voluntary organisation made up of people who give their time and money for the cause? Those people have become fewer.

When Mr Cameron became leader in 2005, a total of 253,000 Conservative Party members were eligible to vote in the election. Today, the entire party membership is little more then the 134,446 who voted for Mr Cameron in 2005. The decision about who leads our country now rests with a remarkably small number of people, a fact that will only help to expose the next prime minister to arguments that she lacks legitimacy and should engineer an early election.

In one of the many acidic ironies of Mr Cameron's fall, during the referendum campaign he accused Leave-minded voters of being "quitters" and delivered a homily on British steadfastness. Yet it was Mr Cameron who quit, abandoning his post precisely as he had promised not to.


The Tory members who will vote on his successor, by contrast, are not quitters. They have stuck with the party despite the disdain their leadership showed them. Mr Cameron began his referendum campaign urging Tory MPs to ignore their local party associations when deciding how to vote on EU membership. The clear majority of grassroots Tories responded by ignoring his appeal to Remain. Three years ago, we revealed that a member of Mr Cameron's inner circle had described Conservative members who opposed gay marriage and the EU as "mad swivel-eyed loons".

No apology has ever been offered for a phrase that encapsulates Cameroon contempt for the people who paid their membership fees, organised fund-raising raffles, knocked on doors and otherwise ensured that there was actually a party for Mr Cameron to lead. There was always something almost Freudian about the Mr Cameron's treatment of the party's older members over issues like gay marriage, grammar schools and Europe, since they were quite literally his family. His mother, Mary Cameron, was one of many Tory members with doubts about the same-sex marriage law he now lists among his proudest achievements.

The sense of grassroots grievance against a ruling elite that has largely ignored and sometimes belittled their views is Andrea Leadsom's greatest asset. Her recent words about marriage only being between a man and a woman and - however tasteless and ill-judged many find them - about the political importance of motherhood were not accidents. They were appeals to Tories who feel their ideas of the family and its values are ignored and derided in the party. Reports that some senior Tory MPs are so horrified by the prospect of a Leadsom leadership that they'd quit the party can only reinforce that feeling of being scorned. And what a message to send to to voters who admire and share Mrs Leadsom's Euroscepticism and "family values": such ideas are apparently so repellent that "progressive" Tories could not bear to share a party with their advocate, apparently.


Others in the May camp simply sneer, painting Mrs Leadsom as Sarah Palin or Donald Trump and her followers as Tea Party extremists. So much for post-referendum reconciliation. So much for the Conservatives being a broad church. The grievances of the scorned threaten Mrs May. It's sometimes hard to see it behind her strident anti-immigration rhetoric, but the Home Secretary has as much claim to call herself a Conservative "moderniser" as Mr Cameron. Three years before he became leader telling Tories they had to change their image and attitude to win elections, she told them they were seen as the "nasty party". She's spoken at scores and even hundreds of local constituency fundraising dinners to atone for those two words.

More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/10/the-grievances-of-the-tory-scorned-may-yet-decide-this-leadershi/

Almost forgotten in the leadership contests of Labour, Conservatives and UKIP is the election of a new leader of the Greens.

People forget or more likely do not know that the Labour party is two different parties. 25 Labour MPs are CO-OP MPs, such as Luciana Berger who work with Labour and accept the Labour whip. If the Labour party splits then there is a ready made home for them.

https://party.coop/lists/members-of-parliament/

history CAMERON THE COWARD

The Greens should join up with the LibDems, there's very little between
them, maybe the Greens want/need to carry on as an independent party
to receive their funding from the EU(until we leave)..

Well the Greens don't have much choice, so i should imagine it'l be Caroline Lucas.

Wow, I must follow that. I thought they had a deluded Australian already.

As for those Tories that would quit the party if Andrea is elected PM; they should come out now from their closets. No need to expose themselves, otherwise we may find that they are gender neutral.

Good Morning Prime Minister May

Who will do PM question Time this week?

Has Cameron booked the removal van?

This may have some effect

Should Leadsom withdraw, appears "it is the duty" of 1922 Committee to find a second candidate to put to membership.

surely they cant anoint her unopposed?

THE BITCH MUST BE KEPT OUT SHE IS A KLIAR AND GUTLESS

THATS MY PARTY FINISHED WOULD SOONER VOTE LAB THAN FOR THIS BITCH

CONSERVATIVE PARTY MPS A BUNCH OF BACKSTABBING BASTARDS .
IF THET STAB THEIR OWN MPS ITS GOD HELP THE PUBLIC .

LETS CALL IT THE SCUM PARTY BECAUSE THAT IS NOW WHAT IT IS

their should now be a general strike for a general election

come on lab get your act together and call a general strike

thought you were all for voting UKIP or have they rejected your application?

I wonder what Haystack thought of Cameron being booed by the whole crowd at Wimbledon on Sunday ?
Not all your so called thick working classes and UKIP supporters aye Hays

It is part of the job spec to get booed now and then. I doubt he would have been bothered by such poor behaviour of the common unwashed.

You do make me laugh ,the whole of Wimbledon Centre court booed him because just about all the public saw through his crap over the last few months.

the common unwashed. ???
I would think many of them would look down on you Haystack it's not a working men's club.

Although I am happy to be Leaving the EU, I am also sure that the Leave campaign were by far the biggest liars. There was always going to be exaggeration on both sides, but the Leave campaign managed to convince the public of their lies.

The 'common unwashed' means the general public, irrespective' of their position in life.

Ok, piss off Cameron. #TheresaMay

— Elizabeth Windsor (@Queen_UK) 11 July 2016