Ashcroft

He is David Cameron’s right hand man, the second most powerful man in the Conservative Party today.  Deputy Chairman Lord Ashcroft, better known as Cameron’s largest bankroller, pumping £millions into Conservative marginal seats, including over £14,000 in Scotland – and may be the largest single donor of all time.

In 1999, when the then Conservative leader, William Hague first recommended Lord Ashcroft for a Peerage, he was rejected because he didn’t live in or pay taxes in the UK. It was only in 2000, after he promised to return to live in Britain and pay tax here, and with the personal …

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Choice

 “Take another look at us but take a long look at them” the words of Gordon Brown reminding the country that the general election is not going to be about simplistic slogans but about a real choice, between Labour and the Tories. Whether coincidence or otherwise there has certainly been further narrowing of the Tory poll lead that has now all but disappeared since GB’s statement.

 General Elections are about “choice” and the choice confronting the electorate this year will be crucial for this and future generations. The next occupant of 10 Downing Street will either be Gordon Brown and a …

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You Deserve better?

 David Cameron’s opinion poll lead narrows to six points following a Piers Morgan interview with the Prime Minister. We didn’t have to wait long from the reaction of Tory campaign strategists. Conservative central were panicking and in a spin. It was not supposed to be like this.  Their response is to latch onto a book from a political hack with his snout in the trough of political diaries, whose publishers decide the best way to sell books, is to smear Gordon Brown.

 Since Tony Blair retired the Tory attack dogs have kept portraying the PM as a dour Scot, …

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Count Down

 The election is creeping, if not galloping up on us and we will soon be campaigning in what has potential to be a very close and bitter election. I would like to think I’m wrong but all the signs are to the contrary. This will be my sixth General Election since 1987 when I succeeded Rt Hon Baroness Judith Hart and maybe having been here before allows me to be a bit more reflective than I might have been in earlier elections.

 This pending election has similarities with 1992 where the people’s wariness with the incumbent government indicated a defeat …

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Law makers not law breakers

 I said in the summer that MP’s who were found to have fraudulently cheated with their allowances should face the full force of the law. We are all equal under the law and it is absolute garbage to suggest that a MP who breaks the criminal law will not be subject to its full rigor.  In 1987 when Labour MP’s were campaigning against Thatcher’s Poll Tax,  and some were refusing to pay it, the then Labour Leader Neil Kinnock told his backbenchers that they were, quote, “law makers, not lawbreakers”. Any MP who thinks they are …

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