Notting Hill Tories visit the suburbs

During my sojourn on the doorsteps (yes we did beat the Lib Dems- hurrah!), I met a couple of guys who came down from the Smoke to help out. Now, one...well, naturally one doesn't like to ask on a first meeting, but I gained the distinct impression they might have been...you know...a couple of those Notting Hill types.

Anyway, they were in despair about Mikey's 'liar' tactics and general Nasty Party campaign. And I have to say, they had a point- it didn't play at all well on many of the genteel Home Counties doorsteps I visited. Even those that Voter Vault had scored as pretty solid C.

These Hillistas reckoned we will never break through until we recreate a 'positive brand of opportunity and meritocracy'. We should have spent this election playing the long game and investing in that brand.

I chomped my lay-by sausage roll (a good trick if you can do it), and countered that Mikey didn't have the luxury of the long game. I wasn't sure we had it in the constituency either.

They shook their heads, and glanced at one another.

'Well now, look,'  I said, 'don't think I'm not a political sophisticate. Oh no- no worries on that score- my antennae quiver as much as the next man's. It's just that an awful lot of people are very concerned about crime and immigration. So, you know, we have to address it.' We'd already seen a couple of BNP posters on an estate that very morning.

'Hmmm. Just because the tabloids go on about it, doesn't mean most people are genuinely that concerned. It's simply not the stuff that decides elections. We have to create a positive vision: not get cornered into negativity by the Daily Mail.'

And of course, they're right. Absolutely right.

You can definitely see their point.

You can see it that is, except that flogging and immigration is really all we've got right now.

Because the beating heart of the Conservative brand- the economy- is just not beating like it used to. For all sorts of reasons, under Gordo, incomes, employment and house prices have all risen, and inflation has been subdued.

Yeah, there are a few gripes about taxes, but then the NHS is getting all that extra dosh.

Consequently, most people don't see the economic problem that needs a Tory fix.

And sadly, all the positivism in the world ain't going to change that. Which is why we're forced back onto some secondary-if less appealing- brand values that Labour hasn't managed to incorporate. Crime, school discipline, and immigration control.

But we do at least know that deliverance is out there somewhere. As Ken Clark puts it, all Labour governments eventually run out of money. And this one has nearly maxed out.

So let's have no more despondency in lay-bys. Let's have no more wailing and gnashing in the bistros of Notting Hill. The day is coming, my children. The day is coming.

Trust me. I'm positive.

Well...fairly.

Comments

[Rod]

Another five years of Nulabour should do the trick - if we survive.