thetorydiary

Party Chairman Eric Pickles gives his daily take on the election campaign. He is pictured here on the campaign trail with Henry Smith in Crawley earlier today...

My old chum Henry Macrory from CCHQ has a well thumbed copy of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. With 1984 and its use of double-speak it might be the Labour spinners manual. He noticed a striking resemblance to an early cover of the masterpiece and the Labour’s 2010 manifesto - chilling in a semi-comical kind of way.  I have commented on their use of the sunrise before, it is in the eye of the beholder: someone’s sunrise is someone else’s sunset.

There was nothing much in the bundle of half thought out policies that makes up their pledges to the electorate other than a vague indication that they would fit in very well within Labour’s 13 years of broken promises.

The most interesting announcements are the ones they shamelessly stole from the Conservative Party. We have identified 5 so far:

1. Any government-controlled appointment with a salary over £150,000 will require ministerial sign-off;
2. Pay as you go home energy insulation;
3. No stamp duty for first time buyers for house purchases below £250,000 for 2 years;
4. New national non-emergency service telephone number 111;
5. Promote the transfer of buildings and land into the ownership or control of voluntary and community groups.

The Labour Party might have done better to postpone their manifesto launch until after the Conservatives - then they could have stolen a whole load more.

These are my suggestions for a couple of promises they may care to steal from us:

1. Abolish Labour’s Jobs Tax that will kill the recovery; and
2. Stop spending public money on government waste.

Today's report from Party Chairman, Eric Pickles...

The words 'posh' and 'pickles' aren't usually found in the same sentence, unless accompanied by the word 'not' - but today, in Milnthorpe Farmers Market, I purchased a pot of the extra fiery 'Posh Pickles' while I was there supporting our candidate Gareth McKeever.

Westmorland and Londsdale was the starting point of the second day of my campaign trail across the North West which will eventually lead me to appearing on Any Questions tonight with Andy Burnham, Jo Swinson and Peter Oborne.

Before meeting Rory Stewart for a discussion on the future of Penrith's local economy I visited John Gough, our PPC in Barrow and Furness and I saw first hand how hard he is working to turn the seat blue.

I watched the first political death by Twitter of Stuart MacLennan. A lot has been made of his use of obscenities and aggressive language towards women, but in my view not enough attention has been given to the utter contempt he showed for his constituents, calling them 'chavs', and being particularly offensive to elderly potential constituents.

As an American friend of mine once said: "If you don't like the folks, don't be in our business."

Fortunately for the people of Moray and Parliament, Mr MacLennan will now have to look for a new line of work.

Eric Pickles

Today's report from Party Chairman, Eric Pickles.

Day three of the election dawns, bringing us that little bit closer to liberation day in May. Every campaign has its own rhythm and pace. I keep warning activists that there will be good days and bad days.  Today has been a great day, more signatures from employers on Labour's job tax and a new initiative from the Conservatives, our National Citizen Service endorsed by Sir Michael Caine. It has dominated the headlines all day, you might say to misquote Sir Michael “a lot of people do know that.”

I’ve seen a lot of policy launches over the years but I’ve never seen one that whether you were a journalist, an activist or a voter, you just got it. No one seems to have a bad word for it, except for a few grumpy middle aged Labour Cabinet Ministers.

I’m pretty struck how rattled Labour not only sound, but look. What were they thinking presenting the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and Lord M (whose full title is too long to fit in to a tweet) against the backdrop of what I think was a sunset at the Labour Press Conference? All that was needed was sombre music and a voice over saying “as the sun goes down we say goodby..”

I’m in the North West on a tour. I’ve met with our candidates in Blackpool South (Ron Bell) and Blackpool North and Clevleys (Paul Maynard) and I am just off to do a meeting with Eric Ollerenshaw in Fleetwood. On the knocker in the residential part of the town, it’s clear that traditional Labour support has just had enough of Gordon Brown and they are definitely not going to vote Labour. As I reported yesterday, they are starting to switch to the Conservatives, many for the first time. Regardless of age our National Citizen Service really seems to have caught people’s imagination.  As a young man said to me just off Cavendish Road in Blackpool “this is great, this is much better than politicians preaching what needs to be done, this is about us being given a chance to do something with a purpose that is both interesting and fun.”

Eric Pickles

Eric Pickles writes his latest exclusive daily take on the election campaign for ConservativeHome...

Everyday I’m asked by even the most enquiring journalists what I think of the state of the polls. Well the answer is that ‘they go up and they go down’.  And of course in this election, the most ‘electronic’ of elections yet, people will follow the polls more keenly than ever.

But whatever the polls, I have always believed that this election would be won constituency by constituency, district by district, street by street – on the doorsteps of this country.

Over the past year or so I have visited just about every corner of the UK, canvassing in many places, to get my own feel for where our support lies.  But there is no place like your own patch for getting a feel as to what it is really like.

Starting off in Wales yesterday I saw the determination of Welsh Conservatives to win more seats from a washed out Labour Party. But today I was back home, walking on drives that as candidate and MP I have been walking down a few months short of twenty years. These have been years when there was uncertainty about the Conservative Party, at times hostility towards us, and more recently interest in our Party rebuilding.

We have always canvassed regularly in Brentwood and Ongar, so our records are good. Any good canvasser knows that the relationship on the doorstep is part science and part raw emotion. You can feel disenchantment or support well before you count the tally of responses. As you can imagine in a Conservative seat there was a lot of support, a readiness to display a poster and a desire to see the back of “that man Brown,” but this afternoon, in Priests Lane I came face to face with a lifelong Labour supporter who was going to vote Tory for the first time in her life.

Labour, historically, in Brentwood and Ongar has been squeezed by the Liberal Democrats; direct switches to us were comparatively rare. My team and I decided to go to areas of the constituency where the Labour vote is the highest, there we found more Labour switchers. People round here realise that Labour’s tax on jobs could kill the recovery.

Little sign of Liberal Democrat activity, I await the phoney graphs and the “It’s a Two Horse Race” leaflets with jaded anticipation.

It is as good as I can remember it locally, and the team out helping our target seat reports similar good news. Still we have a long way to go until May and still the polls will go up and go down.

Eric Pickles MP

Eric Pickles - The Top Man - submits his second General election blog for ConservativeHome.

At last after all that dithering, delay and indecision he did the obvious and went to the Palace on exactly the day everyone expected. Master of Surprise would not seem a likely nickname to be attached to the present Prime Minister. I hope he enjoyed our banners lining his route spelling out “Vote for Change.” Roughly 30 days separates the nation from liberation from his washed out and increasingly pointless government.

The launches of our respective parties could not be clearer. David strolled out with Sam surrounded by some of our candidates and workers. He spoke of change, optimism and hope: “Britain’s deserves a lot better than five more years of Gordon Brown;” telling the country that there is a ‘modern Conservative alternative that is about voting for hope, voting for optimism, voting for change.” He warned that Brown’s debt, waste and taxes will kill the recovery. All this against the backdrop of the Thames and Big Ben there was a tangible feeling that this is the “most important election for a generation”.

So far as I could see the Liberal Democrats launch took place in the photocopying room in their HQ in Cowley Street in front of some bewildered and embarrassed interns.

Gordon Brown chose to showcase his cabinet outside number 10. Given the treachery contained in their collective ranks it may have took some courage to turn his back on them for the photo-call. He may have taken comfort that while they were there they could not be off in some distant studio briefing against him.  Then he went off to meet members of the public in “canteen meetings,” which turned about to be bussed in members of the Labour Party, there to spare the PM’s blushes in case he accidentally met a real member of the public and they really told him about the realities of boom and bust Britain.

Eric Pickles MP

Hope you had a break over the Easter holidays (I suspect not). Here at CCHQ it is just like any ordinary day before the start of a the most important general election in a generation – full throttle and ready to go.

Difficult to believe it but Labour seems determined to fight the election on the “Jobs Tax”, their increase to National Insurance. They think everyone is out of touch except them, it matters nothing that they are hard pressed to find anyone who employs people to agree with them. When they are making such a poor fist of it, it seems almost bad manners to discourage them.

We are committed to prevent this tax on jobs being implemented in full; it threatens employment as we come out of the recession.

We launched our new poster on the threat to the recovery this morning outlining Labour's big boot ‘more debts’ and ‘jobs tax’ plans to stamp out any green shoots of recovery. The models from the launch are propped up outside my office (see photo), reminding everyone that Mr Brown must get his best walking boots on tomorrow and visit the Queen to seek permission of the dissolution of parliament.

Eric Pickles