I haven’t written for some time. Partly because I’m new to blogging & partly because events are moving too fast forward to keep up (lame excuse I know). After much analysis by others over the General Election debacle, we’ve got through conference season and now can take stock as to where we are.  In doing that, I want to share some thoughts. The incident and furore with Shapps yesterday was a watershed moment (for me at least) – I think that the No 10 team orchestrated it magnificently. 

They were the ones who released the story. They knew that Shapps had nowhere near the thirty names that he claimed. They also knew that he was well short of the amount needed to 1. Inform the whips/PM & 2.Trigger a leadership challenge. Yet they released the story, they dealt with it there and then. 

Talk in Press land on Wednesday/Thursday was about whether May would survive the week, but it was not in line with what they saw at conference.  They galvanised the Party whose core activists had just fine back from a conference that felt successful (despite the media not reporting it so).

I was in shock with what I saw on Wednesday, and I was livid that the speech could happen like that. I felt (now obviously wrongly) that the team had let May down. The PM could not help that Lee Nelson got in and tried his stunt, but someone needs to answer questions as to why there was this breach of security? No-one could have calculated that the F in display (see what I did there) would come apart. But again someone needs to answer the question why? I was disappointed that her cough got the better of her & feel that her team could have done more. I still do. One off temporary treatment would have prevented the calamity. But I guess that took the sting out of the first two incidents, which as stand alone would have looked worse. Yesterday however, May’s team came into their own. They protected their PM and they elevated their PM.

It was a brilliant strategy, executed meticulously. Unfortunately for Grant Shapps, it was am unmitigated disaster. The team knew that he was a media whore who would jump at the chance of talking to the press all day, which he did. The more he talked the more stupid he looked. His threat, which was a pre-conference one was hardly a nuclear bomb, it was barely a stink bomb.  My favourite part of yesterday, was after doing interview after interview, was Shapps’ complaint that it should not have gone public. The result was that it galvanised the Parliamentary Party 

The team behind May decided to quell a potential rebellion by seizing an initiative that was lost. The speech was meant to reenergise the Party. Conference looked like it would present that opportunity. It was all set up. And yet it worked out differently. So the team used this to do the same objective. And it worked.  They understood the mood of the activists and have ensured renewed support for the Prime Minister. 

The fall guy is discredited. I’m sure his association will want to have “conversations” with him. Any real challenge is very much on the back burner. 30 signatories may have been true pre-conference, but they weren’t around post conference. We are only aware of three, but I’m sure that before the release of this story, there may well have been more. 

What is clear is that there is no appetite for a leadership challenge anytime soon. There is clear evidence that if there is one, it will fail. And the plan to allow May good time to deliver a good Brexit is still back on track….. For now. 

My first proper blog is done today, the 25th anniversary of the Conservative victory of 1992. A surprise result by everybody’s reckoning. John Major romped to victory with over 14m votes for the Conservatives, a record that has yet to be broken. 

Technically, this is the anniversary of the victory, as yesterday was the anniversary of the election. As with almost all elections, the result was known in the small wee hours of Friday morning. I remember the evening well. It was an election that I was involved with a great deal. But it was unique in Birmingham for so many reasons. 

The night of the count was intriguing. Each of the Birmingham Constituencies had their count in the National Indoor Arena (currently the Barclaycard Arena). It is a venue more used to staging concerts and large performances. That night it was transformed into a hub of electoral democracy. Each constituency had its counting area. Partitioned off from each other. Each counting area was very much like every other count with rows of tables, decorated with various piles of paper depicting the votes cast on these ballot papers. There was a central stage for each result to be declared. I just recall the impression that it had, where so much democracy was happening in one room. A giant room, but one room all the same. 

Each party had its own “green room”. And ours I would guess, was not that different to the others. There was a hussle of activity of different candidates and party workers going in and out. Central to that room was a television screen, locked into one of the live coverage programmes. If you were waiting, you were glued to the screen. 

That night, in Birmingham, the political landscape changed substantially. We lost seats in “safe” Edgbaston, in Selly Oak, Northfield and Yardley. We said goodbye to some great Members of Parliament, Sir Anthony Beaumont-Dark, David Gilroy-Bevan and Roger King. We also said goodbye to Dame Jill Knight who retired. To see these stalwarts go that night, is an image that will be with me forever. It was devastating. Curiously, we held on to Hall Green. What was common with all of these results was the narrow margin of defeat and victory. But in Birmingham we knew it was going to be close. 

Even before David Amess was returned in Basildon, we had that feeling that we may just scrape victory nationally. We knew it would be bruising, but we saw the change coming. The change wasn’t that night, it wasn’t on election day either. We saw the change in mood on Tuesday night, and it was reflected on the doorstep from Wednesday. I remember knocking on the door of one house in Erdington to canvass. The door was opened by a big burley bloke in a vest. If you think of Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances, but Brummie, that would be him. His wife then came to the door just as I was introducing myself. She looked like Aunt Bessie, small build, dainty, with grey curly hair, round spectacles and rosy cheeks. She looked at me up and down, then swiftly stuck two fingers up at me. I was shocked, this lady, the epitomy of English cuteness, greeting me with such an offensive gesture. Then she said, putting one hand on her husband’s shoulder “Conservative? That’s one vote from him and one vote from me” – I said thank you, and then he said “we’re Labour mate, but we ain’t voting for them clowns. It’s John Major for us”. 

It was that Honest John image that fermented the victory of 1992. Many analysts, politics students and commentators have examined this. There is much talk of Kinnock’s doomed Sheffield Rally. And much blame had been put to that event. I won’t analyse it here, much of that had been done already, but whilst you keep the image Sheffield Rally in your mind, associate it with a lesser known fact, that John Major was in Birmingham that afternoon. 

John Major covered the country on his battle bus. We were told to expect him at a visit at Waterlinks in Aston. His visit was covered by the press as one would have imagined. But it was a positive affair. Welcoming crowds, a visit to a friendly business that had its room packed with people. In the crowds, the only angle that could be got was from above head height by the TV cameras, and as there were no speeches, the noise was of an excited but respectful crowd. So imagine the news that night. 

The News at Ten is on, headlines are first at the Sheffield Rally, where underexcercised middle aged politicians were trying to be rock stars. Worse still, being introduced as “The next…” This and that….. “The next Prime Minister……”, is not a message you give to the British electorate. Then next up, a sunny day in Birmingham, a healthy amount of ordinary people, greeting a genuinely warm, smiling, pleasant Prime Minister. The contrast in images that Tuesday night was extraordinary. The concept of Honest John may have been nurtured along the way during the election, but it was in Birmingham that it manifested itself. So they is why I maintain, “It was The Brum wot won it”. 

Right, here goes. My first ever blog, and my first ever post.  I’m new this, so please bear with me.

As the address may suggest to you, this is a Tory leaning blog. I have been a member of The Conservative Party since my teens. As I’m now in my mid forties, it’s a relationship that has spanned thirty years.

As far as relationships go, it’s been the great love of mine. Has it been a faithful one? Yes, I’ve never strayed – not even flirted with other parties, even when they fluttered their lashes at me. And despite some distance at times, my party never left my side.

I use this as a little taster of what you will find to expect from my blogs. Add to this a little smidgen of influence from Greece (Nea Democratia) & Cyprus (D.I.S.Y.), then you can see what is going to come.

It will also be wrong to leave out observations and comment from my involvement with Andy Street in his bid to become the first elected Mayor of the West Midlands. I have been part of Andy’s core team since November 2016. Partisan politics aside, I am utterly convinced that the region to which I belong, the engine of UK, will not only benefit from an Andy Street mayoralty, but it will thrive. His vision, his ambition, his drive, his energy, his experience and his delivery of results, will be phenomenal for the West Midlands.

So enjoy!!!