Something the Tories shouldn't admit to

Tankus

wasn't Duncan again ...was it ?

James

The more of these people out of a job the better. How big is Gordons majority?

Chuck Unsworth

Could be the old double-bluff, of course. After all, it's fair game to make these cretins feel uncomfortable, and I'm all in favour of reinforcing their paranoia.

Matt London

I completely agree - this is the sort of nasty campaign that Lib Dems and Labour pursue - the tories don't need to and shouldn't - and won't benefit from it.

AndyM

Wipe them all out, that's the least they deserve.
It's just a pity that being voted out is the only punishment that they will receive for 12 years of mismanagement and Billions upon Billions of pounds wasted by their incompetent governance.

Eileen Bilton

Correct - the Lib Dems had this same strategy last time out - it failed miserably. The "decapitation" moniker was not really a helpful term at the time either !!!

Owen Morgan

Sending Ed Balls into the political wilderness is entirely consistent with acting in the interests of the country as a whole.

curbishly

I agree it was a mistake, the Lib-dems tried, failed and became hostages to their own fortunes.

I'm detecting a kind of hubris amongst the Conservative Party that says they are going to win the next election and it's just a formality.

It ain't, and they had better remember that and keep their mouths shut.

HFC

What a splendid ploy! The very idea of Balls, Brown, Straw, Harman & co being out of the HoC and, with any luck, the HoL, fills me with joy.

Sean Haffey

There are several other problems with this approach.

First, any named Labour "big beast" who survives can claim victory against a personal campaign ("I survived the worst the Tories could throw at me")

Second, ewen before an election, this tactic risks comparison with the similar and spectacularly unsuccessful campaign in 2005.

Third, it can focus the party in the wrong areas: putting too many resources into winning big-name seats rather than most winnable seats.

Hawkeye

It would be better to ensure that the entire Labour cabinet gets returned in oposition and then let them do the knife weilding and backstabbing.

The rifts that would open up should add at least another 5 years to their time in opposition.

Westmorlander

You're assuming that someone in the shadow cabinet actually said this? It's not completely unheard of for a newspaper to be liberal with unattributed words.

Unless, Peter, you know who said it, in which case you can at least confirm that the Tories are thinking this way rather than the DT just making mischief?

Jonathan Cook

Ed Balls shares Gordon Brown's talent for mobilising an anti Labour vote (nationally). He should be left.

Balls will also help tear Labour apart in post defeat infighting.

Damon

Given the Conservatives overworked safe seats and did not focus on marginals at the last election, any strategy at all would be an improvement. However, this carries a considerable risk of rallying Labour troops to the cause.

Inamicus

They've been so effective in Edinburgh SW against Darling they fired their candidate...

TrevorsDen

Labour have done it in the past ... but I agree .... softly softly catchee monkey.

PS -- The Telegraph reports that QE "involves the Bank buying financial assets from banks and other financial institutions to inject more money into the economy,.."

Nope - it involves the bank printing money so the government can fund its escalating debt. Not for the first time Gordon Brown thinks he has found a table offering a free lunch.

Steve L

@James - Brown's majority is irrelevant. Can you imagine him staying on when Labour lose the GE?

James

@Steve L
Granted. However, the humiliation on election night would be something to be cherished. Maybe the Tories could pull out and leave the field clear for the SNP. (my tongue is firmly in my cheek!)

William Blakes Ghost

Oh dear not the Speccie as well?

Shish. Why is it journos and politicians always get the wrong end of the stick?

Do the really have to lamely try and sensationalise any ordinary bit of information?

The idea that this is a 'decapitation strategy' is nonsense. For it to be so the Conservatives would need to be targetting Brown, Johnson, Harman, Miliband etc. ( just as the Libdems targetted Howard, Davies, May etc) all who have extremely safe seats. Given the progress made there is no need for such pathetic stunts.

This is not a decapitation strategy. It is the next logical advance by the Conservatives into Labour territory.

The Ministers listed are in the next tranche of vulnerable seats based on the progress made by the Conservatives since 2005 in the polls and recent elections (just check out Electoral Calculus's projections). All bar Balls (and oh how he deserves to be targetted) would be at severe risk if there were a further 1.5% swing from Lab to Con (i.e. Con 44 Lab 24 LD 19) based on the last ICM poll (using UNS - all caveats apply).

In the current Electoral Calculus projections Bryant would lose his seat already.

These Ministers are defending what potentially are now 'marginals', given the state of the polls and recent elections, and there is nothing exceptional about them being targetted.

Furthermore, in chess you don't target a pawn, when the bishops and queen are up for grabs. So it is no surprise that Ministers are targetted over backbenchers.

As for the fact that someone has said that the Conservatives are doing this really is stating the obvious. Of course they are doing it, They are playing offense. Why wouldn't they do it?

This would only be a real story if, for some incongruous reason, they weren't targetting these seats.

It seems to me that perhaps the real story here is that Labour, having despatched from Cabinet those Ministers whose seats looked unsavable (e.g. Smith, McNulty and Hutton), are now trying to draw a line in the sand on where they will fight their last stand from.

Furthermore, if anything this story sounds as if it is being spun to help Labour bolster these vulnerable Ministers who are currently on the frontline of the election battleground.

Hardly surprising it is being spun like this but it's tranparently lame spin at that.

So there you have it. It's not a decapitation strategy, just the next stage of the Conservative advance.

PS The Telegraph missed out Tessa Jowell. She is also likely in the firing line as well.

Chris lancashire

I have the misfortune of having Jack Straw as my MP. The career politician par excellence who makes Macavity look positively high visibility.

However, he has an 8000 majority and I see no absolutely no possibility of this being completely overturned and certainly not by a Conservative (LibDem very outside chance). I therefore deduce that either this story is planted or very badly researched.

PauL

Death to Marxism!

Pete Hoskin

William Blakes Ghost: erm, I don't criticise the actual strategy above, and appreciate that it's probably just part of the Tories' marginal seat campaigning. That's why I inserted "rightly or wrongly" into this sentence:

"But to suggest - rightly or wrongly - that ministers are being targeted, over and above the Tories' marginal constituency campaigning..."

My criticism is of the "senior shadow cabinet member" who blabbed to the Telegraph about this, and whose quotes make it seem that this is all about dispatching with certain ministers. So far as the Tories are concerned, that's not a constructive message to get out there. Shish, as you put it!

Verity

Chris Lancashire, the first thing the next Conservative Government (which will be the next-but-one Government) must do is outlaw postal voting except for those in genuine need. It is assault on democracy ... Jack Straw will have to try to slither under the door without the nimble assistance of neighbourhood "Uncles".

Dave B

You can slant the story by the quotes you take.

The Telegraph also quote 'The Source' as saying:

"We not going to move ahead of ourselves but a number of senior ministers could go if the swing to us moves into double digits."

Which sounds like 'talking shop' bumping into 'common sense', and 'the obvious'.

Ian C

The smart way to do this is to go after the seats of the better ministers who will emerge as the new leaders after the election and leave Hattie, Balls & Co. to win so they continue doing their damage thereafter.

And stay quiet about it.

WIlliam Blake's Ghost

Peter Hoskins:

Show me amongst the quotes provided from the Conservative source where there is any suggestion that this is in place of the marginals strategy?

I did a word search on the article and couldn't even find the word marginal. In fact the inferrence is that this is in an extension to the marginals strategy.

The problem is that the whole slant on your story is predicated on Pierce's illusion that it is a 'decapitation' strategy (a 'pierce take' per chance?) which seems a wholly inaccurate description of what is being described (as I have previously pointed out).

In any case, if as is likely a good number of the 2005 Labour marginals are now fairly confidently (e.g. some of those in the south) going to fall to the Conservatives, it would be a waste of resources to continue to pump the same level of resources into them as if no breakthrough had been made.

A better use of resources is to redirect that resource to the next phase of 'marginals' and in particular those of the senior Labour MP's (e.g. ministers).

Now only the most sensationalist (and I'm referring to the Telegraph) of journalist would try and turn what is an obvious, straighforward and sensible development of a strategy into dubious spin. Unfortunately, the Telegraph has an increasing record for doing exactly that!

drakes drum

I would hope that the tory party would have plans to attempt to win every seat.

That they are selecting certain seats, says to me they are not convinced that they are going to do as well as the opinion polls suggest -and we all know just how wrong opinion polls are!

Another example of woolly thinking in the Cameron Camp. Is he from planet ZOG ?

Chris lancashire

Verity you are spot on. Postal voting in this neck of the woods is widely regarded by honest voters as a huge scam. Personally, I would like postal voting reduced to the point where a doctor's note or a holiday booking have to be produced to get one.
In my constituency both LibDem and Labour parties are believed to have benefited - no doubt in other areas the Tories, too, have benefited.
It is a huge blot on our democracy.

Joseph

Can't really see Jack Straw losing his seat. Blackburn voting is (roughly speaking) white-chav voting for white-chav, asian voting for asian and a few in the nice little towns outside Blackburn who all wish they lived in Pendle.

Boudicca

Please, please let the odious Balls lose his seat. And if his nauseating wife could also lose hers, it would be the icing on the cake.

Mikey Wood

According to Ian DAle, Eric Pickles has dismissed this as "bunkum". He says there is "no decapitation Strategy". Me thinks this is a silly season story. Unless of course the Telegraph can back up their "Shadow cabinet" source.

David Ossitt

Boudicca.

I might well be wrong but I did read somewhere that Mrs Balls has the safest seat in the cabinet.