Tories plan Operation Tumbleweed for Labour conference 

Northern John

Who cares about the semantic parallels with Major's speech or conference attendee numbers. This is fluff and it depresses me that the Tories waste their time on it.

Pump out press releases about the fact that we borrowed £16.1bn in ONE MONTH during August, the number of people on out of work benefits, the aimless spraying of cash on the NHS, the lack of equipment for our troops. That's what Joe Public cares about.

luke

Interesting tactic.

You would think the tories might be trying to avoid reminding people about the hopelessness of the last tory government.

Norman Dee

This is nonsense, and frankly it's worrying that the Conservatives cannot come up with something better. There are so many better targets, count the lies, mandelsons new house, etc etc.

Hawkeye

I agree with Northern John. The tories should be talking about the massive borrowing requirement, the 10p tax fiasco, printing money and the Attorney General's "one law for me and one for the rest of you unwashed plebs" approach to government.

Whilst we're at it, why not highlight the 6 million on benefits?

Plenty of ammo for Dave & Co.

strapworld

I was mistaken in my view that this was a Tory blog!! Goodness me, it has become a voice of the left.

After ten years of the most incompetent, spendthrift government ever I WANT the Tories to remind people just how rotten this Labour government is.

I would also remind the contributor who said the last Tory Government was rotten. Sorry. It was tired and it needed a spell in opposition BUT they left the country's books in very good order indeed.

Every Labour Government leaves this country broke!

Now, excuse me I must trawl the net for a tory blog.

C

I think people are missing the point here. My guess is that this isn't aimed at the electorate so much but rather to demoralise the Labour faithful.

Nicholas

It worries me that the Tories have not fought hard for the expected privilege of winning the next GE. I'm not jumping on the bandwagon of accusing them of having no policies - if one is prepared to look properly they have set out their stall (it's just that some of the answers remain under the counter or in umarked boxes with no price tag). I am worried that they are going to win power having been a remarkably lazy opposition - and it makes me think that they may therefore exhibit some of the arrogance and complacency that has marked the current regime.

These sort of concerns tend to get attacked here on the basis that traditional conservative viewpoints would make the Tories unelectable but are the Tories really seeking power for its own sake and by a degree of subterfuge? Is the centre ground such a perfect place for strategy? In re-defining the Tory brand and calling for smaller government David Cameron is still burdened with some potentially fascist baggage, most of it coloured green, and the position on Europe (cliché I know) is ambivalent at best.

There is enough unhealthy speculation that Quangoland will be secure to make me uncomfortable, the shadow relationship with the police is still too cosy rather than questioning, concentrating on what they have to tackle rather than on how to tackle it.

Once in power will David Cameron be radical? If so, will it be in a leftist sort of way or conservative with a small 'c'?

Scary Biscuits

This is typical low grade journalism. No source. Not even an indication of a source. Just an opinion stated as thought it is a fact.

john miller

Well, that's really chucking the powder puff at them.

This will play into the hands of those who argue the Tories are the Blairs of 1997 - all spin, smoke and mirrors.

Starting the country off afresh on the sad misguided path that New Labour have trod for the last 12 years isn't what anyone wants.

Why not keep hammering the message that Labour have nearly sunk HMS Britannia?

They have to convince us that Labour's mess will take a pain-filled decade to sort out. Otherwise its P45s in 2015...

David Lindsay

Take out MPs, paid staff, journalists attending as such, and lobbyists, and just how many people are there at any of them these days? They are only still held at all because the BBC inexplicably still puts them on television. And even it now consigns most of the proceedings (if they can be so described) to BBC Parliament.

Kiwi 23

Why aren't they reminding everyone how dire these past 12 years have been and what damage has been inflicted on the country. Pensions, sale of gold, immigration, education (or lack of it) etc etc but mainly, all the lies, lies, lies!

AAE

The Tories will not say anything that takes them over or even close to the bounds of the liberal consensus. They feel it's safer for them to fight over 0.5 per cent of the electorate than to risk courting the 40 per cent who don't vote and thus the entering the unknown territory where, so far, even focus groups haven't gone. Against the damage wrought by our current government and the enormous tasks facing the next, this spoiling plan looks immature and petty - rather like the Conservative front bench really.

Irene

I agree with Luke - they shouldn't compare this lot with the last Tory government, just highlight why people will be voting against them - it's quite simple.

Hysteria

Lets hope this is a clever bluff by the Tories and in fact they are going to come out with a much harder hitting daily rebuttal/counter attack.

Brown's obscene attempt to buy votes with cancer care for one -

I was beginning to think DC had at last grasped the enormity of the challenge - this return to petty point scoring shows they really don't.....

Verity

I agree with John Miller. This is really chucking the powder puff at them! Whoaaah!

In addition, I realise, James Forsythe, that there isn't too much tumbleweed blowing around inside the Beltway, unless you consider Joe Biden's brain, so you may not be familiar with this strange phenomenon, but tumbleweed blows in whatever direction the slightest wisp of a breeze is blowing.

I don't know how the title relates to your post,unless you're of the opinion that David Cameron's mind is as undirected and easily blown around as a ball of tumbleweed.

KB

I don't know if Labour need any more demoralising. I caught a few seconds of a report on Charles Clarke's speech a couple of days ago and there must have been at most a dozen people there. One almost felt sorry for him.

Move the Goalposts

The economy was 'healthy' in 1997.
Everyone knew it - the socialist European governments in particular were envious of our cool NewLabour PM who was one of them and yet stood on the rock of 20 years of Conservative economics, with plenty of grist for his mill. You can't have both you see - socialism and an economy that works.
Well those days are over - in spectacular fashion. John Major and Gordon Brown are not similar. In any meaningful sense their last conference was just that - their last conference. So what. It's like our beloved 'mainstream' historians who seem to think that because the Muscovites rode bikes the same as the citizens of New York, that they both lived in similar countries.

AWoody

I agree with Northern John, it would be a great mistake for the Tories to start labour-bashing as I have accused Labour of Tory-bashing on another spec blog.
You only have to listen to all the phone-in programmes - people want to hear something positive from the Tories. I realise they don't want to reveal their policies yet but they really do need to start being more positive and show why people should vote for them otherwise people will just vote Labour again and say well they have been in power this long we might as well keep them.