You don’t want to say that

Here’s the Guardian’s website reporting William Hague’s defence of David Cameron today:

“Speaking at a press conference in central London, Mr Hague also dismissed claims that Mr Cameron was failing to bolster Tory support in the north. He said the party had raised more money from northern donors in the first seven months of this year than it had over the whole of last year.”

This strikes me as entirely the wrong metric for Hague to use as it means that when another Tory donor takes pot shots at the leadership in public, as they surely will, the media will have a justification for treating it as a major story.  On today of all days, Hague would have been better off talking about council seats gained, members added or candidates selected in the north–basically, anything other than donors.