02 February 2007

Fisking Partisan Jibes

Sloppy, inaccurate posting at Labour Home concerning the news that the Tory Conference will be held at Birmingham in 2008. The comments are just as misinformed/moronic. I hope you agree that the following fisking is fully deserved.
According to reports on Conservative Home, Birmingham's (Tory-administered) Council has bunged the Tory Pary £2million to host their 2007 Conference in the City.

I think you'll find that it is a discount.
Apparently, the justification for giving a political party £2million of taxpayers money is that the amount of business it will generate will greatly exceed this "investment" - the figure £25 million is mentioned. Well, I can't see how it will raise a single penny in income for the Council - so this is a ludicrous assertion.

No. Yours is the ludicrous and badly informed assertion. NEC Ltd which runs the city's conference venues is 50% owned by the council. Therefore, a significant proportion of the income from the conference will benefit the city's coffers directly.
If local businesses who may well benefit from the dosh pouring out of Tory delegates' and other hangers-ons' pockets, want to bribe the Conservatives, I have no problem with that: how private businesses spend their money isn't my concern. But using taxpayers' money - including a large majority of taxpayers who do not support, let alone contribute to the Tory Party, is outrageous. I'm not sure it's even legal.

Marketing Birmingham (in which the council has a minority stake) has been trying to get all three major parties to hold their conferences in Birmingham. This has been supported by all three major parties leaders - Bore for Labour, Whitby for the Tories and Tilsley of the Lib Dems - although it was reported in September that the Labour group in the city opposed trying to get the Labour Party to come! (don't ask me why).
And for the record, it would have been as outrageous if Manchester Council had bunged Labour £2million to net the 2006 Conference.

Do you know what subvention is? Marketing Manchester has a subvention policy for conferences hosted in the city. If cash-strapped Labour didn't manage to get a discount for their event, that's just another example of Labour incompetence.
Oh, and yet again, we see Lib Dems complicit in this maladministration, given that they're the larger party in Birmingham's coalition.

Wrong again!!! There are 41 Conservative councillors and 32 Lib Dems in the ruling coalition in Birmingham. There will be more after the May elections though (haha).
Typical.

This economically illiterate and woefully inaccurate post is a typical partisan jibe.

In other news a former Labour PPC reckons that his comrades should turn up waving placards and throwing eggs. What a bunch of idiots.

6 comments:

Newmania said...

You really are stepping up to the mark aren`t you P. I notice that on the right you often get poltically coloured interpretations of societal events and legislation whereas on the left its all nitty picky interblog truthinessing.
I womder why it is they are so unwilling to discuss the intellectual rationale to the whole "Labour" enterprise.

I fear I `m heading towards saying somehting like "Down to their level"... but what else can you say

Anonymous said...

Prague tory you're even sadder than ian Dale

Andreas Paterson said...

PT, on Conservative home you suggest that other cities offer far larger sums than 2m for conference, do you have any evidence to this effect?

Figures on the size of subvention payments are hard to come by, since they seem to be commercially sensitive. The closet thing to a set of figures I could find were on page 82 of this report. Containing, what is generally believed to be on offer in terms of payments, the report suggests (among other things) that Manchester has a £1million annual pot for subvention grants.

Praguetory said...

Bryan - it's spelt Iain and Praguetory is all one word. CA, I have heard £5m quoted by others but can't find further evidence. However, I have close friends who have worked in destination marketing so I'll try to give you a solid example. Might not be until after the weekend. I'm estimating that the Brum deal represents a 40% discount to full rates. When you consider that most conferences only last a day and a Party conference goes over four days, it makes economic sense for the organisers to give a discount. I have to admit that the way this announcement was reported invited criticism.

CityUnslicker said...

Bryan this was good. Go sort to your own lawn.

Peter Smallbone said...

Conference will be happening in my ward in Birmingham: Ladywood. See you all there!