New Conservative Future Branch For Birmingham

Birmingham is well known in Conservative circles for the activities of the branch based out of Birmingham University which has over a 100 members. However, there has been a gap in the market for an organisation serving all young Conservatives in the city and especially those who don't go to Birmingham University. For example, my home association has several members from Aston University. Well this weakness is being rectified with the creation of a new Conservative Future for Birmingham. Conservative members from the city (including the university) can claim automatic membership or you can join up by coming along to one of the regular events the organisation has planned.

Three of the four founding members were council candidates in May. Best of luck to Amil, Gareth, Gary and Louise with making a success of this welcome initiative. For more, go to their website or mail the Committee at birminghamcf@gmail.com.

Tax Simplification Idea

Now that the Office for Tax Simplification has been set up, I suppose they will be looking for ideas. Mine would be to abolish all property taxes (council tax, stamp duty, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, business rates and telly tax) and replace with land value taxation. Further reading on the case for land value tax, here.

Golden Boy

I didn't expect to be saying this, but my firstborn has bowled me over. Adam is, without doubt, the cutest baby. He's only 2 months, but has been smiling since he was 3 weeks old. Of course, he will smile back at you now, but he also smiles with his eyes - and melts your heart in the process.


He's also been able to hold his head up since a very young age and flatters you with his full attention by lifting his head and staring at you when he's lying down on his front.


He's a real water baby who loves being washed. Even at his baptism he didn't cry. This picture of Adam in the bath turned out beautifully.


I can happily spend hours watching Adam sleep. In between him mouthing something or other and waving his arms about, he looks like this.


Dads can sometimes feel useless, but I found my niche as a winding specialist. I would tap or rub his back to try to get trapped air to rise. Thing is Adam started to massage me back. That's what he is doing in this picture.


How cute is that? To cap off, he was looking pretty alert and aware of the camera in this photo which I have made my facebook profile for now.


My personal view is that the time of maximum cuteness has passed - we shall see.

Mutley The Dog RIP

It is with sadness that I report to those who haven't heard that Robert Chambers who ran the mutleythedog website passed away suddenly in the early hours of Friday 21 May. A webpage has been set up where his many online and offline friends have left suitable tributes to the man. Robert certainly knew satire and had a genius for making serious points via wacky fantasies.

I was fortunate enough to meet him offline as well as online. One evening in early March 2007 he came to visit Prague on some EU quango conference. My recollection of our conversation remains vivid. Not only did he provide political and blogging inspiration, but his demeanour taught me a few things about how to engage with other people.

We both had lots of fun on our blogs embellishing our adventures. I have tagged blogposts that involved Mutley which included a few days in July 2007 when he took on a pro-European alter-ego in my absence to wind up some of my regular site visitors. My favourites were Mutley the Dog's Night Out in Prague and a provocative post on a United Europe (see the comments!).

Now that I am a Conservative constituency chairman, I look back on those more carefree blogging days with fondness and won't forget Robert's support. A true libertarian, he didn't live his life like a dress rehearsal, yet exuded a natural kindness. God bless and RIP.

Disenfranchised Voters

St Paul's in the Jewellery Quarter is one of the most picturesque polling stations in Birmingham. Serving the north of the Ladywood ward, it is also a polling station where the Conservatives do relatively well. However, the number of voters it serves is crazy. Latest information suggests it has 3,008 voters. For comparison the polling station with the second highest number of voters in the ward has an electorate of 2,117.

This large electorate has been a source of frustration for some time. It means some voters have quite a trek to place their cross and I believe that other Conservative politicians in the city have made representations to have further polling stations made available in Ladywood ward. On Thursday, we experienced another unfortunate consequence of the current arrangements. Having popped in in the morning I arrived at the polling station at about 6pm and already the queues were growing. At this stage, it was just inside the church, but within a short time, it extended into the street as my photo shows. On the one hand, it is a sign of higher turnout, but when I saw people in the slow-moving queue giving up on the democratic process I had to go into the station to let the two staff manning the station know that the queue now extended well outside the church and that people were walking away. I told them that anything they could do to speed up would be appreciated.

Obviously, I left to prepare for the count, but I did send texts to friends I know in the Jewellery Quarter asking whether they had voted and to get a move on. Next sign of a problem was when a friend sent me a text at 10.10 saying 'still voting now'. It is reported that 100 people were turned away from the polling station at around 10 O'Clock some of whom had turned up as early as nine. And you can add on the people who left the queue or decided not to vote based on the queue to the numbers who were disenfranchised.

If any of my readers can shed more light on the matter, I suggest checking out this statement from Birmingham Council. The action that needs to be taken now is obvious. Have another polling station in the Jewellery Quarter to relieve the potential bottlenecks and put more voters within easy access of polling stations. I would suggest the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter.

The Best 5 Things About The Election

Here are the 5 things that pleased me the most (bearing in mind that Brown's hold on Downing Street whilst precarious is not yet gone).

1. Expenses Villains Paying The Price

Jacqui Smith getting the boot from Redditch was my favourite moment. I take the view that she had a cheek even standing, so seeing her go down on a swing over 9% was gratifying. Honourable mentions to Shaheed Malik (Dewsbury) and Ann Keen (Dewsbury) who were also deposed.

2. Increasing Vote Share In Ladywood

The challenges we faced were huge. For a start, we risked being squeezed as the third runner in a two-horse race and only picked our Parliamentary candidate in February. Put this into the context of national voting patterns showing that Labour shored up their vote in the inner cities (flip-side of winning the immigration debate?) our candidate's performance was excellent.

3. Warwickshire North

Dan Byles took Warwickshire North with a majority of 54! I got to know Dan when I was working in his constituency. I know that the incumbent put up a big fight to keep Dan out, but Dan fought a smashing campaign and will be a great advocate for his area.

4. Weoley Castle

On the Tuesday of the election I spent a full day in Weoley Castle ward which was won by just 150 votes. Unfortunately, we lost three Conservative councillors in Birmingham in similar wards, so the extra effort and campaigning that Peter, Adrian and Eddie have done in Weoley was crucial.

5. Other Local Wins

Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South-West), Chris Kelly (Dudley South), and Margot James (Stourbridge) were all confident of winning and did so. I expect them to be MPs for a long time and to do great things to promote the Conservative cause in the West Midlands.

The Change Clegg Can't Offer

David Cameron can commit not to coalesce with Labour to prop up Gordon Brown. If he's the change from the past he says he is, Clegg should be able to match this commitment. He can't. Being as it seems to be the time when the electorate are listening, one of the leadership debates seems a good time to lay down the challenge to Clegg on this important point.

Debt Clock

In the light of the above a caption competition seems apt. Complete the political T-shirt slogan.

By the time you've read this T-shirt...

Own Goal Campaigning Posters

Can it really be so difficult for political parties and organisations to put together campaign posters that don't harm their own case?

Exhibit One From Labour


Sounds good?

Exhibit Two From Unite


My instinctive reaction was that looks sharp, good. It's an interesting campaigning angle to attack your opponent for making cuts when a clear majority of the public support that position. Makes you think that the Tories are going to be the best party to do the work you think is required.

In the interests of balance, I don't think that the Tory posters that only run on Brown's image and 'achievements' are very special.

Time For Change

Back in 2007 the Conservative Party revealed that they would be using the "Time For Change" slogan. Here in Birmingham Ladywood we've adopted it in our literature. As the graphic shows, so have the local Lib Dems.


You'd have thought this attractive pair would be able to rely on their natural charm. ;-)