Will we soon see a Cambridge Conservative version of this?
While Conservatives in many southern regions celebrated their well deserved success at local elections, those in Cambridge must only have felt despair and wretchedness.
They lost their only remaining seat on Cambridge City Council. The 42 members are now made up of 29 Lib Dems and 13 Labour members.
Neither are there any Cambridge Conservative members sitting on the county council, though they are the ruling party.
Yet at one time they led Cambridge City Council and Cambridge had a Tory MP up until 1992, only to be snatched by Labour and last year Lib Dems.
So it was hardly surprising to see this stark headline in the Cambridge Evening News’: “Dodo bird: extinct, City Tories: ditto”.
This means there is not one person to express the Conservative point of view in Cambridge, a very regrettable and lamentable position.
Coun John Powley, who led the city Conservatives during their heyday was quoted in the report as saying:
“Conservatives in Cambridge city have got to work extremely hard to convince the public that their policies are right for the city of Cambridge.”
More than hard work is required and I immediately phoned John to discuss this and see if I could help get the right message across by offering my PR experience.
It’s not good enough to say there is no budget, that’s the easy way out. The party needs to get the right message across using a variety of different methods, PR is just one, but it’s an essential one.
Cambridge needs vibrant and enthusiastic Conservative candidates who are prepared to work hard by joining local groups and associations and leading headline hitting campaigns, not just giving it lip service. They must prove they genuinely want to help and improve the quality of life and services for local people.
Cambridge is supposed to have some of the best brains in the country, lets start using them.
It’s a shame – I originally come from that part of the woods (well nearly – my MP was Malcome Moss). In fact, once I return from my current lofty heights, I would like to move to Cambridge. It has good employment prospects for me and is a lovely city!
I would have thought Cambridge would have quite a strong Conservative body, just like Oxford.
Do you know what happened?
I remember covering Cambridge City Council as a reporter in the early 80s when there was an abundance of Tory members.
I’m not sure what happened, that’s why elected members should remember they are on borrowed time and should never take the electorate for granted. They have long memories and bear grudges.
I remember talking to students last year about why they would not vote for Anne Campbell as their MP again – her vote regarding Iraq and tuition fees, they remembered her treachery.
Ironic really. Just as Iain Dale starts listing the councils with no Lib Dems, nice to know there are some Tory deserts too…. 🙂
http://iaindale.blogspot.com
fsgSpeaking as a former Oxfordshire man I’m not surprised one bit. We always knew there where some queer folk in Cambridge, which probably explains the lack of Conservatives there.
To be fair, there were some intractable Labour strongholds in Oxford as well, but since New Labour have presided over the accelerated decline of the motor industry, I suspect the Tory vote in parts of Oxford like Cowley may be recovering.
… well i don’t know if your political parties are like our’s here in the states, but i imagine they may be worse as our system is a derivative of your’s … but boy, it would sure be nice if there were less in the way of politicians and more in the way of human beings making decisions all around the world … these politicans just need to go home, take an ethics class or two, while their at it, maybe a anthropology course … if we’re lucky a macroeconomic course and a sociology lecture or two … i hope you have better luck cultivating true leadership than we have here on the other side of the pond!
peace & harmony,
elaine
‘freedom must be exercised to stay in shape!’
We need to put across a good positive message ( I’m sure your the ideal person on that angle ) and make people feal good about voting Conservative and being Conservatives again – rather than worried about being denounced by their neighbours and friends. (David Cameron seems to grasp this point.)
But also its time to expose the Lib Dems for what they really are – talks of potential coalintion with the Lib Dems help here.
And lets get more intrested in local politics, and point out what changes and improvements we can make for our towns and cities..
Man in a shed is right, of course, but we have to have the right calibre candidate in the first place, and they need to be local. I’m sure the Cons Ass in Cambridge is doing what it can to attract this kind of new blood.
I do hope we don’t just sit back and accept not having a presence in Cambridge – it’s frustrating that we have been squeezed out but the worst thing to do would be nothing.
In many ways the camraderie of a small association is much better than the organised bun-fight that a big Association can turn out to be.
Good luck
OK, the Conservatives lost its last seat on the City Council. But overall in the City our vote went up 6%.
That shows real progress, in fact in terms of strength this is perhaps better than retaining that seat or gaining an extra one. Remember that is about the same Vote that the Lib Dems got Nationally on 4th May – except the Conservative Vote in Cambridge is on the up. If I were a Cambridge Lib Dem (God forbid) I would be worried about last weeks Vote, not gloating.