I read this bit on their climate change and energy [sic] page

“we have the natural resources to generate wind and wave power,”

At first I thought they were planning to generate power from wind and waves – but then I read it more carefully and this is what hey really mean:

“we have the natural resources to generate wind” and also
“we have the natural resources to wave power”

so they are going to generate wind and also then wave power around….

You can see New Labour losing support from 1997 on, both in vote share, and turnout. They have not been a popular government for a very long time. But Labour’s loss of support did not produce an increase in support for the Conservatives, until Mr Cameron became leader.

Cameron has succeeded where Major, Hague, IDS, and Howard all failed.

Ed West has a short piece on the Telegraph’s website about the rivalry between social and liberal conservatives, is this perhaps what you meant by your description of IDS as a socialist?

Iain Martin suggested that Mr Cameron’s success, is attributable to his fusion of these two wings of Conservatism:

It’s not just that he’s a winner, he appears to be that certainly. It is rather that he is trying to forge together the best of two Tory traditions that for most of the last 30 years have been in opposition to each other. Indeed one has defined itself by difference from the other. All along he’s been trying to meld the “One Nation” we’re-all-in-this-together Toryism with the best of Thatcherite economic dynamism. His speech was the best explanation yet of what that combination might do for his country.

I’ve said this for several years now: Potentially Cameron conservatism is a killer electoral mix. That’s why smart Labour people are really worried.

Unemployed whites in Ohio were told to vote for somebody who wasn’t going to give them a job, and they did. It can be amazing the difference a church roll makes.

“It’s hard to believe there was a doubt about how that election would turn out – hindsight is a wonderful and terrible thing.”

We had doubts, the people working for the campaign, we were often torn,

but we scraped together everything we could, in the places that mattered, and we got thru. The democrats are the monolithic money-engine, one has to fight against them on a targeted grass roots basis.

Democrats are good at brutal hand to hand campaigning.

Tazia

Cameron is not likeable unless you are the kind who “cleaves to power”, i.e. you follow whomsoever gives you the impression of winning.

Alas, there are plenty who have that idea of “nice”.

The Conservatives were around 37% at the end of 2005 when Labour were still looking like they were doing quite well (low unemployment, housing still booming). The Conservatives are now on about 38%. They’ve gained very little from Labour’s loss in the polls.

My point is that they might not have seen the immediate recovery that Cameron gave them, but a more solid Conservative who seemed like a man for a crisis might now be in a stronger position.

Is there a chance that he could be the Kerry of British Politics – utterly failing to capitalise on an utterly hated incumbent?

You see? You’ve made a basic mistake here. Bush wasn’t utterly hated—he was utterly hated by a certain sort of American (mainly the despicable lefty arseholes that we’d never side with in a million years), but many Americans—the majority, in fact—liked him. Which is why he got a second term.

I don’t think that anyone (sane) likes Brown, do they? Anyone at all…?

DK

Before Mr Cameron became leader of the Conservative Party, they’d been flat-lining for a decade. Now they’re favourites to win the next election.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention

I’ve no idea how you’ve managed to perceive IDS as a socialist. Do tell.

I said at the time that they elected the lightweight that they could be picking the wrong leader for the wrong times.

When times are booming, you can talk about spending money on luxuries like looking after the polar bears. Come the bad times, people don’t care. They’re more worried about keeping a roof over their heads.

All that work de-toxifying the brand has left the Conservatives with a leader who looks like he’s following the times rather than being prepared for them. So keen were they to establish themselves as pro- public spending that attempts to now paint themselves as being a prudent party look like just another form of rebranding (while at the same time trying to hang on to some bits of IDS’ pseudo-socialism).

That said, Brown is such a disaster that Cameron will win, and get a majority. But it won’t be that big and I wouldn’t be surprised if he only gets 1 term.

…we can simply tear up all the EU treaties, and leave.

Who will come after us, and with what?

Who will buy all the frantically-peddled EU goods with English instructions all over the packs, and with what? China? India? Japan? Brazil? Bankrupt Obama?

Let’s just go.

Cameron’s missed his chance to say so, and to clean up. Too bad. But we can go.