Its taken me a while ...

Well, its only taken me about 4 months to start blogging; been quite a busy old time what with the local elections, various other things and then the Bedford Mayoral Election last week.

It is the latter that I want to talk about today - as is quite widely known, the Conservatives came second and basically what could quite easily have been a winning campaign was torpedoed right at the start (http://www.bedfordshire-news.co.uk/bedsonsunday-news/displayarticle.asp?id=450415) and then finally scuttled on Polling Day (http://www.bedfordtoday.co.uk/bed-news/Mayoral-race-Senior-Tories-predict.5735938.jp).

When you are part of a campaign team, as I was in this case supporting Parvez, you expect to be in a 2, 3 or 4 way fight against the opposing parties - in this case a 4-way fight against the Lib Dems, Labour, Green and Independents. That's the easy part. You know where you stand. What you don't expect is to have your own people forming part of the opposition to the campaign, or even sabotaging it!

Well, the person responsible has been suspended from the Party for two years. http://conservativehome.blogs.com/localgovernment/2009/10/bedford-conservative-group-leader-and-deputy-mayor-suspended-from-party-for-two-years.html There is a lot of comment on ConHome and in other places, some of which I agree with, some I don't. Basically, the local Party Chairman's email (quoted on the BBC News website) sums up the position, which is the same as my view on the matter.

The basic argument seems to be with the way the Open Primary - or to be correct, Open Caucus - was conducted. I wasn't there, but personally I can see nothing wrong with it. The best of the bunch won on the night, and if he was able to get his own supporters along to the meeting, that is quite fair enough. All the other candidates had exactly the same opportunity, whether or not they chose to use that opportunity is up to them.

But why these Open Primaries - or Caucuses? I can see exactly where DC and CCHQ are coming from with them. I have been involved with local elections for over twenty years and I have steadily seen turnout drop to, in some cases, less than 20% on polling day, particularly over the last twelve years. A decision has been made to re-engage with the voters, to try and get them interested once again.

There is a need to attract the most suitable candidates to stand for the Party, be that in Local or Parliamentary Elections. Not wishing to disparage the valuable work that our local Associations do, but in some places its still the case that selection of candidates is down to a room full of the ubiquitous "blue rinse brigade" or the "retired Colonel" faction. Now there's nothing wrong with that in a de-centralised Party, but in a few cases candidates are being chosen by this method either on the basis of their appeal to the selection committee (which may not necessarily be the same as their appeal to the voters) or on the principle of "buggins's turn" - which cannot necessarily encourage new blood and people with fresh ideas who have not been mired in years of town hall politics.

The news is out today that Mayor 'Plod' Hodgson has announced his Cabinet. As expected, filled with his Lib Dem cronies with two portfolios - Adult Services and Childrens Services - offered to the Conservatives. Given that it is now almost certain that the two-tier/three-tier debate is going to hot up, and given the Mayor's commitment to two-tier, this is something of a poisoned chalice given that if the Conservative Group accept either of these posts the Mayor has effectively stifled any opposition from the Conservatives. A clever bit of political manoeuvering on his part.