Clacton RoadTrip [Video]

On Sunday the Conservatives struck back at Douglas Carswell. Over 150 Conservatives activists braved the heavy rain to campaign for Giles Watling, who will hopefully replace Carswell as MP for Clacton on Thursday. We reached all parts of the constituency canvassing residents and delivering patriotic leaflets to the people in what is a very beautiful part of Essex. The weather was the only downside, but whilst UKIP stayed in doors the Conservatives worked hard. Let's hope all this effort pays off.

Exclusive: Carswell's Letter To People of Clacton

UKIP have already started campaigning in the Clacton by-election with a letter come leaflet. The letter spells out why Carswell left the Conservatives. The leaflet has an anti-establishment feel.

It's A Sad Day, But Don't Count The Conservatives Out

Today has been a sad day for the Conservative movement with the defection of Douglas Carswell to UKIP. People on the libertarian right-wing of are shocked, filled with disbelief, and are quite sad at Carswell's departure. Whatever banner he is standing under now his ideology is right. #ThingsElliottSays has shown admiration for Douglas Carswell on a number of occasions and is saddened by his departure.

The Conservatives are sad to see Carswell defect.

But clearly Douglas has forgotten about how these principles can be implemented and has joined UKIP, even though they are now a far cry from the libertarianism he represents.This country needs the Conservatives to win the next general election because if not we'll have to suffer the most left-wing government since the 1970s. What Douglas has sadly done is abandoned this position and made what he wants a lot harder to achieve.

And so to cut a long story short there is going to be a by-election in Clacton. This will be a very hard fight, much harder than Newark. But thank god we had Newark because the Conservatives now have a winning campaign strategy. Furthermore, even though we won that by-election there were many errors made which cost us thousands of votes. These however have now been learnt. Because #ThingsElliottSays was the Nottinghamshire CF Chairman at the time of Newark he knows about these mistakes and that they have now been fixed.

#ThingsElliottSays and Nottingham peeps in Newark.

CCHQ has learnt a lot of lessons in the way it runs by-elections and campaigns against UKIP. Despite what the national media made out and what it looked llike to the ordinary activist. It was not all plain sailing Newark for the party. There were several errors made in the way campaigning was organised but CCHQ has now done something about this. We now know how to make the waters smoother when it comes to the campaigning machine.

The Conservatives campaign is going to be much more well oiled in Clacton.

The Party will also try and get many more people to come. I suspect there will be more visits made by those on the PAB, more visits by committed Conservative MPs (there are a lot in East Anglia), and more importantly a Party Conference beforehand to rally even more Conservatives to the cause.

Expect to see these chaps out and about a lot more.

RoadTrip is also going to be much bigger as well. I expect there to be a sizeable increase in the 600 RoadTrippers who went to Newark. CCHQ now puts a lot of energy into CCHQ for starters. What is more the RoadTrip now has a united #TeamPaterson in the CF national exec. It is almost priceless to have a CF 100% committed to RoadTrip2015. Long gone are the days of petulant girls or people living in Dubai throwing spanners in the works.

Carswell is odds on to win this by-election but there are plenty of insider reasons why the Conservatives can actually win. #ThingsElliottSays can't wait to go for another seaside RoadTrip and have a cigar from Robert Halfon MP.

War With Syria was a Bad Idea - That's Why the Government Lost

Conservative MPs Who Voted Against the Government Motion

David Amess
Steve Baker
Richard Bacon
John Baron
Andrew Bingham
Crispin Blunt
Fiona Bruce
Tracey Crouch
David TC Davies
Philip Davies
David Davis
Nick de Bois
Richard Drax
Gordon Henderson
Philip Hollobone
Adam Holloway
Dr Phillip Lee
Dr Julian Lewis
Tim Loughton
Jason McCartney
Nigel Mills
Anne Marie Morris
Andrew Percy
Sir Richard Shepherd
Sir Peter Tapsell
Andrew Turner
Martin Vickers
Charles Walker
Chris White
Dr Sarah Wollaston

Conservative MPs Who Abstained on the Government Motion

Adam Afriyie
Henry Bellingham
Graham Brady
William Cash
Christopher Chope
Kenneth Clarke
Geoffrey Cox
Nadine Dorries
Alan Duncan
David Gauke
Justine Greening
Alan Haselhurst
Chris Kelly
Pauline Latham
Edward Leigh
Charlotte Leslie
Ian Liddell-Grainger
Jack Lopresti
Anne Main
Patrick Mercer
Jesse Norman
James Paice
Priti Patel
John Redwood
Andrew Rosindell
David Ruffley
Mark Simmonds
Rory Stewart
David Tredinnick
Andrew Tyrie
Bill Wiggin
Tim Yeo

Last Night the Government lost a motion on Syria by 13 votes, even though it didn't sanction military action. What the motion did was back the Government's legal position for going to war and in principle agree to it. Yet the Government couldn't even win this. Above is the list of Conservative MPs who voted against the motion and those who abstained (some of those who abstained are missing government ministers and some are ill). This was not because of  the spectre of Iraq or that it's not in the British Interest. The Government lost because this was clearly the worst idea ever.

Normally I'm pretty pro intervention. I was in full support of what happened in Libya because we allowed the Libyan people to get rid of a brutal tyrant and get them started on the path to democracy. Not everything is perfect in Libya at the moment but there is a democratic government which is starting to assert itself. People who would normally back intervention to save civilians lives and to allow a democracy in Libya did not back last night's motion in the Conservative Party and that is why the Government lost.

 Libya was a success, despite some problems afterwards. The only people who really regret toppling Gaddafi are George Galloway and the Russians who passed the UN motion.

Despite convincing hard-line sceptics like Douglas Carswell and Cheryl Gillian to vote with the Government David Cameron still lost this vote. And this was not the usual ground of Dr Sarah Wollaston either. The Noes on their side had MPs who you would not expect in this lobby. The abstentions are even more surprising. If we miss out the odd story of Justine Greening not hearing the division bell, you can see Adam Afriyrie and Jesse Norman not voting for the Government. Why did this happen?

 You know you have problems when those you would expect to back the Bill do not.

It wasn't to do with Iraq. For sure there were a lot of mentions of it but they came mostly from the Labour side. Labour has a problem with Iraq because they are of a mind set not to agree to intervention. Yet when Labour MPs sat on the government benches their own Prime Minister pushed for war and lied in the process. As a result they got a hammering in the polls of 2005. Speak to a Labour MP for a short time and Oona King will soon come up. Many of the electorate were also wary about Syria because of Iraq but in whole probably no more than in Libya. 74% of voters is such a huge number that it was clearly not Iraq which decided for them not to back Syria intervention. 

  Iraq caused a big problem for the Left but the facts caused a problem for the Conservatives.

David Cameron lost last night because, probably a lot like me, Conservative MPs could see this was going to be a disaster based on all the facts of Syria. A country where we would have to engage in a 3 way war. A country where we risked causing massive tensions with Iran and Russia. A country where there was no chance of bringing about a democracy. A country where we could quite clearly make no difference, or maybe make things worse, in saving civilian lives. A country where we were rushing over a short time to start action with little preparation. And also a country where our military chiefs said the most likely outcome for the UK would be defeat. This wasn't like Iraq at all, it was clearly much more complicated and much worse to get involved with.

I simply cannot believe that David Cameron, and William Hague too (who will be a bit nervous now so close to a reshuffle), thought that he could carry his party when all the facts went against him. I wasn't expecting Government defeat last night, but most sensible people knew that, with 80 Tory MPs against arming the rebels earlier this year, there was no way he was going to get Parliament to vote for war. What clearly happened was that David Cameron had decided to go to war perhaps even a year before, he had been swayed by all the graphic images we were seeing on our TV.

 William Hague has lost most of his credibility as a top rate statesman after the Syrian issues.

What Assad is doing is horrible beyond belief but if the PM hadn't allowed his heart to take over all logical thinking he wouldn't have lost a vote. With all the information at his disposal he should have known better than everyone that the facts showed we were unable to help and most likely we would make things worse. 

I'm going to follow this up with another post later about what has actually come of this vote.

NUCA Westminster Trip

On Tuesday NUCA went on a trip to Westminster organised brilliantly by our 2012/2013 Vice-President, Luke, and Publicity Secretary, Jack. We had a great day seeing Conservative MPs and what is going on in Parliament. 

News at Ten, NUCA goes to Westminster. 

We arrived at Westminster around 10:50 to meet Chloe Smith MP. Chloe was known as the 'baby of the house' during the last parliament but now she has come of age with her obvious talent showing through. She was Economic Secretary to the Treasury and now is in the Cabinet Office, where she also has to work with Nick Clegg. Chloe emphasised on our visit the amount of waste that has been cut in the Cabinet Office. So far the Conservatives have cut £20 billion so that we can tackle our deficit problem.

Chloe Smith is a really lovely lady.

Next up was Adam Holloway MP, he is Luke's MP from Gravesham. Adam seemed very relaxed and gave us free reign to ask us questions. He took a keen interest in Jamie's tie and also my arm braces, to hold up my sleeves. I really enjoyed meeting Adam, he was really fun and told us some really good stories especially about his previous life as a journalist.  

Douglas Carswell came on afterwards. He spoke a lot about his plans of democratic reform from open primaries to the right of recall. I personally agree with Douglas Carswell, the people do know best and should get the final say. He pointed out to us that Parliament is not as steeped in tradition as we may think, our electoral system is not very old at all. For example, before 1918, if a backbench MP was selected to be a government minister he had to resign his seat and fight a by-election to get the people's approval.

Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless with the NUCA group.

Mark Reckless then came to speak to us and talked about the problems with a coalition government in general. I'm not a big coalition fan. If there was to be another hung parliament in 2015, although I believe the Conservatives can win, I do not think that either Labour or the Tories will want to do it again. Coalitions are a tainted brand and rightly so in my opinion. 

In the committee rooms tea was available. We should make a cut and stop using Twinings and have Yorkshire Tea instead.

After all this we went to lunch where we were joined by Colonel Cooper but more importantly our life President John Hayes. As I have said before, I like John Hayes and I told him that I was very pleased with the results he promised on wind turbines after the NUCA Dinner. It is good to see that the final decision on these turbines lies with local people and not some court, very much detached from the local people. John talked to us about his role as an MP in balancing his work in Downing Street and in South Holland and the Deepings, my next door constituency as it happens. We also engaged in a very philosophical debate about liberalism and conservatism and the right and left spectrum within the Conservative Party. For example Douglas Carswell who is very classical liberal is more right than David Cameron, although he is a definite One Nation Conservative.

John Hayes and NUCA outside the House.

During this time we spied many MPs. Ed Balls and Ed Miliband walked past us having a 'heated discussion', Labour has such cooperative front bench. MPs from Tim Faron, Dr Therese Coffey and John Redwood were also spotted when walking around Portcullis House and the Houses of Parliament. The Speaker was also playing Tennis on the lawn outside, so all in all we saw most of the important people in politics.

The chap in the white shirt is the Speaker.

After Lunch we met Adam Afriyie. Someone asked the obvious question on him standing for the leadership and Adam said that the closest he ever came to challenging David Cameron was saying once that if we lose in 2015 and David Cameron steps down he may try to become leader. Adam pointed out he is a Cameron loyalist, putting donations toward his own campaign to be leader. Other questions we asked him showed he has very good business experience and believes we should start a Conservative Reform. Reform of the modern Tory Party so that it emphasises more business and with other key issues of the day, but is not going backwards to where we opposed many socially liberal policies. Adam wants us all to cheer whenever we hear a company making profits as it means that more jobs will be created and people will be better off. The mood at the moment is more of the left where profit equals oppression, which is very far from the truth.

No wonder Conservatives complain Cameron is too left wing, the only papers we could find in Parliament are left leaning. 

Last but not least was Robert Halfon who gave a good speech on Neo-Conservativism. Robert has stuck his neck out and said that we should not shun intervention and bring freedom to those who are oppressed by tyrannical regimes. He says we have adopted a semi-appeasement stance at the moment and this should not continue. Rob believes that intervention works and pointed to Kurdistan in Iraq, where Sadam killed thousands of his own people with chemical weapons in a genocide. But now Kurdistan is a fairly peaceful region, there hasn't been a suicide attack in the area for many years. Intervention does not necessarily mean sending in the tanks however. In Syria Robert believes that we should have created safe zones for innocent civilians and wishes to put greater emphasis on international aid to winning hearts and minds. Thanks goes to ex-NUCA lady Emily Burditt for helping to get Robert to speak to us. 

Group photo with the Great Robert Halfon MP

Our Trip to Westminster was great and I really enjoyed it. The speakers were very good and showed how many talented individuals we have as MPs. 

Crunch Time

Today the EU Referendum Bill has been published today. The Majority of the Conservative Party, including many Cabinet Ministers, were going to vote for the Queen's Speech amendment against Dave's wishes. He had to do something and he made the right decision.

So what does the future lie in store. Douglas Carswell today said that all he wanted from David Cameron is an acceptable situation; where Carswell could say to the PM 'that will do'. The moment this Bill gets brought forward there is virtually irrefutable proof that the Conservative Party wants a referendum on the EU. Some MPs like Ken Clarke will vote against this Bill because they still secretly want us to join the Euro, but I would think over 95% of the Party will back it.

'That'll do, Prime Minister. That'll do.'

But is this Bill enough? Well it promises the referendum in 2017, yet the majority of opinion wants it just before 2015 or on the election day itself. Personally I think just before will be better because, despite the money saved if it is on the same day of the General Election, it will be very hard for people to concentrate well enough on two major campaigns on one day. I thus personally think some MPs will still push forward with the 2015 plan and try with amendments to get it in, a sizeable number will sign up to this but not the majority of the Party. 

The main question is will this Bill get through in this parliament? I think taht because of the electoral pressure currently on the Lib Dems they will allow government time to be used for the Bill. However, the Lib Dems will not support the Bill itself, despite being the only party that promised it in 2010*.

The Lib Dems are Liars. Cleggers should be ashamed.

However, the big question is will Red Ed back the referendum? He may have to even if he doesn't support it. He'd be on the wrong side of history and he must know that. A few Labour MPs will  back the Bill anyway and Red Ed could offer a free vote on the matter. But I think he will be indecisive, which may pan out worse than not backing the Bill.

As a last word Tory MPs, make sure you back this Bill. 

Crunch Time for Red Ed on Europe. If he makes the Wrong decision it could be over for him.

*They're great at keeping promises these Liberals, they give decent politicians a bad name.

Exclusive: #thingsdouglascarswellsays

#thingselliottsays exclusively reveals what Douglas Carswell said to a number of questions.

Q: Will the government plan to renegotiate on immigration with the European Union?
A: Immigration is a big issue with a massive impact on Britain with anyone from Calais to the Urals able to migrate to the UK. This needs to be addressed. The greatest impact is on benefits. I would never like to see a situation where you would have to bring a passport to a hospital to be treated by the NHS, but we need border controls as the cost is too great to provide for other European citizens. We have the technology allowing this but, unlike in both Australia and Switzerland, there is a lack of will to do so. Frankly, the leaders of the British Border Agency are clots for not doing anything. What I do want migration wise is for reciprocal migration in places where British people do go to live and work, like UK citizens going to live in Spain. Some countries should be open, but you do not see many people from the UK going to Romania.

Q: What is the government’s bottom line on what it wants to achieve in its EU negotiations?
A: The way I see it, David Cameron has left himself wiggle room to come out of the EU if he has to, if the EU offers no or token repatriated powers. It would be not only dishonourable for the Prime Minister’s first stance to recommend an out vote but allow him no wiggle room for an out vote. At the moment it would take me four things to want to stay in the EU. Firstly, I would have no jurisdiction for European courts in the UK. Secondly, I would not want single market technical rules to apply to products destined for trade with the rest of the world. Three, I’d like the British government to make free trade agreements with other countries. Other countries have this power I’d like ours brought back to Westminster. Lastly, I would like a cap on labour coming into the UK.

Q: Do you support the building of nuclear power plants, despite government needing to subsidise them?
A: I do not support the subsidy of any sort of energy production whether it be nuclear power or wind turbines. Subsidies are wrong because what we are doing is extracting money from households to pay for turbines or nuclear plants. If a company can build a nuclear power plant without subsidy I will support it.

Q: In local government there are cuts to staffing but where are the cuts in the civil service?

A: Simply put, there are none. The 1970s programme Yes Minister is now a very true account of how government is actually run. Steve Hilton wanted the civil service to be cut by 40%. This has not happened and is a reason for his departure from No.10. Civil servants get a veto on the policy of the government, although they say ‘yes minister’ when first asked to implement it they strangle the policy quietly further down the line. In the 1970s the most major vested interest that the country needed to confront was the NUM and this is what the Conservatives did in the 1980s. Now the senior officials in Whitehall are the vested interest. The government has not done anything about this vested interest. Francis Maude is only doing something now to solve this problem. If we are to win in 2015 the Conservatives must reform Whitehall. This is one thing that all ministers want, despite the broad church that the Conservatives are.

Exclusive: #thingselliottsays meets Douglas Carswell

Last night I had dinner with Douglas Carswell MP, not a romantic date but an event with the Conservatives. Indeed Douglas Carswell, who, in his own words, ‘will never be a member of the government’, was not at the meal but gave a speech and Q and A beforehand both I very much enjoyed. I have divided up the evening into two posts because it is interesting enough to do so. This first part is an abridged version of Douglas Carswell’s speech and the later will be his answer to questions given on the night.

I want to tell you what is good, bad and truly beautiful with the coalition government.

On the 7^th of May 2010 I was focussed on the fantastic result I got from the good people of Clacton and hadn’t even looked at the bigger picture of the rest of Britain. On that day I got a call from the BBC asking for me to talk about the possibility of the Conservatives forming a coalition government (they wanted an angry right winger to decry the mention of a coalition). However, I said how positive this could be allowing the fusion of Conservative free market policy and liberal radicalism and reform. We both wanted a Great Repeal Bill, localism by devolving power to town halls and a bonfire of the QANGOs. The Lib Dems wanted a referendum on the EU and I thought this matched with Tory ideals. The Liberals also wanted political reform and so did the Conservatives. The coalition could have been a transformative government.

This is the case in some areas. Michael Gove has done well with free schools giving parents and teachers choice and what is most amazing is that the Liberal ministers agree with him. Ian Duncan Smith’s welfare reform has showed people on benefits in the long term it’s in their interest to work. For years we were known as the ‘nasty party’ for wanting to take benefits away but now Labour are on the wrong side of the debate.

However, there have not been many good things. The QANGO bonfire has gone out. Unelected officials have more control, QANGOs have more power. Elected mayors and police commissioners, although a good idea, were poorly implemented. Local councils have less autonomy with areas of their budget ring fenced by central government. Local policy sounds good but in the long term does us harm to councils as they will no longer want to lower taxes and spend less. Political reform has not materialised with no power of recall and open primaries. This is needed for safe seats with the example of 1 Labour MP who has not held a surgery for over 40 years showing this well. Instead political reform is bottom of the list with only a referendum on AV and House of Lords reform, which was ridiculous.

But the really depressing thing is the economic policy. The deficit is down but we are still accumulating debt. More debt will be accumulated under this government than under 13 years of Gordon Brown, peaking possibly at £1.5 trillion. On our watch government spending increased last year. This is ‘continuity Brown’ with treasury officials following his policies. We continue to slosh around cheap credit with quantatative easing creating no growth but inflation. Hollowed out zombie banks suffer from welfare dependency. The government has not addressed uncompetitiveness either despite them claiming we are the 15^th most competitive country in the world. But government spends more than 40% of our GDP compared to Indonesia spending 15% and Brazil less than 20%. We need a new approach with supply side reform, this will be unpopular but it must be done. This government is very much like the 1970s. Then the Conservatives promised reform but it never came.

Now I move onto the beautiful. This week something happened which is game changing. The British get to choose over the EU. David Cameron is not negotiating with the Foreign Office officials or himself as before but the British people over our relationship with Europe. And we can say no to a renegotiated EU, we can leave. It will take a lot to convince me to stay but it’s not Douglas Carswell’s decision or David Cameron’s but the whole British people’s. This policy shows the coalition can do the right thing in the national interest.

There are two things that are essential for the Conservatives to win the General Election in 2015. Right wing European policy is vital to stop UKIP gaining 15% in some of our marginal seats. We must win on the economy too. The government is currently wrong as it is too willing to follow the Whitehall consensus and Nick Clegg. We must not be conservative in reform and achieve more with the free market and get rid of the oligarchy in government.