Oliver Cooper Landslide in Poll

Oliver Cooper has achieved a massive 72% in the #ThingsElliottSays CF Chairman poll. There was a high turnout of 426 votes. This is over double of the number who voted in last year’s entire CF elections. Paul Holmes achieved 23% and James Deighton achieved 3% of vote. Here is the lowdown.

Paul Holmes	102 (23%)
James Deighton	16 (3%)
Oliver Cooper	308 (72%)

Before we start seeing this as a complete annihilation I’d like to point out some of the unavoidable biases and unreliableness of this poll. #ThingsElliottSays has a pro Cooper bias because NUCA and the East Midlands members are almost entirely going to vote for him, although clearly that cannot amount to 426 votes. Also Oliver, whenever I’ve tweeted this poll at the candidates, retweeted the link to the blog to get his voters out as much as possible. This is not the case with Paul Holmes. Paul did retweet the poll when first created but has refused to since. This is likely due to his campaign manager who sent me this delightful comment.

So because Paul has not been allowed to get his voters out as much as Oliver he has a significant disadvantage.

But these are the underlying trends from what this information tells us. Oliver Cooper is winning in the East Midlands and most likely everywhere else outside London. James Deighton the newly appointed ‘King of the North’ has made little impact in what is his home region with only 16 votes. The mood on the ground outside London is also that Paul Holmes is a centraliser. His comments on CF regions and the fact he has barely ventured out from London helps cement this opinion. For obvious reasons most CFers (who don’t live in London) want the party to come to them not them to go to London.

Paul Holmes however does have a lot of support in London. He has probably picked up most of the Matt Robinson votes there. But he needs to win all of London in order to have a chance of becoming CF Chairman. Note that Oliver Cooper in the best attended London based hustings, organised by London Spin, won with 37% of the vote. Paul seemingly only won one of the London hustings because of a low voting turnout.

So, despite me giving the caveat that I am not Lyton Crosby, I predict a win for Oliver Cooper as chairman of CF. He will probably get around 55-65% of the vote. Paul Holmes has to get everyone in London to vote for him and hope that no one in the rest of the UK actually votes to have a chance of winning.

Exclusive: James Deighton talks to #thingselliottsays

We have just received news from James Deighton who is running from Chairman of National CF. He wishes to stress the importance of campaigning in the Conservatives and how much this will be a part of CF under Deighton. This is what he had to say:

Last week we heard the dramatic news that Chris Huhne had finally accepted that the game was up and he pleaded guilty at his trail. Thus he was forced to step down from parliament, triggering a by-election in Eastleigh.  This is a crucial contest for both governing parties and it’s vital that we win this key target seat.

The Lib Dems have moved the writ extremely quickly with the election date set for Thursday 28^th February. This does not give us much time and we must move quickly if we are to seize this opportunity. There can be no better way of getting back at the Lib Dems for their betrayal over the boundary reforms than by taking this seat from them.

As a National CF Deputy Chairman and a candidate for National Chairman I know more than most that at times CF can become all too introverted. People often lose sight of the bigger picture with members attacking each other and bickering amongst themselves far too often. We must never forget that the reason we joined the Conservative party was to get our members elected, defeat our ideological opponents, and enact our ideas in government.  Campaigning together in elections unites us like nothing else. It strengthens our belief in our ideas and allows us to put aside our differences to work on something that is far bigger and more important than ourselves.

I love campaigning and during my many years in CF I have been all over the country. Knocking on countless doors and pushing thousands of pieces of literature through letter boxes.  I have been to almost every parliamentary by-election since Crewe and Nantwich in 2008. From Bradford to Barnsley, and Haltemprice to Henley. 

Nothing quite stiffens the sinews and summons up the blood like a parliamentary by-election. They offer a great opportunity to meet new people, see a different part of the country, and to participate in a high tempo, energetic campaign.

Although I live and work in Yorkshire I will be travelling to Eastleigh this Saturday for a day of campaigning. I strongly encourage every member of CF to do their bit to help our candidate Maria Hutchings succeed. If you can’t make it in person then you can always do some phone canvassing from one of the parties campaign centre or even from home. If we all do our bit we can turn Eastleigh blue.