Sarah Jane Gives Kiss Of Death To CF Election Hopefuls

Not content with staying quiet after she resigned as Deputy Chairman (Membership) and failed to become National CF Chairman, Sarah Jane has come out and endorsed candidates for the CF elections. I hope the CF election hopefuls she has backed realise that this is the kiss of death to their campaign. 

Sarah Jane on her blog today announced she would be backing Jonathan Levy in the North West, Isaac Duffy in the North East, Jacob Wilkinson in the East Midlands, and Luke Springthorpe in London. She also said on her blog that she would back these candidates despite her intention "to keep well out of publicly supporting and endorsing in the Conservative Future elections as a matter of principle from my resignation."

#ThingsElliottSays finds several of these things puzzling. Firstly, although she has clearly lost all influence in CF, SJ believes that she still should back candidates. It is almost as if she thinks CFers will have forgotten her appalling past record. Secondly does she not realise that Jacob Wilkinson is standing as National CF Chairman? I'm sure he will be very pleased with being endorsed for a position he stood for last time around. Lastly she must also realise that these endorsements are the kiss of death to the candidates she has come out to support. Who would trust the word of someone widely considered to be the worst member of the CF exec in all of its history?

But the candidates named need not despair. A simple thanks, but no thanks to SJ's endorsement should cause them no problems over the election period. It's not like anyone will be putting 'endorsed by SJ' up on their Facebook page or website claiming they are proud that a disgraced former exec member is backing them. It would be like an endorsement by Ed Miliband.

Update

Sarah Jane has just removed from her blog piece all of her endorsements. Maybe she read my article and didn't want to disadvantage the candidates.

Breaking News: Sarah Jane Sewell Resigns

Sarah Jane Sewell has resigned as National Deputy (Membership) Chairman of CF.

SJ has written a public letter 'to the Party Board of the Conservative Party, Conservative Party members and Conservative Future Members' on her own blog sewellsaga tendering her resignation as National Deputy (Membership) Chairman of CF.

Sarah Jane has said 'it is, however, with a mixture of relief and regret, that I must tender my resignation thirty one and a half months since the day I was elected to the position of Conservative Future National Deputy Chairman Membership. The next 10 months are incredibly important for me personally given that I am about to commence my third and final year of university, and I need to dedicate my time to my studies as well as seeking gainful employment after.'

Sarah Jane also continues to say 'I will naturally continue to support the Conservative Party in its endeavour to win a parliamentary majority in 2015 and in particular I look forward to working at a local level in my new home of Croydon to help secure the re­election of Gavin Barwell.'

Sarah Jane has previously said she would be standing as National CF Chairman. This subject is not mentioned in her open letter at all but sources very close to her have said she 'obviously' will not be standing.

Jon Boulton, ex-CF Chair at Queen Mary and LUC, has put on Facebook "Andrew Mitchell's resignation from Cabinet: 306 words. This letter quitting from a role as an ineffectual youth politician:1136 words. Still. At least it's over. Now is we could just not elect a replacement I'd be happy."

Harry Cole, Guido Fawkes legend, has also tweeted this:

Student politics at its gloriously naff height: http://t.co/A3GPbC1tpt Possibly the funniest resignation letter ever. Get over yourself...
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) July 25, 2014

Oliver Cooper, National CF Chairman, has said "I thank Sarah-Jane for her service on the National Executive. The Executive is currently discussing a cooption, per the CF Constitution, to help guide Conservative Future going forwards, with particular emphasis on recruitment at university freshers' fairs. We'll be represented at more freshers' fairs than ever before - twice as many as in 2012 - making us the biggest and best party on campus."

A senior CFer who does not want to be named has said "SJ just had some form of cruel psychosis that created this narcissistic desire to constantly be the centre of attention. These party emails were agreed months in advance. The only thing noteworthy about the photo was SJ tried to call CCHQ and get her own email. They refused and she resigned. What a sad end to an already unpromising career"

Exclusive: It Is Sad SJ 'Has Taken To Negative Blog Comments'

Friends of Sarah Jane Sewell have contacted #ThingsElliottSays to try warn her against standing as National CF Chairman. They have told #ThingsElliottSays they have become concerned about Sarah Jane's use of 'negative blog comments' online.

One SJ friend has said to #ThingsElliottSays "Sarah Jane has taken to negative blog comments. Not really something I would do. I will vote for her when there is next a CF election but it doesn't seem like a good decision to stand."

Another one of these friends told #ThingsElliottSays "personally I think the blogosphere may have been harsh on Sarah Jane at certain times but very sadly she has also been extremely negative. Sarah Jane is and is getting some of her friends to post negative comments on blogs about CF to do down the opposition. This is the only campaigning she is doing apart from speaking to the odd person in London. SJ's negative comments really go against everything that she says she stands for."

Sarah Jane has posted before on Facebook statements against negative campaigning and has also similarly said in her last election campaign 'don't trust words, trust actions.'

#ThingsElliottSays was told by Sarah Jane's friend that "I really do not think it would be a good idea for her to stand as it would be the end of her in politics. Certainly the negative campaigning she has done de-legitimises any moral case she has to stand. I'd never back away from my friend, but sometimes it is best to guide them in the right direction if they are being stubborn."

Exclusive: SJ 'Attempted To Block RoadTrip2015' & 'Has Failed To Decenratlise'

National Chairman Deputy (Membership) for CF, Sarah Jane Sewell, has today been criticised by a top CFer close to the national executive because she 'attempted to block grassroots campaigns like RoadTrip2015'. #ThingsElliottSays has also been approached by CFer's who say SJ has broken her promise to decentralise.

#ThingsElliottSays has been told by a top CF'er close to the national executive that "Sarah Jane had promised to deliver campaign events across the country, she hasn't delivered on this. Not only that she's attempted to block grassroots campaigns like RoadTrip2015 from taking place, accusing their campaigning of being too aggressive. Can we carry on like this?"

Top CFer: "she's attempted to block grassroots campaigns like RoadTrip2015"

CF members have also contacted #ThingsElliottSays about how they are unhappy with Sarah Jane's inability to decentralise CF. One CFer from the East Midlands, where Sarah Jane started out in politics, has told #ThingsElliottSays "National CF has not organised any events outside of London whilst SJ has been incharge of organising them. I haven't seen her at all in the East Midlands for over a year. She has failed to decentralise CF from London.."

Source: "She has failed to decentralise from London"

SJ pledged in her manifesto in order to become Deputy Chairman (Membership) that she would "Decentralise From London To Provide Fairer Opportunities For All". She went into greater detail by saying "More national events should be held throughout the country to allow members to attend for whom London isn’t readily accessible. Working closely with Regional and Area Chairman, we will help to find ideal locations for training, fun, social and social action projects to allow more members to be active nationally."

Sarah Jane also made similar commitments when she signed 'A Conservative and Unionist Pledge' to get herself elected. In it she agreed to "Work to assist members with organising social and training events across the country."

Exclusive: 'Heseltine' SJ Gets No Support For Election Campaign

Over the weekend Sarah Jane Sewell, who is so far the only person to announce that they will stand as national CF chairman, was out in full campaigning mode after the Tube Trip to Croydon. Sadly for her she received no support from the hundred plus activists, with one telling #ThingsElliottSays she is like 'Michael Hesletine'.

A source has told #ThingsElliottSays "Sarah Jane came over to me to ask for support. I asked her why she was already campaigning? She replied that she really wanted to beat Oliver Cooper who was apparently 'destroying CF'. I told her that was nonsense and she left looking very angry. She is becoming like Michael Heseltine really."

Sarah Jane signing the infamous 'a Conservative and Unionist pledge' at the last CF elections. Shame she broke all the promises in it.

Another #ThingsElliottSays' source has claimed that SJ is getting 'desperate'. The source said "She asked me to support her even though she knew I thought she was the biggest problem in CF. She must have been getting 'desperate' to find support."

#ThingsElliottSays saw Sarah Jane talk to lots of people about her standing as CF Chairman that night and also have a fair few arguments with people at Tube Trip. It doesn't look like her campaign is going well.

#ThingsElliottSays actually went to speak to Sarah Jane too, the first time for almost a year. I asked SJ not to stand as it would 'embarrass' herself and do her real damage in the future. I did this because I do not want someone I once considered a friend to have their life in politics totally ruined. Sarah Jane told me she would continue to stand, something I think is very sad.

Grammar Saves Lives

Today the BBC has shown that grammar is very important. Watch this BBC news reader announce the headlines.



Before you say anything, yes I realise my grammar is not perfect. It is however very funny to laugh at people's unintentionally funny grammar mistakes. Grammar has also not been a strong point of other CF members as well.

Do you think Sarah Jane will get a job in the BBC now?

#SJGate

Sarah Jane Sewell has again got herself into another scandal as she has blocked several senior Conservative Future members from being on the official Conservative Future Facebook Group. There are at least 6 senior CF members, not including #ThingsElliottSays, that have been blocked from the official Conservative Future group on Facebook.

These revelations have come after Sarah Jane panicked after seeing a TBG article about someone adding UKIPers for fun to the group and has now added other national exec officers as admins to the page. In doing so however she has incriminated herself in another scandal which proves she was the only one who could have kicked several prominent Conservative Future members off the official page.

Before the TBG article.

After the TBG article

An anonymous senior member of CF has come to #ThingsElliottSays saying "This is just another thing that SJ has done that proves she is not fit to be on the national executive of CF. I thought CF was a democracy not a dictatorship. The worst thing is several UKIP members have been on the page for years. Why are there UKIP members on the CF Group and yet some members of CF are deliberately excluded."

Some words of advice from Sarah Jane.

Sarah Jane's actions seem to go totally against what she signed in the 'A Conservative and Unionist Pledge' last January where she promised to 'promote transparency, openness and accountability throughout Conservative Future'.

Breaking News: Chackers to Stand as CF Chair

Sarah Jane and #TeamShadow have now got competition from Laurence Chacksfield (Chackers) for the race to be CF Chair. Chackers works as a Tory researcher in Parliament and studied at Queen Mary in London. This is what has been spied on Facebook.

Victoria Adams has said "I feel like something astoundly special this evening. We have been given the announcement that a Mr Laurence Patricia Chackfiled is going to be running for Conservative Future Chair. This news is particularly heart warming for me as its so close to home, being a former Queen Mary Conservative Chair and helped showed me the ropes of campus Tory life. I hope we can all join together to support this ultrasound candidate in seeing him elected as the true heir to Conservative Future"

Chackers himself

The reem Stephen Canning of Towie and Made in Chelsea fame has said "The election is some way off and we have a chairman at the moment who has a lot he still wants to achieve before his term is up. If Laurence is standing then best of luck to an incredibly sound CF'er and YBF alumini!"

However #ThingsEllliottSays has been told that this may be one big colossal joke. Sources close to Chackers say he is out drinking with his friends and hasn't "got bored yet of a joke which wasn't even really that funny at conference". I have also spoken to a source close to his girlfriend who says that "he can get carried away when he's drinking" and that they do not think that his girlfriend would be very pleased if he stood. Clearly there are some practical jokers that wanted to make Sarah Jane and Mahyar sweat.

Chackers is at the Pub.

Update

Reports are now coming in from the pub of the scene of Chackers announcing his CF candidacy. These seem to be more of the serious kind rather than a joke. The Source at the Heart of the Campaign has said exclusively to #ThingsElliottSays Chackers is "upset that unis aren't treated the same as branch members, that cf doesn't do enough to bring new people into the party and that the other candidates are useless. He'll only run if Cooper doesn't." The last part is hard to disagree with. 

Cigars and Scotch.

The first campaign meeting for Chackers' campaign is currently taking place and involves cigars and scotch. Mo Metcalf Fisher is also said to be including Chackers in his next CF polls to see what people think of him. People have also taken to Facebook declaring themselves to be a #ChackerBacker.

Stephen Canning is also seeing the funny side of this whole event.

Update 2

#ThingsElliottSays' suspicion was correct. Chackers is not standing for CF Chair and the whole of last night was a massive joke. Apparently Chackers was sleeping for a large part of the joke. The Chackers Backers must be very upset.

End of the USSR

There is another reason to celebrate Boxing Day and it is that 23 years ago today the USSR finally collapsed. The most brutal and oppressive country of all time finally ceased to be on the 26th December 1990. Last night, if you were living 23 years ago, you would have seen Gorbachev announce his office was now defunct and the Soviet Flag flying on top of the Kremlin for the last time. Its just a shame Putin seems to be taking Russia backwards, which is terrible.

I would end this article here but apparently celebrating the end of tyranny is something some people wish to argue about. Looks like some members of the CF national executive might not be so Conservative after all.

At least the CF Cold War had one day of truce.

Sarah Jane's Election Complaint Thrown Out

Today #ThingsElliottSays has heard confirmation from his sources that the Royal Holloway election scandal is over, which will deeply annoy Sarah Jane Sewell. Royal Holloway SU has emailed the Conservatives to say Sarah Jane's complaint against the society has been well and truly kicked out.

SJS' complaint to Royal Holloway SU has been kicked out.

After the legitimate election of Antonia Jade King, Sarah Jane contested the results of the RHCF leadership vote by complaining formally to the Royal Holloway SU. Sarah Jane argued that the election was invalid because Antonia Jade asked people not to vote for her, which we in the political business call canvassing. The SU quickly dismissed this charge as they believed it to be ridiculous. An email has been sent to members of Royal Holloway Conservatives describing their decsion and that Antonia Jade is the rightful President. One source told #ThingsElliottSays the SU thought Sarah Jane's complaints 'had no basis and was built around personal vengeance'.

Antonia Jade is now indisputably in charge at RHCF.

Sadly #ThingsElliottSays cannot show you this email, despite it probably being a gold mine of hilarity, because Royal Holloway CFers would get in trouble if the email's exact content was revealed. However, #ThingsElliottSays has soldiered in the mission for more facts and has found out that Antonia Jade is very excited about running Royal Holloway Conservatives and glad that this saga is over.

Sarah Jane has a new fan club.

#ThingsElliottSays wishes Antonia Jade the best of luck on running RHCF and from what he has seen of her believes she will take care of the members well.

What's Really Been Going On At Royal Holloway

I've been interested, as you probably know, by the situation at Royal Holloway CF at the moment. The thing that is really getting me is we don't know what has happened. I have thus put on my press hat and done some investigating into what is actually going on at Royal Holloway.

Let's examine the facts.

First off I wanted to clear the shroud of what the hell happened at the election itself. The reason why nobody actually knows what happened is because Royal Holloway SU has this bizarre voting system which resembles a game of heads down thumbs up. An SU officer asks everyone to put their heads down, close their eyes and then vote for a candidate by sticking their hands up. The SU officer then counts the number of votes and announces which candidate has the most votes. The candidates themselves are not allowed in the room so the only person to see the results is the SU officer.

What's going on?

In the case of the Royal Holloway CF the votes at first came out as a tie, dead equal for Sarah Jane and Antonia Jade. Then a second round took place which resembled the first way of voting and at least one person changed their vote so that Antonia Jade was elected. We don't know the exact results because #ThingsElliottSays has been unable to contact the SU officer present. There is no doubt that Antonia Jade after 2 rounds of voting had the most votes to become President of Royal Holloway CF.

Also you may have heard that Sarah Jane has issued a complaint of electoral misconduct, this is true. However what you may not know is that the complaint does not have anything to do with the fact that SJ lost the election. Her claim is that the election is invalid because in an argument before the election took place Sarah Jane has alleged that Antonia Jade told people not to vote for her and that this put her at an unfair disadvantage during the election.

All this exclusive info is courtesy of information from people who were there.

I've had a gander at the Royal Holloway SU rules on elections and voting (you can see it here). Although it clearly states '12.2 Any full member of the Students’ Union is eligible to assert a complaint, even if they be a Candidate or Campaign Team Member' I'm really unsure what grounds Sarah Jane has in issuing a complaint. This is because, be it through an argument or not, what Sarah Jane is asserting is canvassing of opinion, which is completely legitimate.

Indeed the Royal Holloway SU guidelines says '5.1 Publicity and canvassing shall be allowed by candidates. This shall not interfere with Students' Union or College facilities or be posted in polling areas.' and that '5.2 All statements made during the election period must be factually correct, accurate and provable when questioned. Misrepresentation of other candidates is prohibited. This includes all publicity, manifestos and speeches / answers given by candidates.' If SJ has any basis for her complaint it would be in the term 'misrepresentation' which if you stretch the meaning as a stand alone word may possibly construe the alleged actions as misrepresentation. The chances of that being acceptable however is slim because the meaning specifically refers to false information. 'Don't vote for Sarah Jane' isn't really an information statement.

Hectic days ahead for the democracy office at Royal Holloway SU.

So I hope that has cleared a lot up about this election because to me its been very shrouded. We have to wait for the result of Sarah Jane's complaint which in all likelihood will fail as it seems to have no basis and seems like just being sour.

Breaking News: Sarah Jane Becomes The Despot of Royal Holloway

News has reached #ThingsElliottSays that Sarah Jane Sewell is not a happy lady after losing the Royal Holloway CF election last week. She has decided these elections have no bearing on who actually run RH CF and has become the despot of Royal Holloway. Sewell rules with an iron fist and has decided to completely isolate the real President of Royal Holloway Conservatives, Antonia Jade King, who she has blocked on Facebook and refuses to talk to.

Just like a Dictator, Sarah Jane has censored the media. She has deleted the Royal Holloway Conservative group on Facebook and refuses to hand over the account details of @RHULCA.

Sarah Jane's election posted cunningly edited to reflect her censorship of RHCF.

Personally I think National CF or even CCHQ should get involved in this instance as this tyrannical young girl is in clear breach of the rules of democracy and the Parties rules on elections (let any SU rules at Royal Holloway.

The Despot of Royal Holloway has been throwing a tantrum.

#ThingsElliottSays's source said this is "Petty,childish, and not exactly how a elected person within the wider Con Futures should be acting". Personally I think this is a blatant ignorance of the rules of democracy and freedom of speech. Sarah Jane should either resign from the CF in embarrassment or be kicked out. #SJOut

Antonia Jade Now King of Royal Holloway CF

Last night was the Royal Holloway CF Committee elections. The branch was set up last year by Sarah Jane Sewell and was run by her till yesterday when members decided to elect Antonia Jade as the new President. Antonia Jade won by a large margin to be the King of Royal Holloway CF.

The New King of  Royal Holloway CF on the phones at CCHQ.

Weirdly for #ThingsElliottSays, lots of CFers have been coming to me giving quotes on what they think about the election results at Royal Holloway. Jon Bolton, ex-leader at London University CF, said "after failing to stand up for students in the face of trade union militancy it is unsurprising that SJS faced an uphill battle to retain the respect of conservatives". A senior student Tory said  "it looks like SJS's own uni has thrown her out at the first chance it got, with any luck the rest of CF will do the same if she carries on with her fatally wounded bid to be National Chairman, she certainly won't have any support amongst students after her striking run of missteps, failures and ego-trips".

Sources close to Sarah Jane and at Royal Holloway have also confirmed that SJ didn't want there to be any elections at all in the CF branch. These sources have all confirmed that this was because "she wanted to have full control over the branch, for no reason".

At the Freshers Fair.

Antonia Jade said on Facebook 'Just been elected President of the Royal Holloway Conservative Society Incredibly happy!x' and she was 'absolutely blown away by the support. Thanks to you all! x.' #ThingsElliottsays wishes congratulations to to Antonia Jade and hopes she will run Royal Holloway CF very well.