Three CF activists have been expelled from the party after one of them, Matt Lewis, boasted about dressing up as Madeleine McCann for a fancy dress party on his Facebook profile, and the others commented on it without condemning. This has, of course, caused a tabloid storm after it was broken by Tory Bear.
Whether or not expelling on them from the party was really appropriate or not, this raises the question of the use of Facebook – and other ‘new media’, including blogs – in a political context. Especially if …

One of my interests (and aims of the blog) is to encourage participation in politics as widely as possible. At least two of the three main parties have been talking about training, including media training, for younger members. The Liberal Democrats are talking about why their Leadership Academy should train everyone as they are all potential leaders.

Meanwhile, the Young Britons’ Foundation ran a training day at the Conservative Party Conference for young activists. Mike Rouse has kindly written an account for the Wardman Wire.

Via the excellent, amusing, and ever-entertaining Tory Bear, I’ve come across what CF seems to regard as social action:

As part of the National Social Action day in Richmond, kindly being hosted by the Richmond Borough Conservatives, one of the many projects you can visit on the 20th is the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust in Barnes. On arrival you will be treated to a free guided tour of the centre, including a talk about the work and wildlife within the area, and then taken to an area of marshland …

According to Tory Bear [the Guido Fawkes of Conservative Future]:

[The CF Steering Committee] have discussed in depth the prospect of removing the entire elections process from CF. Elections are apparently a) messy and dirty, b) cost too much – the ERS charge a hell of a lot and of the thousands of ballot papers sent out, only a fraction of them are returned and c) at the end of the day the big people’s Party don’t get the candidate they want.
TB has now heard this from two trusted and well …

Everyone has heard of “Bushisms“, the often stupid remarks made by George W Bush – such gems as “It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it” – but, until now, Brownisms have been missed. What is a Brownism?
Definition of Brownism: (braun’i(z’?m)
1. (verb) The subtle art of combining of words into sentences that are meant to deliberately mislead or confuse the general public.
Origins: A term coined to categorize all of Prime Minister Brown’s eccentric speech.
Example: A sample Brownism: “This will be a government of no spin.”
Notes: See …

The Conservative Future national elections are over, and the results are known.
ChairmanMichael David Rock
National Management ExecutiveBeaumont-Bott, Anastasia Douglas, AdeleMay, Christian Meredith, OwenRicketts, Cllr SteveSullivan, Patrick
Congratulations to everyone who has been elected and good luck with running CF over the next year, and commiserations to those who weren’t elected.
But was it really the monkey wot won it?

Mike Rouse, who is carrying out polling on the Conservative Future elections [which you can sign up to take part in here], has the results of the first poll, held just prior to the Bristol hustings which are taking place tonight.
There were 43 panelists in the first poll. They came from as far as Keele, Newcastle, and Manchester and as wide as Cardiff and Hampshire. Turnout was not as London-centric as I thought it would be. The actual number of panelists that finished their questions in time was 38, a …

Are you a member of Conservative Future and interested in taking part in some polling during the run up to the election? If so, sign up with Mike Rouse.
To become a panelist you will need to complete the information in the form [at Mike's blog] before Friday 25 January 2008, after which it will be unlikely that new panelists will be taken on. As a panelist you have to commit to a number of things:

That you will vote in every poll put out
That you are eligible to vote in the …

Five days ago I blogged about something that was supposed to happen well, yesterday. But it appears that it simply hasn’t. CF Diary has nothing. The YouTube account has no new videos… so what happened? It’s not like this was just a YouTube video – it has been appearing everyone on MessageSpace ads too [which have an annoying habit of playing sounds without being asked to], so it must have been paid for.
Which means that there are two alternatives:

Nothing happened, or
No-one noticed.

Neither of which are really very good adverts for …

… until something happens.

Exactly what I have no idea, but presumably something to do with a CF candidate announcement. I wonder whether it will live up to the hype?Note for whoever made the video: Do a new one for every day between now and Saturday, to build the suspense… Go on… [If you do, email me...]
via Caroline Hunt and CF Diary