Tory Campaign Gimmicks Might Just Work

The Tories have announced the latest populist gimmick to latch onto the public mood, with a campaign to save our pubs. The leftish Orange Party has signed up to all of them!

'Save The Great British Pub' is part of a whole raft of campaigns tapping into public issues. Scratch away the cynicism and these campaigns are a stroke of genius.

A campaign to Save the Great British Pub is just the latest mini campaign to feature on conservatives.com now with a round-up of campaigns in a convenient portal to sign up and have a rant about saving post offices, scrapping ID cards, honest food labelling. All the old favourites are there. Indeed the portal box even has space for a couple more. 

Save the Great British Pub. What sensible person wouldn't agree with that?  But joining a campaign and feeling part of a movement is one thing. Having hard realistic policies to back up the fine words is quite another. 

Dig deeper and each campaign is linked to a reasoned background argument and more importantly with what the Tories would do about it. 

That's the really clever bit. They are drawing attention to the problems. Bringing them all together in one campaign portal is a stroke of genius. This is the key - it's part of an election manifesto and of course your email address can be used for future political marketing. Remember it's all in the database. 

There is a danger this could degenerate into a LibDem local government issues-style politics of cracked pavements and dog shit. But what and where is the alternative? 

Only the death throes of a discredited New Labour government riddled with sleaze and in-fighting in what Oborne today acidly and accuracy describes as the fag-end of a government in collapse. 

The crisis facing the British pub is indeed serious with pubs closing at a rate of knots. But the Tory campaign is dead in the water unless someone has the guts to tackle the real reason why pubs are falling by the wayside - the blanket smoking ban. Fat chance the Tories will raise their heads above the parapet on that issue so close to elections.   

What's needed is a political heavyweight to champion the cause, someone with a penchant for the occasional cigar and Real Ale. 

Whatever happened to the politically-correct misleading bleatings  about a massive increase in the pub trade as a result of the smoking ban? 

The smoking ban, supermarkets selling cheep beer and wine, high rents and price increase from suppliers, greedy shareholders in the breweries, 24 hour opening. It's all part of the pub shambles as the glorious vices of pint, a fag and packet of crisps are eroded away. 


A hell of a lot of radial policies are needed if the Tories are serious about saving pubs. 

The right way forward on any of the issues chosen by the Conservatives, from saving GPs' surgeries to pubs and Post Offices can be argued until you are blue or red in the face. 

But isn't that what politics should be all about, rather than the arrogant top down diktat imposed without a popular mandate which voters have to suffer at the moment? 

What the Tories are doing is singling out some of  the national issues that capture a public mood and at one time would be chewed over in the pub. 

How ironic then that the very place for a relaxing pint and a fag, to have a moan and put the world to right is now under threat. It's almost as if an Orwellian nanny knows best State has crept up by stealth to keep us all in our box. The Orange Party feels another issues campaign coming on. 

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Time To Call Time On Death Of The Pub

Sundays used to be a time to pop down to the local and put the world to right. Not any more. Where's the real ale, real fire, real food, real atmosphere, real pub? Time to put the real back into reality.

With traditional pubs disappearing at a rate of knots (one in four closing and rising), soon they will be a thing of the past. And it only happened over the last few years. 

Thanks to New Labour, it's now all style and no substance. A cafe culture, wine bars, gastro pubs. And if you do find a pub open, with the obsessive smoking ban, chances are they stink of stale beer and urine.

We live on a wind swept island in northern Europe. It gets cold and miserable even in summer. Our staple alcoholic drink is beer like rest of northern Europe. And we like to chat. The atmosphere was a bit smoky but that's part of the atmosphere.

Pubs disappeared in a mixture of New Labour political correctness and greed and the smoking ban has a lot to answer for. 

Live music is dead. The brewery can make more money from us feeding the jukebox. Real fires have gone. You need to employ someone to lay and light them, keep they stoked up, clean up the mess and sweep the chimneys. The Political Elite don't care. They have created their own themed pubs in the pretty commuter villages. 

Real food just isn't as convenient as convenience food. Mass-produced frothy beer is cheaper than real ale. The mark-up on wines and fancy bottled drinks is enormous. Creating a stylish gastro-pub dining experience is a con. The mark-up here is amazing. And of course there is no-smoking, nowhere. Dogs are banned (Health and Safety and all that).

There is an alternative that could work. 

Create English Heritage Pubs but only if they pass the 3R's. They must sell real ale. If they serve any food it must be real food with local seasonal ingredients made on on the premises. There must be real fires, open fires. Piped music is banned. Real live music is encouraged. Smoking is allowed with areas set aside for non-smokers. 

The English Heritage Pub would operate strict licensing hours - 11am to 11pm. Landlords would operate a zero tolerance policy on any unruly behaviour.

The incentive for breweries would be the increase in trade and there must be a lowering of Business Tax for the qualifying pubs, with improvement grants to bring the premises up (or down) to standard. 

But to qualify they must follow the 3R's - Real ale, Real food, Real atmosphere. It will only work as a whole package, you can't cherry pick which bits you fancy. The local Tourist Board would monitor standards (along with CAMRA) and award the trade licence - a plaque on the door - then market the pub as Traditional English Heritage Pubs. 

Some pubs would qualify immediately with little change. Soon others would want to join the bandwagon. It could turn into a movement.

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Softening Us Up For A Booze Tax Hike

Beer drinkers are being softened up for a swingeing tax hike as the government gets itself in a pickle over the price of a pint. Booze is the latest political hot potato but posturing over a pint belies the key cause of binge drinking which ministers are quite happy to sweep under the carpet. It's the ludicrous lax licensing laws, stupid. 

The reason for binge drinking is obvious - the ridiculous relaxation of licensing laws. It's not what you drink but where you buy and drink it. But that would require a massive step change from a government which isn't exactly quick to come forward and say sorry for past mistakes. 

Thanks to New Labour, it's now all style and no substance. A cafe culture, wine bars, gastro pubs. And strictly no smoking.

But we live on a wind swept island in northern Europe. Our staple alcoholic drink is beer like rest of northern Europe. And we like to chat in a cosy public house. 

Some people given half a chance would booze all day. Strict licensing laws were introduced to get the workers to the factories sober rather than sitting in a pub using Huxley's 'chemical crutch' to escape despair and desolation.

Pubs disappeared in a mixture of New Labour political correctness and greed and in came cheap supermarket booze and binge drinking. Now cheap booze from supermarkets is killing the pub and a way of life.

Supermarkets selling cheep beer and wine, high rents and price increases from suppliers, greedy shareholders in the breweries, 24 hour opening and the blanket smoking ban. It's all part of the pub shambles as the glorious vices of pint, a fag and packet of crisps are eroded away. 


The Orange Party believes all the fuss over the price of alcohol as a cure all for all the binge drinking and unhealthy ills is a ruse, a softening up exercise for higher beer taxes.

Imposing a minimum price for alcohol would be illegal probably under the EU rules so beloved of this government, a tax hike wouldn't. 

Last year, chancellor Darling hiked the duty on beer by another 4p a pint, wine by 14p a bottle and spirits by 55p a bottle, 6% above the rate of inflation. 

More importantly, his pre-budget report in November proposed raising the alcohol duty escalator by 8% a year from April. 

The government is bent on embarking on a spending spree on borrowed time and raising indirect taxes is its only solution. 

With all-party support, the hike in alcohol tax can be cunningly presented as a laudable aim to cut the scourge of binge drinking and improve the nation's health. It's not a tax rise at all, more a social necessity. 

Medical chief, Liam Donaldson's, calls for taxes to be raised on alcohol has left Darling nursing a big hangover, with the brewing industry demanding a cut in beer duty.

The chancellor can stop more pubs closing down by ending the escalator in alcohol duty on beer and freezing the beer duty for a year. That's exactly what Brown did for  ten years as chancellor - for the Scottish whisky industry.

But he won't and  the price of alcohol is on the way up. 

Donaldson's aim to stop binge drinking on cheap supermarket booze and force pubs to scrap 'happy hour' cut-price deals is no bad thing but it only meets the problem half way, not confront it head on. 

It's a change in drinking culture that's needed. And that shouldn't be difficult. It only means winding the clock back a few years. 

The way to tackle the problem is to change back the licensing laws, if the government is as serious about binge drinking as it is about increasing the treasury coffers.

Go back to the old laws with alcohol sales highly restricted, to be consumed in licensed pubs between strict, reasonable opening hours. 

The answer to binge drinking and unhealthy over the top boozing, whether it's at home, on the streets or in the pubs, boils down to availability, not price. 

So bring back the 'off-licence', a separate, dedicated easily controlled outlet selling alcohol, instead of the supermarket free-for-all.

But returning to stricter licensing hours and cutting back on the availability of booze might cut consumption and that wouldn't go down at all well in the  treasury.

Picture: William Hogarth, Gin Lane (1751)

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A Rough Guide To H'Price And Howden

Some politicians and the media are trying to drum up interest in today's Haltemprice and Howden by-election. A rough guide to the constituency wouldn't go amiss. Here's one prepared earlier.

Haltemprice and Howden can be shortened to 'Hal&How' if you want it to fit a short headline, or just 'H&H' if you want to bury it. 

It's up 'north, in a place that used to be called Yorkshire. It's made up of two quite separate parts. There's a clue in the name of the constituency. 

Haltemprice doesn't exist. It's just lots of houses pretending to be villages, full of people who are relieved to have escaped the hell-hole of nearby Hull, home to fish and chips, heroin and John Prescott. It can be safely described as the 'leafy suburbs'.

Howden is a sleepy market town surrounded by lots of fields. It can be safely described as 'a sleepy market town'.

People in 'the sleepy market town' of Howden are Yorkshire volke. They can be safely described as 'down to earth', 'blunt speaking', with no time for 'them southerners, who come up here with their fancy talk'. 

People in the 'leafy suburbs' of Haltemprice don't like to be reminded that they originally came from Hull, home to fish and chips, heroin and John Prescott. 

Places to eat and drink:

Entries in Good Food Guide: No listings

Entries in Hotel Guide: No listings

Entries in Good Pub Guide: A couple but they may have already closed down

Entries in Estate Agents windows for 'pubs for sale': Quite a lot

Entries in Good Beer Guide: Anywhere left that sells Theakston's, Black Sheep or Sam Smiths

Getting there: 

By car: North up the M1 and turn right before the motorway runs out at Leeds

By rail: Overnight sleeper from London to Fort William. Then who knows?

By air and sea: London to Amsterdam. Then ferry from Zebrugge to Hull

By private helicopter: London to your pal's estate in Yorkshire

By London newsdesk, TV studio: Google Maps

Places to visit:

The Scottish Highlands, the English Lakes, the Cotswolds, Amsterdam

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Cameron, A Man With A PM Plan

Cameron is a man with a plan, striding forward, looking backwards. The Tory conference threw up a rare beast - a politician who spoke with conviction, spitting out his disgust at the government which has wrecked the economy and people's lives. He's hungry to govern. But did he convince voters he's the Chosen One?

This was a very different Cameron from a year ago, a Cameron who then persuaded the Tories to ditch their old ways and put on a caring face. Here he was not afraid to praise the old guard of Howard, Duncan-Smith and of course Thatcher.

Cameron didn't feel the need to have the young turks behind him - Osborne and Hague were all he needed. And here was someone who acidly pointed out that even when Brown gets it right - he also gets it wrong. If nothing else, that was a clap-line most of the country would agree with.

And someone who, at last, managed to cast off the heir-to-Blair image that has haunted him. He could barley hide his disgust for Blair as a man of all style and no substance. 

It was time to reassure voters about the slogan 'Plan for Change'. He had a plan, not a Blair "miracle cure", to mend the broken society and finally get to grips with the economic mess of years of New Labour. His was a government-in-waiting.

The Party faithful of course lapped it up. But in the streets, in the pubs, in the shops and around the water-cooler, they are the people who he has to convince. He thinks he's ready to govern but do they?

One striking fact came across from today's conference speech. Voters may not agree with all the broad brush stroke policies and a manifesto is some while off - but you could trust him to deliver - with passion. 

In the pub, after watching the conference speech, a lefty bloke remarked: Well, I'd vote for him. Anything is better than the smug arrogant bastards we have at the moment. And that's from someone who would spit on Thatcher's grave. And that probably sums up the mood of the country.

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Labour's McTweet Sacked By PC World

A wannabe Scottish New Labour MP has been sacked after his "foul-mouthed" twitter rants slagged off everything and everybody. But were those 'outrageous' tweets so outrageous?

The Orange Party has run its own FactCheck over the ranting Scot.

A quick check via Goole and it seems Stuart MacLennan is a bit of a p***. But an educated one at that, with his fingers in every New Labour election pie that's going. A Moray lad with a degree from Edinburgh - which puts him in the good company of famous alumni and the likes of, er, Gordon Brown.

But what of those disgraceful outburst? The Scottish Sun lists them all with relish. But the family newspaper turns in to the Star with expletives deleted to protect the innocent. Paul Waugh at the Standard has the unexpurgated version.

Branding commons speaker Bercow a "t**". "An opportunist little t***", claiming the Tory is "detested". FactCheck: True

LibDem Clegg is a "b******". Clegg can "f*** right off if he things he's in the same league as Brown and Cameron". FactCheck: True

Cameron's a "t***". FactCheck: The jury's still out on that one. Labour MP Diane Abbot, is "a f****** idiot". FactCheck: Pass (quickly over that one).

In one tweet MacLennan complained of being in a pub full of "depressed teuchters". Factcheck: Even Ewen Bain with his Angus Og would drink to that. Just being called a "teuchter" as an insult beats a Glaswegian kiss any day.

Tweeting on, the hopeful MP dismissed the set-piece show-piece 'prime ministerial' TV debates, claiming: "Really couldn't care less about Leaders' Debates, except to ask why the f*** does Nicholas Clegg get to take part?" Factcheck: True.

Turning on the wonderful US president, he twerped: "Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize. Discuss. You've got to be f****** kidding me." FactCheck: True.

Clearly a man who likes the odd twittering tipple, he claimed: "Johnnie Walker Red Label is so awful they can't sell it in Scotland." Factcheck: True. A blended whisky. Tastes like gnat's p*** compared with a single malt.

But PC world went bananas over one tweet: “God this fairtrade, organic banana is s***. Can I have a slave-grown, chemically enhanced, genetically modified one please?”

Factcheck: Bananas are grown using 'slave labour' working in appalling conditions to sell them cheap as chips, pumped up with nasty chemicals to keep them ripe for the journey and satisfy Western taste buds. And the vast majority of people like and buy them, just like that.

Tweeting MacLennan was reportedly followed by Downing Street, Balls, Prescott and Bradshaw. Followed and pictured (opposite far right) with Tweeting Sarah. They must have turned a blind eye to the 'twitter twerp's twisted tweets' well before he was cast on the scrapheap as the first scalp of the election war.

Edinburgh Uni Labour Club has him down as "an ageing g** who just won't go away. "He's worked on almost every losing by-election campaign ... and the few that he's stayed away from have been the ones Labour has won. Maybe he should adopt that policy more often."

And so it came to pass. But New Labour first said MacLennan would continue as a candidate after saying he's ever so sorry for wot he tweeted. But faced with Tory and SNP faux outrage with the scent of blood in their nostrils - he had to go.

Now MacLennan will no longer be the Party's Moray candidate, admitting tweeting "silly" and "offensive" comments, after a quick reverse ferret by Scotland minister, Murphy.

But what surprises the Orange Party is that he came in for all this stick not from New Labour but from the very people who often slag off New Labour's nanny state and PC world. Hattie would be proud.

Overall FactCheck verdict: Sharp-eyed readers may have spotted that the Orange Party isn't New Labour's biggest fan. A hapless no-hoper in a no-hope seat and odious little tweeting twerp, for sure. But this was f****** twitter. A joke for C*****'* sake. Whatever happened to post-modern irony. Lighten up.

The Orange Party has a special request for the tweeting ex-PPC. Could you tweet a parting shot on the Broonites? Keep it clean.

Top picture: The Scottish Sun. Mid graphic: Ewen Bain's 'Angus Og' from the Og logs.

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Auntie Serves Up Lashings Of Brown Sauce

Dear old Auntie has been finding it all hard going as the lobbygate shit hit the fan fingering New Labour ex-ministers in the thick of it. Grovelling around to find anything to knock it off top spot and serving up lashings of Brown sauce.

The shame and scandal of New Labour ex-cabinet ministers and an expenses-ridden MP touting themselves around for hire in Lobby Land was too much to take.

The BBC has given up the ghost. The compliant state broadcaster has finally caved in to the ruthless demands of the Brown spin machine.

Taking a leaf out of the Tucker book of spin, grasping at straws to push it off the bulletins. If nothing jumps up and grabs - here's one prepared earlier. If that doesn't work - make it up.

Most of yesterday was blocked out flogging Obama's health care horse, set to be signed off breaking his election promise. Not sure that got the tongues wagging in Wigan. Then finally forced to admit defeat when the New Labour lobbygate scandal refused to lie down and die.

ITV 10pm News put 'Sam the Mam' in top spot. Something that was talked about and joked about in non-PC pub land. Political editor Bradby was lost for words with disbelief in the latest twist of the 'MPs for hire' scandal, which probably summed up the mood of voters.

Today it was time to try it on with a rehashed ruse of MPs on an expenses junket - to show how all MPs, of all parties, are at it at the taxpayers' expenses. Nope. Still didn't work.

Meanwhile 'Toenails' Robinson has been hard at work, pushing the Brown spin that the Party's suspension of the lobbying three was just payback time for trying to prise out the struggling Supreme Leader.

Seemingly oblivious that earlier Bunkered Brown was "satisfied no impropriety has occurred." Seemingly oblivious to the fact that blabbing Byers had fingered Adonis and Mandy in stitched-up squalid deals with National Express and Tesco.

In a last-ditch bid to do Downing Street's bidding, here's one Tucker prepared earlier.

Drag out the old chestnut of a dastardly Israeli diplomat booted out of the country over fake passports after those rotten Israeli hit-men got up to no good, taking out a Hamas thug.

Kol HaKavod! as some would say in Hebrew. Bananaboy Miliband decides today to throw the 'diplomat' out of the country. What a coincidence. In the murky world of spooky spies and hit-men, the only certainty is that nothing is certain. Can't help feeling a bit of BBC Israel-bashing creeping in here.

The saintly Sun recently blasted the BBC over claims of anti-Tory bias. The Orange Party wasn't sure it was that simple. More a compliant BBC News, Brown-beaten into submission in the dirty tricks world of electioneering politics which would make even Bush's Karl Rove blush.

The sooner Bottling Brown names the day and BBC News is forced back into a balanced, unbiased box the better.

Rant over. Nursie's coming with some light relief to take away the pain. Time to take the medicine and lie down in a darkened room. Fake 'Budget Day' farce from a fag-end government tomorrow.

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The Dave And Trev Show

The Tories latest party political broadcast on behalf of the Dave Party even roped in Sir Trev to shine a soft light on the up and coming new leader of the country, with a bit of Sam on the side. Dave licked the floor with Trev. Trev licked Dave's derrier.

Sincere, down to earth, trustworthy with not an airbrush in sight? It was down to Sir Trev to give Dave a good grilling. Paxo and Humph were clearly not up to the job.

And what a grilling it was. Voters learnt not once but thrice that Dave's secret weapon, SamCam, calls him Dave, with no trace of a cut-glass accent. But mum calls him David - as all mums would do.

Student Dave went to the pub, played pool and gained a first in PPE at Oxford. As you do. And baby-faced Dave wasn't airbrushed - that's just the way he looks.

Under intense pressure from Trev, shockingly Dave admitted again he's a salesman - but not in a slick, deceitful, shallow Blair sort of way. No way. After all, he's selling the New Tory brand, not New Labour.

But Cameron the conviction politician convincingly did come across as honest. Now all he's got to do is be a bit more convincing on policy.

The only tough question came not from Trev but from a couple of punters at the railway station while Dave was trying to get a snack from a vending machine. "Did you get a receipt for that?" they shouted. How Dave laughed.

The Dave and Trev show with a bit of Sam on the side. SamCam’s much trailed appearance turned out to be quite refreshing. No steely Sarah for Dave. A nice girl who's kind of sweet, in a mumsy Boden sort of way.

How New Labour must hate it. Bully-Boy Brown's Moron weepy was so last month, peaking far too early to now make a jot of difference.

Clever Cameron got in quick just before broadcast rules over balance kick in. The contrast between Cameron and Brown’s interview was embarrassingly plain to see.

And when all the fuss has died down - and the spinners have had their fun - Dave and Sam came across as Mr and Mrs Nice. Dave as witty and human. And that makes him electable.

A human being for a prime minister. Now that will make a refreshing change.

Top picture: Private Eye cover

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