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Always assuming “Conservatism” is not a contradiction in terms!

Many people have been saying for over three years now that the conservative party needs to address its image in the liberal left main stream media. The party needs to get through to the public what being conservative means, it needs to create a tranche of conservatives policies and get out into the country and sell both them and conservative ideals to the voters, to do so it must be prepared to challenge the cosy left wing assumptions that are so prevalent in today’s media, it must be prepared to challenge the distortions of the Labour spin machine, that the media are only to happy to sponsor.

Well it seems that the message has finaly got though, at last the conservatives are doing something about their media image. Unfortunately instead of doing something about getting the conservative message across and challenging the media bias, David Cameron and his merry band of public school boys have decided the way ahead is to change the conservative party so that it fully embraces the cosy liberal left view of the world, in his own words; if there are members of the conservative party who do not like the direction he is perusing “tough”. The first thing I though when I read his comment was that Cameron will be pushing hard for public finance for political parties, because thus speak a man who obviously does not need the support of conservatives and is prepared to ditch conservatives on the alter of media acceptance.

The media has far given Cameron and easy ride, it is bestowing on him the crown which once adorned the brow of Tony Blair, until that is he stepped away from soft liberal left adgenda.

Just how much of an easy ride can be evidenced today in of all places the Torygraph, which contains an article by Melissa Kite on a special focus group for The Sunday Telegraph run by “the renowned American pollster” Frank Luntz. On the first anniversary of Cameron’s election as Conservative leader, Luntz has assembled a group of 17 floating voters to take the temperature of Project Cameron. The article turns out to be a puff for Cameron and his only policy to date of eradicating conservative theory from the conservative party. One or two conservatives within the group are not happy and want to replace Cameron but we already know the leaderships views on that “Tough” but labour LibDem supporters are warming to the new party.

Nazanine, 31, a television journalist who voted Lib Dem in 2005, says: “He’s providing the first credible opposition to Labour in years.”

Jane Broadfoot, 46, a public service worker who voted Lib Dem at the last election, said: “He’s very eloquent. I’m warming to him. He’s reduced the capital C in Conservatism to a small c.”

Alistair Smyth, 27, a researcher who voted Lib Dem last time, says: “He’s the first Tory leader in my life that hasn’t made me furious.”

Sharon Raymond, 35, a dental nurse who voted Labour, says: “He’s fresh. He’s a fresh face. I’m tired of Tony Blair now. Change it.”

However Colin is not convinced: “Fresh face or not, I would like to know what he actually stands for.” Good point Colin.

So it would seem that the Labour and LibDem`s support Cameron, Melissa Kite did not bother to point out the obvious problem that he is the leader of the Conservative party.

Not only has the Telegraph given the Cameron project of destroying the Conservative party thumbs up it has on the same day censored an alternative conservative view

From Eureferendum we learn that the Booker column in the Sunday Telegraph has this week been censored, Booker was told by the Sunday Telegraph that part of his column, an item attacking David Cameron was to be dropped.

But Richard North feels and I fully agree “the MSM has it own agenda” not one that is shared with the blogosphere.

So to put some balance into the media Cameron love in, below with thanks to Eureferendum is the part of the Booker column the telegraph chose to censor.

As David Cameron ends his first year as leader of the Opposition, there are clear signs that the greatest gamble in modern British politics has not come off. The little group of ex-public schoolboys who last year hi-jacked the Conservative Party have seemed to gamble on just one strategy. List everything the Party used to stand for – low taxes, the family, rolling back the power of the state, encouraging business, upholding our defences, curbing criminals, common sense – then go for the opposite.

The essence of the gamble has been the belief that, in wooing the support of Lib Dems, would-be greenies, Guardian readers and the supposed “soft centre”, they could take their supposed “core” supporters for granted. But as support for Cameron falters, all the evidence seems to suggest that those wished-for new recruits to his “Not The Conservative Party” are not forthcoming, while the Party’s former natural supporters are left baffled, dismayed and increasingly angry.

All this was neatly symbolised by the recent photo-opportunities staged by the three men now competing for the role of Britain’s prime minister. Mr Blair and Mr Brown, aware that defence and national security (not long ago rating 34 percent on a Mori poll) still rank very much higher as voter priorities than “environmental” issues (only 8 percent), flew out to the Iraq and Afghan battle-zones to pose in front of the largest guns they could find. Mr Cameron, at the same time, flew out to the Sudan, in Lord Ashcroft’s CO2 emitting private jet, to be pictured cuddling a little refugee child. It was the “Men from Mars” against “the Boy from Venus”. “Darfur Dave” did not come well out of the contrast.

The tragedy is that, confronted by the most corrupt, hypocritical, inefficient, illiberal, discredited government in history, what millions of voters are looking for is an alternative which might put an end to the sleazy, self-regarding sham of the Blair era by displaying some “masculine” firmness: in cutting back on the bloated public sector and the out-of-control bureaucracy which is destroying our health service, education and police; which might encourage enterprise; which might restore democracy to local government; bring back some balance into our public finances; sort out the shambles into which our Armed Forces are sliding; uphold Britain’s national interest, as we suffocate under the malfunctioning system of government represented by the European Union.

In other words, what much of the country is crying out for is a party which represents precisely those values which Mr Cameron’s Not-The-Conservative Party seems so hellbent on abandoning. As for what he stands for instead, almost the only clear message Darfur Dave seems to have put over to the voters is his sentimental “save the planet” greenery, on which his dotty little gimmicks and practical ignorance have simply made him a laughing stock.

What many voters sadly begin to conclude is that Dave and his cronies seem so hopelessly ill-equipped to take on the serious business of government that, if we have to choose between one gang of PR merchants and another, better stick with the devil we know. Hence the evidence of the latest polls appearing to show that the gamble has failed. Ever larger become the number of would-be Conservatives sorely tempted to join that 40 percent who already feel so alienated from politics that they just stay sullenly at home. But the Guardian readers are scarcely flocking to replace them. So where does all this leave our country?