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Exclusive: Tory HQ in row with supportive bloggers
Complaints at private meeting that left is ahead
By James Macintyre Published 18 December 2009 19:38
Tory-supporting bloggers have complained to the Conservative leadership that their failure to gain access to senior party figures is allowing the online left to steal a march on them, Newstatesman.com has learned.
The private meeting on Tuesday, which took place over a lavish three-course meal at the House of Commons, including braised wild boar and bread-and-butter pudding, was hosted by the shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt (pictured), the party chairman, Eric Pickles, David Cameron's adviser Henry Macrory and their new media team of Rishi Saha, Sam Coates and Craig Elder.
About 30 bloggers were invited to the event, though the "big two" -- Iain Dale and Tim Montgomerie -- did not attend. "The bloggers were critical of Tory web strategy, about not getting any support from CCHQ and about no access to senior figures," a source with access to the meeting said. One issue that came up was the failure of the official Tory site MyConservatives.com, which features broadcasts from Cameron, but which is said to have only about 80 users.
"Hunt basically told them to back off until after the election, which didn't go down well," a source said. "Bloggers made the point that Labour were catching up and that didn't go down well either."
The bloggers complained that -- unlike the Tories -- Labour invites bloggers to press briefings. Labour has private webchats for bloggers and supporters to quiz policy and campaign figures, and the party also held daily bloggers' briefings during its party conference.
It was pointed out that Labour's Membersnet applies all of the principles that MyCon is seeking to achieve, but it was launched many months earlier and without a fanfare of glitz and publicity. Sources say that as few as 80 people are using MyCon -- that's about the same number of bloggers as Labour used to beta-test the most recent modification of Membersnet.
Labour, it was said, regularly sources ideas from the blogosphere, as in Douglas Alexander's webchats, the http://www.labour.org.uk/labour-campaign-network ">Labour Campaign Network and the recent adoption of the Against the Odds Party Election Broadcast, as revealed by Newstatesman.com.
One common complaint is that ConservativeHome, once seen as an independent, grass-roots site, has been bought by Lord Ashcroft.
Meanwhile, Labour insiders say that Tangent Labs, Labour's technology agency, is largely responsible for Labour's progress on the web. "It gave a huge amount of time and expertise and spent the past 18 months learning and learning from the US, Australia and Europe. It's a story that is never told."
Below is the full menu from the meal. It is not clear who paid the bill.
First Course Options:
Roasted and spiced butternut squash with root vegetable crisps
Served with seasonal leaves, coriander jelly and toasted cashew nuts
Wild mushroom and tarragon pâté served with toasted brioche bread
With pickled winter root vegetables
Ham hock terrine with free-range egg, caper and parsley
Served with pease pudding
Cream of field mushroom soup with grilled red mullet fillet
SN Butternut squash velouté with roasted red pepper and sage oil
Main Course Options:
1. Seared fillet of sea bass on caramelised Cox's apple mash
o Served with curly kale, plum tomato and horseradish herb oil
2. Roast corn-fed chicken supreme with Tromplet mushroom
o Served with bow tie pasta, green vegetables and light chicken jus
3. Braised game topped with a puff pastry lid
o Slow braised wild boar, venison and rabbit, served with mushroom smoked garlic mash and rainbow carro
Desserts:
1. Coconut parfait
Served with slow poached pineapple, sesame and pink peppercorn wafer
2. Bramley apple cake
With nutmeg panna cotta and blackcurrant compote
3. Traditional bread-and-butter pudding
With rum-soaked raisins and custard
4. Tarte tatin
Served with vanilla ice cream and star anise syrup
5. Pistachio meringue
Served with raspberries and crème fraîche
6. White and dark chocolate Black Forest chocolate torte
With sour cherries
7. Classic crème brûlée
Sugar-glazed vanilla custard
8. Fresh fruit salad
Selection of fresh fruits served in freshly squeezed orange juice
9. House of Commons fine cheeses
Served with biscuits and fruit
James Macintyre is political correspondent for the New Statesman.
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35 comments
Great to hear fm McIntyre, even though its Dec 2009. He's still around in the ether if not physically.
The menu seems rather heavy and bloated particularly the Game option.
I'm glad there was a Veggie option though.
But it would be great if they could have served up some meals on wheels frozen food options like Wiltshire or Farms Foods or Appetitio etc which a lot of elderly people living on their own have to be content with.
so far past the mark, the mark is a dot to you.
Margaret, I imagine "What's up Sam" is that the article is fabrication.
As one of the bloggers invited (on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/louisebagshawe) can i just confirm Sam's account; this is utterly wrong in every way. Very positive, lots of suggestions as to how to help the party's online campaigning. Much laughter at Kerry McCarthy's (@KerryMP on Twitter) statement that Iain Dale was "not my political equivalent". Talk about commentators vs. legislators. Discussion of how Labour would cover a leadership contest following its election defeat. How the Tory blogs would cover our hard choices in government. Jeremy Hunt very well-received indeed.
Frankly one second's research on Twitter would have seen a flurry of tweets from bloggers present saying what a great lunch it was and what a good chance to meet each other and talk. The tweets are still up there, James, if you can be bothered to look.
Better luck next time, eh?
What's up Sam, was the wild boar not to your liking?
MyCon doesn't appear to be popular and the Conservative lead contunues to fall.
I've made sure I've got a copy of this post - it takes some going to write a few hundred words without wandering near any actual truth!
Not a single thing you say was said at the lunch was actually said - ask anyone who was actually there. Saying Eric Pickles was there is wrong. The number of attendees is wildly wrong. Even the pudding is wrong!
In fact, the only things that are right are a few basic snippets that were posted online by centre-right blogs on the day: 1) that it happened on Tuesday, 2) that Hunt, Macrory and the new media team were there, and 3) that there was some boar in the main course). Cracking journalism.
And what about the 'sources' that say that MyConservatives has 80 users? What a bizarre thing to say. Even the most cursory look at the site shows it has hundreds of individual campaigns never mind thousands of users. Not only that, but to then assert that Labour's MembersNet is a model worth emulating lacks any credibility in new media circles - I do hope they stick with it for the upcoming election.
This is total rot and shoddy journalism - not that we should expect anything else from Mr Macintyre.
It was a straightforward three-course lunch, and a chance to hear what the party's up to online in a little more detail, and to offer our own thoughts on how it might proceed. It's called 'engagement'.
Frankly, if this dross represents the highest standards of left-wing journalism that the Conservatives must prepare for next year, the intellectual debate looks easier than even the most delirious optimist could hope for.
Ridiculous. I was there. Here's the run down:
http://www.keeprightonline.com/2009/12/18/james-make-it-up-new-statesman...
Oh come on James. I'm a Labourite and a blogger and even I think this is shoddy journalism. You've just given Shane Greer a license to rip you apart (which he has done quite eloquently).
Raise your standards please. The New Statesman shouldn't be indulging in to this low level of conjecture. It completely denigrates the publication and you shouldn't publish it.
Unlike Mr Macintyre, I was at the lunch. Everything he's written is untrue. He should have the grace to apologise. Even the menu is fiction!
twitter.com/graemearcher
www.graemearcher.com
Oh dear, James. I was present too. Your piece is so wrong that you should have the guts to apologise, or is your approach to politics the same as that of your Labour chums Draper and McBride?
Still laughing. Will get to write this up eventually but haaaa.
And careful Donal, they are not chums remember! No Sireeee.
I have to say I love Tory discipline when it comes to parroting the same line on a given issue.
Tory Bear turns up on LibCon to claim the menu was totally wrong while Shane Greer says it was the only thing correct.
Oh dear. At least agree on a joint line before getting all hysterical eh?
I was there at the meeting, and whilst Macintyre pretty much pulled the meeting's minutes out of his arse (FFS, you n00b journalist), the attendees weren't exactly thrilled at Jeremy Hunt lecturing us on what we already knew. There was indeed a bit of a side discussion after lunch about MembersNet, but we definitely don't want to emulate that piece of shit. We like MyConservatives - it's flexible, and OPEN to anyone. Though we did all wish Louise Bagshawe would shut up.
Oh and the bit about us wanting more access to the shadow cabinet? Bullsh*t. We don't need to rely on a centralised stasi office to tell us what to think - we're able to think for ourselves, thanks. That's why we have a respectable grassroots. Also, whilst I'm in rant mode, webchats are the stupidest idea PR hacks could have dreamed up.
Opps meant to type that I wasn't there at the meeting, but from what I heard from a fellow conservative, Macintyre pretty much pulled the meeting's minutes out of his a$$
Next week's Macintyre exclusive: How Gordon Brown saved the world? Think we should start a hashtag here!
Next week Macintyre exclusive: more likely to be 'New poll amoung Labour membership puts them on course to increase their majority-I told you so', or 'Exclusive interview with Sion Simon's; We still are not dead' or even "Anyone who disagrees with me or Mehdi is automatically a right-wing troll and thus a racist".
Wait a sec, he's already blogged about those...
Sunny H
19 December 2009 at 00:38
'Tory Bear turns up on LibCon to claim the menu was totally wrong while Shane Greer says it was the only thing correct.
Oh dear. At least agree on a joint line before getting all hysterical eh?'
Not that you'd ever let the facts get in the way but notice the update on shane's blog.
http://www.shanegreer.com/2009/12/18/james-macintyre-lair-and-third-rate...
Macintyre, I can't believe you got the menu wrong after the not so subtle attempt to advance your masters class warfare program? Does he pay you well, or does he have so much dirt on you after all the years of 'tricks' you and your mate derek draper have pulled on people over the years?
I would have thought half a pintof warm beer and a packet of cheese & onion crisps would have been enough for the average Lefty.
Great rebuttals.
As for the menu, James I'd also like to know why you thought it was somehow relevant. Are we to believe you only eat pie and mash and that you've never tasted good food?
Sure.....
Oh piss off @sunny, you're like that weird socially awkward old man who who just pops up and says daft stuff to get some sort of human interaction. No one cares what you think or say geddit.
wow... what a hysterical bunch...
macintyre does know how to cause mischief and irritate you guys, no?
good to see louise bagshawe in the thread once read one of her chick-lit novels
Macintyre brand of lies and spin isn't unique. It permeates across the left wing blogosphere. No wonder it's in such a dire state compared to the right.
But it should prove as a warning. After 12 years in power Labour and the left have run out of anything constructive. They have lost just about every debate. The stock is rock bottom.
So what else have they got left? Lies, deceit and spin.
The forthcoming election will be very very nasty.
Oh come off it James, who on earth are you quoting anyway?
These right-whingers really are humourless and po-faced people aren't they?
;-)
The Macs are at it again. They associate the Tories with the English, and anti-English bigotry is so deep it is engrained in their genes. They never flinched at lying about the English, in order to justify their bigotry and they will do the same where the Tories are concerned.
I will only ever vote for an English Labour Party. As long as the Scots and are in charge, they haven't a hope in hell in England. Purge the bigots, for heaven's sakes, or the Labour Party is finished. We English don't want any part of this bigotry. Time they grew up.
Sunny H, 00:37: "I have to say I love Tory discipline when it comes to parroting the same line on a given issue."
Suuny H, 00:38: "...At least agree on a joint line before getting all hysterical eh?"
Perhaps Sunny should try to agree a joint line with himself?!
antieverything (except the Conservative party, who will win the election of course and then experience a period of such profound crisis that cameron and gove will wish they never entered politics)
The left is in fact in very good shape -- take Obama, in the US, for instance... Labour may be discredited because they accepted and built on the neoliberal consensus that has the world economy to the edge of ruin. this is a progressive moment. Labour can't take advantage of it as Obama has in the US because they are in power and are culpable. instead of ad hominem attacks on young jimmy mac why not debate the issues.
FYI: http://www.torybear.com/2009/12/james-macintyre-wins-pulitzer.html
Sounds to me like people on both side are inward looking and so up themselves it is no wonder that those who engage in politics (I use this term so as to include political hangers on such as bloggers and tweeters. yah yah, blah blah!)
No wonder that whichever party wins the next election the results for the people of the UK will be even more grief, dressed up by spin and subsequently sugar coated to delude the gullible.
The response to this post from the Tories is so impressive, a lot that the the left could learn.
From what I've heard there's been a lot of sniping about lack of access to the senior team amongst the Tories and the disconnect between leadership and blogosphere. That's a legitimate story. Also, I hear the menu printed here is the one that was emailed to invitees beforehand. If it was changed on the day that's surely not a big deal?
There seems to be some quibbling about the fact that the attendee list wasn't 30 bloggers, but the article says that's how many were invited, not how many turned up?
I love how all the Tories just piled on over tiny minutiae. Macintyre seems to be quite the lightning rod, but I love how organised the 'strikes' against him have been. Within _SECONDS_ of the article being published we get the official CCHQ rapid-response team coming up with a rapid response, and I'm presuming they set off the rest of the blogosphere (never seen them so active on a Friday night, btw).
Chin up James. I second @IndependentMind above in saying that you definitely have turned out to be a lightning rod. But thats what they need - someone's got to give them a good kicking, might as well be Draper 2.0 (rough around the edges, but I'll stick with it thanks).
Ermm Einy, you work in a press office. Isn't it your job to talk to journalists? I'd love to see all the journos you'd briefed out you as their source.