CF Democracy

While I'm not blogging I suppose I should say a word about the latest Conservative Future elections. Interestingly enough the last time there were CF elections was around the time I shut down this blog. Then I was hoping for a victory from the illustrious Matthew Richardson but sadly this was not to be. In came Michael Rock who's rapid approach to the top age limit of the organisation didn't seem to bar him from hanging on to the top job while the party was apparently too busy anticipating a General Election to re-elect a chairman.

Anyway that is all in the past and yet again the desperate scramble to the top of the youth wing of the Conservative party is underway - but of course this time things are slightly different - we're in government. The next Chairman of CF will be responsible for representing and promoting the youth wing of the largest party in Parliament, which in some ways is a lot harder than it was in opposition. Not only that but they will be the first chairman of Conservative Future ever to be chairman when the Conservative Party was in government. I'm sure the Hon. Gentleman Mr Moorcraft can tell us all a lot more about the various ups and downs over the years though so I shall leave that sort of thing to him.

Long and short - on Friday there was a hustings and I did want to go, honestly I did. But sadly it was also my last day of term which as you can imagine involved a certain amount of celebrating. And then I decided to go to the hustings, in my merry state, and did not arrive until after the actual hustings part of the evening. But no matter - I arrived with plenty of time to interrogate a few of the contenders.


Craig Cox:


Sadly I missed Mr Cox but I do of course know him from days of yore. I even discovered I blogged about him back in 2007, sadly not in a positive way. The interesting fact about that blog post is I have absolutely no recollection of what all that is about so CF wannabees should at least hold on to the fact that none of these minor disputes really matter. So judgement on Cox? I didn't meet him, I don't really remember him very well but what I do remember was we disagreed a lot and finally a quick search of my gmail account reveals a fair few unfavourable comments from 'back in the day' - so he's not getting my vote.


Simon Cavalier-Jones:

The last candidate I met. A new face for me and a hard man to track down judging by how hard I found it to get him to have a conversation with me - then again who wants to talk to a drunken harpy at the Barley Mow around 11 at night! When I eventually barracked him into answering an interrogation from me I was disappointed by the lack of substance. A lot of good sounding words and phrases but very little of it sounded to me like precise practical plans. I have no embarrassing information about his past though so that does at the very least stand in his favour.



Ben Howlett:

I first met Ben in August 2006 when I was running for chairman. He took the time to meet me, get to know me, ask me what I wanted to do as CF chairman and only then chose to give me his support. I extended the same courtesy to him - asked his views and I have to say I was very impressed. Ben seems to me out of the bunch the one with the most sensible thoughts on precisely how CF should be run and how to make the system work better. And he is of course also a lovely young man.

So of course in an ideal world I would like to see the soundness that is Andy Peterkin elected as Conservative Future Chairman (as pictured at the top) - he'd bring class, elegance and a shitload of champagne to the post. But if I can't have that then I suppose my vote has to go to Ben (if I get one!) and I would urge anyone who is not sure who to vote for, to trust my (not entirely) infinite wisdom.