Violet Elizabeth Cash

Gerald Warner writes:

It’s official, as Joanne Cash would say on Twitter – the Vichy Tory Party of Dave and the Maudernisers has won the right to cremate itself on a pyre of betrayed promises, naked control freakery and crass incompetence. Cashgate, as no doubt the commentariat will shortly dub it, was the farcical episode that opened the public’s eyes to the nest of cronyism and aspiring dictatorial control that are the hallmarks of the Cameron-occupied Conservative Party.

Cashgate itself was beyond parody, with Violet Elizabeth Cash, rising star of the Foot-Stamping Tendency, resigning in a huff because the woman she had refused to countenance continuing as chairman of Westminster North Conservative Association was given the consolation prize of association president. Only when Dave and his pals had poured out of the gang hut to put the frighteners on the association was the newly-elected president fully consigned to the wilderness and Lady Entitlement graciously willing to be reinstated.

“RIP dinosaurs,” as Cash claimed? Er, no, more Angela Brazil, actually. Since her selection, many local Conservatives allegedly entertained doubts about Joanne Cash, one of Dave’s A-List protégées, as an effective candidate. According to press reports, this concern came to a head last December, when a local council by-election was held in the Queen’s Park ward of Westminster North constituency. With a dynamic, popular, modernising, young woman candidate, hyped as a future housing minister, setting the pace in the parliamentary seat, the local by-election should surely have been a shoo-in.

On the contrary, not only did Labour hold the council seat, the Conservative vote fell by 13 per cent. That prompts the question, is Dave’s tieless, hoodie-hugging, carbon footprint reducing New Conservatism really working? According to the opinion polls, he has a precarious lead over Labour, varying between a projected small majority and a hung parliament. But what about the real elections that are unobtrusively taking place all the time – local council by-elections – how are the Tories faring in the rest of these contests?

Last December, just before the poor result in Westminster North, I posed that question and investigated the answer. Here is an extract from what I wrote then: “Consider all the local council by-elections that have taken place since the massive European/County Councils general election of last June, in England and Wales, that is to say since 2 July. During that period the Conservatives have defended 37 seats, of which they have lost 14. That appalling record has been partially offset by seven gains, but at least two of those were freakish situations involving Independent or BNP councillors.”

Now, let us update the situation. Since I wrote that blog, in 19 local government by-elections the Tories have lost three seats. In two contests their vote rose by an average of 4.5 per cent; in two their vote remained static; in one there was no preceding vote for comparison; but in 14 their vote declined by an average of 11 per cent. In two they came in third and fourth respectively behind the BNP. Does that look like a triumphant path to Westminster for Dave and his A-List clones? Forget the alibis – local conditions, low turn-out, blah-blah. People at local level declined to vote for the Conservatives or actively voted against them. The Vichy Tory Party is building itself a funeral pyre.