The Conservative Future national elections are over, and the results are known.

Chairman
Michael David Rock

National Management Executive
Beaumont-Bott, Anastasia
Douglas, Adele
May, Christian
Meredith, Owen
Ricketts, Cllr Steve
Sullivan, Patrick

Congratulations to everyone who has been elected and good luck with running CF over the next year, and commiserations to those who weren't elected.

But was it really the monkey wot won it?

Mike Rouse, who is carrying out polling on the Conservative Future elections [which you can sign up to take part in here], has the results of the first poll, held just prior to the Bristol hustings which are taking place tonight.

And the results for Chairman support is surprisingly one-sided, with one candidate in particular getting a huge level of support. However, whether this is a genuine reflection of his support or not remains to be seen - and it will be interesting to see how the poll results change in the run up to the election.

The level of support for National Chairman is as follows:

• Richardson, Matthew = 18.9%
• Rock, Michael = 73.0%
• Williams, Daryl = 8.1%

The rest of the results can be seen at Mike's blog and here.

How much will these results effect the candidates, if at all? Maybe there will be some feedback after the Bristol hustings tonight, and maybe some change in the next poll result, which you can sign up to take part in here.

Since so many - like me - are unable to attend the Bristol hustings, maybe someone [like Mike?] Will live-blog the event or provide a summary of what has been said afterwards.

UPDATE: Mike also has an open yet anonymous poll which anyone can fill out without needing to register for the rest of the polling here.

UPDATE 2: Via John Moorcraft, there is a review of the hustings at CF Diary and photos at Nick Webb's blog. No mention of Mike's poll, though...

Are you a member of Conservative Future and interested in taking part in some polling during the run up to the election? If so, sign up with Mike Rouse.

Go, fill in the form, and participate in the first reliable Conservative Future polling!

Five days ago I blogged about something that was supposed to happen well, yesterday. But it appears that it simply hasn't. CF Diary has nothing. The YouTube account has no new videos... so what happened? It's not like this was just a YouTube video - it has been appearing everyone on MessageSpace ads too [which have an annoying habit of playing sounds without being asked to], so it must have been paid for.

Which means that there are two alternatives:

1. Nothing happened, or
2. No-one noticed.

Neither of which are really very good adverts for the individual(s) involved.

If, as seems extremely likely considering the video, this was supposed to be a launch of a CF election bid, so far they have proven that they don't deserve my vote. Which, for Chairman, is currently going to Michael David Rock [it helps that I have met him], who has a kind of pseudo-blog, which I would strongly suggest that he upgrades to proper blog.

UPDATE: It seems it did happen, but no-one really noticed [via Mike Rouse]. They didn't take the opportunity to update their YouTube account, and CF Diary still hasn't got it up...

... until something happens.

Exactly what I have no idea, but presumably something to do with a CF candidate announcement. I wonder whether it will live up to the hype?

Note for whoever made the video: Do a new one for every day between now and Saturday, to build the suspense... Go on... [If you do, email me...]

via Caroline Hunt and CF Diary

Today I have been leafleting in Watford - my first time! I was leafleting to help the fantastic [and hilarious] Conservative PPC Ian Oakley take the seat away from the failing and useless Claire Ward.

It was great fun campaigning with other people, mostly Conservative Future members including a candidate for CF chairman, and will hopefully go some way towards getting more Conservative votes in Watford - and with less than two thousand votes between all three parties at the last parliamentary election [no matter what the Fib Dems claim], every vote counts!

One thing that that needs to be done is for the Watford Conservative website to get back online.

University campuses are often regarded as breeding grounds of the Left. But, really, they're not all that much so any more. Certainly in my experience at Essex, once a hot-bed a Lefty radicalism, the lecturers were far more so than the students. But I don't think that these new posters [via Shane Greer], produced by the Young Britons' Foundation really work very well.

They don't really mean anything, or say anything. I think they are underestimating and over-sexualising students by proposing such posters.

Shane thinks that they are "just the ticket for university conservative groups across the UK" because they are "fun, edgy, and... exciting". I think they're just pretty sad, really. They don't seem "edgy" at all, but a retreat to mere sexualisation.

No-one is going to be persuaded to join the Conservative Party by pictures of topless men or girls looking deeply into the camera. They might be by posters which actually represent what the Conservatives mean. The Boris posters that were given out last year by Conservative Future societies at Freshers Fairs last year are far superior to this offering. At least they were actually somehow connected to the party itself, and not just a transparent attempt to be mildly pornographic.

Life's better under a Conservative - but these posters aren't the best way to make it happen.

David Cameron and the Conservative Party are calling for Brown to "stop dithering" about whether or not to call an election, and effectively tells him to 'bring it on'. At the same time, William Hague says at the conference in Blackpool that "the Conservative Party is ready, it is hungry for victory and if Gordon Brown ever summons up the courage to call an election we are going to beat him."

The polls appear to say the opposite, giving Brown leads of 7-11 points - if the election was tomorrow, of course. But it is also claimed that much of this increase in the polls is focused up in the Labour heartlands of North England, with the electorate in both Scotland and South England not being anywhere near as enamoured with the Great Clunking Fist. But the recent boundary changes "give" the Tories an extra 10-5 or so extra seats straight off. This is also compounded by the fact that in 35 council by-elections since Brown took over as prime minister, the Tories have a nine-point lead over Labour. And these are real votes, not just opinion polls - especially based as they are on the Brown Bounce and Labour conference.

If Brown calls an election, he can only lose. If he does anything less than come back with a majority greater than his current 66, he will have effectively lost, no matter that he still has a majority in the Commons. Thus, for him to win it would require a virtual decimation of the Tories - something that is unlikely, even with his poll lead.

By calling for Brown to stop "dithering" and just call an election, the Tories are aiding and abetting Brown and his government in painting him into a corner - very soon he will have to either call an election or look like a dithering coward, which isn't exactly a characteristic desirable in a prime minister. By allowing himself to be boarded in in this way, Brown has missed at least one trick. He should have either ruled out an election or called one in his conference speech - even if it was simply to say that there would be an election this autumn, but without mentioning a date yet. As his loyalist ministers have been stoking up the election fires, if he does not go it will be a big blow to his credibility.

I'm still not convinced he will though.

Sources: The Times, The Telegraph, BBC

It is very rare for me to quote pretty much an entire blog post, but I just have to with this one by John Moorcroft:

Any additional comment is superfluous.