Current Speaker Market

Where's Alistair?

Look here for more pictures from the first Cabinet meeting since the reshuffle

Maybe he was asked to take the pictures?

Update 1154am 09/06/2009

The BBC have the video footage, still no Alistair:

Honest Food Labelling

I love this video! Great bit of PR, my only gripe is it seems to only be easy to embed it, where's the url?

Ballad of a Geek

This Valentine's Day, don't just sent your valentine flowers. Show that lucky person you truly love them. Send them an inbound link.Far better than flowers or chocolates, inbound links will bestow SEO authority on your beloved.
How do you send link love? It's simple. Just click the button below, and you'll see.


"Link Love"An original ballad by HubSpot's Rebecca Corliss

I knew that our feelings were true
That time I got that Tweet from you
You Dugg my post from yesterday
You said it in a special way

I blogged about the way I felt
You commented—It made me melt
I hoped you'd blog about us too
I watched the trackbacks, would there be one from you?

Give me the link love
Boy, where's the link love?
Hey, show me the link love
Your perfect website grade goes straight to my heart

My iPhone beeped. Had a Google alert
You linked to me. You're such a flirt
I checked the link grade. Can it be?
You'd given SEO credit to me

I wrote about our romance news
My blog now had a thousand views
Tweeted the link so I could brag
Now Twitter knew and they made a hashtag

Give me the link love
Boy, where's the link love?
Hey, show me the link love
Your perfect website grade goes straight to my heart

My 301 directed me
To be with you so permanently
Now our domains as one unite
Our love gives us a ranking website

Your inbound links are strong and true
The anchor text is "I love you"
The keywords that we optimize
Causes our blog rank and our passion to rise

Give me link love
Boy, where's the link love?
Show me the link love
Your perfect website grade goes straight to my heart
Link Love audio file (mp3)

The song, audio tracks and video in this post are all licensed under Creative Commons, Share Alike and are Podsafe. So take it and re-mix it, and share it!




Link Love audio file (mp3)The song, audio tracks and video in this post are all licensed under Creative Commons, Share Alike and are Podsafe. So take it and re-mix it, and share it! Link Love by Rebecca Corliss of HubSpot is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Credits: Rebecca Corliss (@repcor): Jilted link lover, song composition, lyrics, vocals and video editingRick Burnes (@rickburnes): Grumpy manDavid Fisher (@tibbon): Accompaniment and music recordingDan Zarrella (@danzarrella): linklove.hubspot.comEllie Mirman (@ellieeille): Cinematographer and camerawoman Heart-holders:Michelle Jones, Prashant Kaw (@PrashantKaw), Chris Alexis, Mike Volpe (@mvolpe), Owen Raccuglia, Katie Greenwood, Mike Kaplan (@mikekaplan1) Chris Johnson, Dan Dunn (@dunster), Kyle James (@kylejames), Yoav Shapira (@yoavshapira), Dan Abdinoor (@abdinoor), Kate Farren

Quote of the Day

"The Élysée have been in contact this morning to assure us that these remarks were not meant as a critique of UK economic policy – which is nice."

A Downing Street Official

Nicolas Sarkozy has sparked a cross-channel diplomatic row after disparaging Gordon Brown's response to the economic crisis on French TV.

Read the full story here...

To befriend or not to befriend

I have been watching the clips from the Politics Show which have been posted online with interest. Tim Montgomerie is an excellent performer in front of the camera and provides some welcome tips though I don't really think that's what I'm trying to do here. I don't want to create a mass readership hanging of my every word, what I do want to do is increase my confidence when writing and get myself to put something on the record. Though that might be why I shy away from some topics...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/7847106.stm

Any way, one noticable thing was John Prescott. He was absolutely super (even if I fundamentally disagree with him) in his programme on class before Christmas and these clips show why you can be any age to embrace technology succesfully but it takes openess and confidence. The only problem is, after watching him do his 'thang' on the politics show I feel compelled to add him as a friend. That's not acceptable for a card carrying Tory is it?

From Sandringham to Sandringham

Am currently sitting in an internet cafe in Melbourne having been here for three days. Have been to the cricket twice and am staying in a super hostel, Urban Central. It's been lovely to catch up with old mates (some who I haven't seen in four years) what's strange is how easy it is to get along with everyone even though it's been so long. The MCG was beautiful and although the cricket wasn't riveting, to see Duminy was fantastic. I thought he'd fall at 90 but he kept on going past 150 which is astounding for his 2nd test. Christmas was super lovely though I'm starting to get a little homesick. Which I never thought would happen...

Anyways, today I'm off to stay with Tina in Sandringham of all places, so from Sandringham (UK) to Sandringham (Oz) I travel the world!

Much love,

Flo xx

Happy Christmas!

Have been in Australia since Saturday and have been having a fab time. Sang carols on my first night, sailed on the next day and have seen fireworks as we came into the harbour from manly.



Love to you all and have a super Christmas!



Flo x x

Christmas Recess - A bit of a change around here

So... Due to the end of the Parliamentary Christmas term and a recess which is unusually long this year and a small amount of money coming my way, I'm flying to Australia tonight.

I'll be off for three weeks so instead of the usual (if a little rare) political and London commentary I will be blogging about my big Christmas trip.

I'm taking my camera so I'll try and upload photos and blog most days. I'll also have my crackberry on me so you can continue (!) to email me on flora@florula.com

PBR: The front pages say it all really

I was just reading my google reader and this image came up under Conservative Home and I believe it says it all really. It's Labour's scorched earth policy in action.

Hat Tip: Conservative Home

Islington CFers in the News

Last night Vicki Chamberlin (our Deputy Chairman and leaflet drop organiser), Michael Bull and Connor Coleman from our CF hit the major termini of London with other CFers to publicise Labour's tax Bombshell. Here's a pic of Michael (L) and Connor (R):

"However Gordon Brown wraps it up it's still a tax bombshell"

Great work guys!!!

Thanks to Jonathan Isaby and Conservative home for reporting this campaign

Pirate Facebook

^

Oh, I am a massive loser, but how fun is pirate facebook

Ross, Brand and Sachs...

This blog from London Spin came up on my Google Reader and it annoyed me, and then caused me to think what is it about the call to sack Jonathan Ross that annoys me?

Having listened to discussions on the issue on the Today programme most mornings and it's been a hot topic at work I believe I'm fairly balanced on the issue:

• Most (if not almost all of the complaints) were made by people who didn't and wouldn't normally listen to Russell Brand's show which was from 9pm-11pm on Saturdays which is after the watershed
• The nature of the telephone call was unacceptable and a perfect example of a terribly unsophisticated prank call - the presenters showed very poor judgement
• Jonathan Ross is very well paid and by being on suspension continues to receive his (reportedly) £16000 pd pre-tax which in my mind is obscene, he should waive his pay while on suspension
• The exceutives have joint culpability as the show was pre-recorded two days before and then santioned by them to go on air
• This has the whiff of a witch hunt and is being used as a tool for the right-wing press (and I say this as a Tory) to attack the "left-wing" biased media, the licence fee and ultimately devalues what I value as a tremendous organisation
• Russell Brand did the right thing in resigning, I may not enjoy his work personally but I know a great many who do
• Jonathan Ross will be sorely missed from the BBC while on suspension
• The hulking response by the BBC and theire unwillingness to allow spokesmen on the issue (a fact pointed out on the BBC Today programme) is simply not good enough in the age of rapid media

So do I think sacking Jonathan Ross is the answer?

No, this would be a knee jerk reaction. He is hugely popular if massively overpaid and both his television and radio shows are excellent. He may have shown an error of judgement but after the apology it is time to move on. Did you listen/watch either show before? If not, don't worry, if yes, vote with your dial or remote.

---gate

Is anyone else getting irritated with the suffix -gate? I personally am getting tired by this lazy journalistic cliche being attached to any sort of hooha or scandal that is lighting up the news.

Currently or recently finished we have (and these are off the top of my head):-
Yacht/Depraska-gate [Mandy, Osborne & Rothschild]
Sachsgate [Brand, Ross and Manuel]
Troopergate [Sarah Palin investigation]

Of course there have been many more and this wikipedia page is testament to this fact. It is convenient and useful when defining a scandal in shorthand or for headlines but isn't it unoriginal?

I believe there is a sort of beauty in the naming of the Westland Affair, which brings to mind an elegant black and white film, or the Suez Crisis. With all of these -gates it devalues the memorability of the scandal, like a made for TV movie, each a bad sequel to what was once a seminal picture.

Grow a Mo for Mo-vember

A Lighter Side to US2008

I saw these come up on Donal Blaney's blog (his is certainly one I read on the grounds that you should read everything, especially if you don't agree, so that you can hone your argument) and had a great twenty minutes of laughter. I cna't imagine Cammers or GB ever doing this, the writing is excellent and they poke fun at each other and their own characterisations in the media. If you have the time do give them a watch as they're laugh out loud funny.

(now I hope I've managed to upload them properly!)

Meet North East London CSI candidates

(L-R) Myself, Andrew Charamboulos, Simon Nayor and Elizabeth

Richard Bunting, Neil Lindsay, Antonia Cox & Martin Koder

Elizabeth and Adrian Berrill-Cox

So on the last night of conference we went for a drink and met up with the CSI candidates, they're a relaly great bunch and I think it will be very hard to choose but it does make you feel very popular.

Here's how it works:

Islington, although it is one association, covers two constituencies and is part of the wider North-London Area. The City Seats Initiative was trialled at the 2005 election in Sheffield and Liverpool and has been extended and we part of one of the regions.

As it goes we have a fluid list of approximatly 15 candidates chosen by the candidates department at CCHQ and people can be added and taken away at all times. The CSI candidates will campaign/canvas en masse until the selection early next year according to an approved schedule, co-ordinated across the area.

Early next year we will hold a traditional selection in our Association but it might be a little like the US primaries with each association accross the area wanting to get first selection! Once each constituency has a candidate they will then focus on their consituency alone but once a week they will have a special session in each constituency in turn when all the candidates from across the area will go and help.

This is particularly useful in constituencies where the association is either very small or very inactive or both or even non-existent.

We of course, as you can tell, are quite busy but in my opinion it will be great to build up a relationship with these CSIers who are amazing High fliers and as Islington South & Finsbury could swing any way it could mean we get some excellent canvassing data.

So the piccies from the first formal meet up!

Cabinet Changes 2

Here are the full junior ministerial changes http://budurl.com/8uey
Lord Bassam is Chief Whip! Apparantly he is very popular and a hard worker, read into that what you will...

And in other big news on the reshuffle, Lord Adonis has been moved to Transport, and area which he cares nothing about and Lord Bach is doing both a Whips role and Ministerial post, he's going to be very busy.

Cabinet Changes

Baroness Ashton is off and apparantly she is very happy about it, and we have two new Peers!

Click on the title of this post for Sky News' list of the changes but I am fairly excited about this. All I want to know is what does Stephen Carter know about Brown to be given such a meaningless position and a peerage and who will be the new Chief Whip in the Lords?

Fundraiser

Islington Conservative Future also got a mention...

Fundraiser Night

The fundraiser evening put on by the Islington Young Conservatives raised £1400.

The event was held in the Surya Club in King s Cross, the world s first eco-friendly nightclub! It was attended by over a hundred people and Mike Hickes and Beef spoke passionately about Prospex, and Greg Baker MP (Shadow Minister for Climate Change) also spoke. As well as raising money for us there was a lot of interest in volunteering and we are reaping the benefits of this already.

Our thanks to Elizabeth Eldridge for organising the event and Andrew Charalambous for the use of the club.


Following that meeting with Andrew Charalambous, Mike also featured and spoke about Prospex on Greek radio s Green Hour, the show hosted by Andrew.


Fundraising events are a great way for us to get some funding as well as to be able to gain support and volunteers and to open new doors for us. If you are able to organise an event on our behalf we would love to hear from you.

But I ought to add, thanks to Vikki and Flora because we are a team.