Tory election campaign 'shambolic', senior lobbyist says
David Cameron's Conservatives lurching towards general election defeat due to "shambolic" campaign, top lobbyist says
Saturday, 06, Mar 2010 07:00
By Matthew Champion.
The Conservatives are lurching towards a general election defeat due to a "shambolic" campaign, a senior lobbyist has claimed in an email to party supporters.
Peter Bingle, a leading lobbyist for the party and a former London councillor, wrote to colleagues last night accusing David Cameron of diluting the Tory message to such an extent that now no one knew what the Tories stood for.
The email, obtained by Channel 4 News and written under the subject line "Musings of a Tory in despair", comes after a YouGov poll in key marginal seats saw the Tory lead shrink from seven to two points.
Mr Bingle wrote that he had seen the results of the poll with "despair but no real surprise", accusing the Tories of lacking a credible campaign manager.
Click here to read the email in full
"The Tory campaign is shambolic and unless somebody of quality and experience takes control of it now there is a real danger of the Tories throwing away what should be an inevitable election victory," he said. "Should this happen, David Cameron will never be forgiven by his party and his party's supporters in the country who are desperate for a change of government."
The lobbyist went on to argue that the furore over major donor Lord Ashcroft's non-dom tax status was a "toxic issue".
"Didn't David Cameron or his colleagues understand that it should have been sorted out years ago rather than in the middle of a general election campaign?"
On last week's spring conference speech from the Tory leader in Brighton, overtaken by Lord Ashcroft's tax status admission, Mr Bingle added: "Somebody seems to have persuaded David that talking about change is enough. It is not. People are naturally conservative. They will vote for change only if they believe that change means that their lives will get better. Looking at the two rows of the shadow cabinet scared me. Is that really the best that the Tory Party can deliver?"
In response to the email from Mr Bingle, who turned down his invitation to attend the Tories' local government conference, a party spokesman said: "This is a lobbyist with his own agenda who has no understanding at all what's going on in Tory HQ."