The Land of the Long White Cloud

Those of you who know New Zealand will recognise Rangitoto, the volcanic island that was formed some 500 years ago, which is visible from almost everywhere on the North Shore of Auckland.

Five years ago I managed the two hour walk to the summit - with a few little stops on the way! In a few days our family are returning to the Land of the Long White Cloud to our old base in Takapuna before exploring further afield in the South Island.

We will be away for just over a month and I don't intend to keep in touch with the news in the UK unless I stumble across it. I just hope that when I get back the political landscape shows an even more strong upsurge in the fortunes of the Conservatives and that Brown's Bunglers have been relegated permanently to the status of the corrupt, inept and incompetent charade of a Government that it is.

In the meantime may I wish my reader (sic) a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.

Conservatives should be further ahead in the polls

I gather from the Ben Brogan blog that David Cameron and Andy Coulson have "unleashed the attack dogs" on NuLabour - presumably to counter Brown's "new" offensive against them - look out for a lot of "evil Ashcroft-bashing" and personal accusations of Cameron being a "snob" - see the Coffee House blog - over the next few weeks.

A few days ago I posted this comment on one of the political blogs:

"....it's a bit concerning that David Cameron's team isn't going up in the polls. He should be in the mid-40s by now. I can't believe the little sideshow of Clegg and Huhne giving each other Chinese burns behind the bike sheds at Westminster have caused the LibDems to leap up the polls to over 20%........Andy Coulson and Co must push for a much higher profile of all the Conservative policy proposals....Unless of course they know of some even worse sleaze-related or other incompetent events for Brown and his woeful crew on the horizon?"

Despite the almost daily revelations about the increasing sleaze mountain that Labour has built for itself, my point still stands - the Conservatives should be going up in the polls in their own right.

They have to spear Labour in its heart on two or three big issues now to ensure that Brown and his incompetents just whither on the vine. We can't just rely on them scoring own goals which they will blame anyway on a junior member of staff and cite the resignations of a couple of incompetent officials in the Civil Service or their party machine as having solved their problems.

It appears this might be about to happen. Let's hope so!