Mysterious Vanishing Tories – An Import from Australia

Okay, this is just hearsay, but it suggests what and who’s responsible for the Tory strategy of running away from interviews. And that person is their election strategist, Linton Crosby.

Thursday evening I put up a little piece commenting on the very low profile adopted by Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Tories had been keeping him well away from the cameras and the microphones after he had massively put his foot in his mouth about the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire on LBC radio. Mogg was due to appear at a hustings in Midsomer Norton, but considering his record of not appearing in public, there was speculation that he wouldn’t.

Of course, Mogg isn’t alone in his reluctance to talk to the media. Trev, one of the great commenters on this blog, posted a couple of remarks about other Tory candidates also running away. Like the one for Colne Valley, who apparently declared that he avoids meetings with a left-wing bias. The site reporting this is

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/jason-mccartney-explains-hasnt-attended-17364450.

But be warned! It’s behind a paywall.

And the Sidmouth Herald also reported that a Tory down there had also pulled out of a hustings.

https://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/conservative-candidate-pulls-out-of-hustings-1-6406694

And last Wednesday Mike also reported how the Tory candidate for Peterborough, Paul Bristow, ran away from Channel 4. They wanted to ask him about a possible threat from Brexit, but this was obviously too much for the Tory’s delicate constitution.

Terrified Tories are running from media scrutiny

The Russians say that a fish rots from the head down, and that’s certainly true of the Tories. They only seem to be following the lead of their chief, our unfunny comedy prime minister, Boorish Boris Johnson. Johnson runs away from interviews at a rate of knots. he has signally failed to turn up to be mauled by Andrew Neil and ducked out of Channel 4’s climate debate. And to think that the Tories had the gall to accuse Jeremy Corbyn of being chicken.

I was talking to a friend about this, and he remarked that it’s how the parties campaign in Australia. They don’t give interviews, just keep their heads down and smear each other. I don’t know if it’s correct, but if it is, it’s something that the Tories have decided to import over here. And the person most likely to be responsible for it is Linton Crosby. Before he become the Tories’ electoral strategist under Tweezer, he was one of the major electoral strategists for their equivalent Down Under. Now it seems that after destroying proper democratic debate there, he’s importing the same policy of silence and smear here.

But what does it say about the Tories’ style of government, that they just lie and smear their opponents from running away from real scrutiny and honest debate themselves? Would you trust such dishonest cowards in government?

The Mysterious Vanishing Tories – Jacob Rees-Mogg

Mike over at Vox Political has been putting up a number of articles about how publicity-shy various Tory candidates are. Some of them are so wary of actually talking to the media that they’ve actually been spotted running away from them and members of the public. Yesterday he put up a video from EvolvePolitics about the Tory candidate for Peterborough, Paul Bristow, who had gone into self-imposed media silence. Channel 4 news had been looking for him to get an interview about what he felt about the challenge from a rival candidate for the Brexit Party. But, like Jo Swinson for the Remain campaign during the EU referendum, he was nowhere to be seen. The journo ended up waiting for him outside his house after their attempts to contact him about arranging an interview got absolutely nowhere. Eventually he turned up, and when they ran towards him he started closing the door, claiming that he couldn’t speak to them because he had a meeting. He told them to phone or email his office. The hack told him they had, and got through to one of the gentlemen with him, but had got nowhere. But the door closed, and so another Tory remained silent. Safe from media scrutiny.

Terrified Tories are running from media scrutiny

Like the current leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg. Mogg was due to appear at a hustings in Midsomer Norton at 7.00 O’Clock this evening. Points West, the local news programme for the Bristol, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire area, was also down there hoping to catch him when they were on air at 6.30. But he hadn’t shown up. It seems Mogg has also been told told to keep his head down by the Tory party. He hasn’t given an interview for a month since he opened his mouth on LBC and made his highly ill-advised comments about the victims of the Grenfell fire. The programme said that the Tories had stated he hadn’t given interviews and would not give any for the next month. The Beeb’s journo then did a vox pop of three members of the public, who had turned up for the hustings. They were not impressed with Mogg’s avoidance of public and media scrutiny. A young woman said that it showed a disrespect for the public. An older man said that he wasn’t surprised Mogg wasn’t talking after his comments about Grenfell. They were disgraceful! He also spoke to the candidates for the other parties – the Greens, Lib Dems and Labour, who were hoping to tackle Mogg at the hustings. And they had the same view of Mogg as the ordinary citizens the Beeb had just interviewed. Their man in Midsomer Norton ended that part of the programme by saying that the Tories had assured them that Mogg would be at the hustings, and they’d give an update to the story at a later bulletin.

This tells you all about the high confidence the Tories have in their candidates. They really don’t want anyone interviewing them, asking them any awkward questions. And they’re doing their best to run away from the cameras and microphones as fast as their legs can carry them. Mind you, with people having written ‘Get Mogg Out’ on the top of a slag heap near Midsomer Norton earlier today, perhaps it’s unsurprising that Mogg was in no hurry to get to the hustings there.

But the peeps on the programme were right. The behaviour of Mogg and his fellow Tory candidates trying to keep themselves out of the media, so they don’t put their feet in it, does show a basic contempt for the voting public. As well as their hypocrisy. After all, it wasn’t that long ago they were calling Corbyn ‘chicken’.