Reverting to type

Tweet The Conservatives have been busy locally delivering a little leaflet on behalf of their Westminster candidate.

He's clearly been following his own advice. "I am currently head of one of Europe's largest membership organisations lobbying for rural communities" is hardly an entirely open reference to the Countryside Alliance and its main aim. No reference at all to the main objective of the Conservative campaign locally (the restoration of fox-hunting), despite the fact that the campaign is almost entirely funded by people pursuing that aim.

He also follows Cameron's lead – don't tell them what you're for, just keep stressing that you're not Labour. As I've suggested before, with one lot campaigning on the basis that they're not Labour, and the other lot campaigning on the basis that they're not the Tories, this looks like being a pretty uninspiring campaign from the UK parties.

PS – Whilst previous efforts from the blue camp locally have tended to include one sentence in Welsh (telling people that a Welsh version of the leaflet is available as a special favour if they request one from the office), this one reverts to the Tories' normal monolingual approach. In an area where the majority of the population are fluent in Welsh, they are distributing a leaflet which, but for a change of logo, could have gone out in any constituency in England. Valleys Mam commented a few days ago on the lack of commitment by the Conservative Party to the language. It seems to me that, as far as Welsh is concerned,the English Conservative Party in Wales is merely reverting to type.