The wonderful sound of knives being sharpened

From The Daily Telegraph:

“Senior Tories have expressed growing private criticism of the influence on David Cameron of a former marketing consultant who masterminded moving the party to the centre ground.”

Good. Quite frankly, that is fucking fantastic news. Senior Tories should be deeply worried about the direction Cameron is taking the party in, and should be very willing to criticise any fucking marketing consultant who is behind this lurch to the left.

“The Daily Telegraph can disclose that there is deepening tension in the upper echelons of the parliamentary party over the role of Steve Hilton, 38, who is paid a reputed £270,000, the biggest salary ever paid to a party official.”

I’m sorry, what? What the fuck? The guy is paid more than a quarter of a million pounds to drag the party away from their core beliefs? He should be fucking fined if he is the mastermind behind the Cameron non-strategy. Apparently he is the “sole architect of strategy, marketing and presentation.” I’m being old-fashioned, but a party doesn’t need to pay someone a small fortune to look after business bollocks like “strategy”… Jesus, no wonder the party is constantly sending out begging letters to its supporters. They need to pay off a marketing consultant. How many shitting peerages do we think Mr Hilton costs?.

“It was Mr Hilton who devised the much-derided "hug a hoodie" and was behind the decision last week of Mr Cameron to boycott the CBI conference in favour of a photo-opportunity in Iraq.”

I kind of envy Mr Hilton. Paid a fucking fortune for making bad decisions. Tell you what, I’ll do his job for half his salary, and judging by the ineptitude shown by Cameron in his first year, I will do twice as well.

“In 1998 the Oxford-educated Mr Hilton set up Good Business, which pioneers the concept of social marketing to help business discover its conscience. The philosophy has dominated Mr Cameron's first year of leadership.”

Ugh, dear God, doesn’t that make you want to puke? Good Business? Helping business discover its conscience? This is the sort of wishy-washy, touchy feely bollocks that is the preserve of the Liberal Democrats, not the Tories. But then again, Hilton seems to want to make the Tories into the Liberal Democrats anyway…

“Shadow cabinet ministers have privately expressed misgivings about the advice given by Mr Hilton, whom they regard as highly intelligent and motivated but misguided.”

Misguided? Jesus H. Christ, misguided is a bit of a fucking understatement. He is left of the Labour Party!

“Mr Hilton is one of the few advisers permitted to interrupt and contradict Mr Cameron at meetings with shadow ministers. One source said: "Steve just interrupts Cameron and says: 'Shut up Dave, you don't know what you are talking about'. Cameron takes it from him because he trusts him so much."”

Right, so not only is Mr Hilton an arrogant cunt, but Cameron – a man seeking to lead this nation – lacks the backbone to stand up to a marketing consultant. A fucking marketing consultant! Well, that bodes well for international fucking diplomacy, doesn’t it? Just imagine negotiations with Kim Jong Il. North Korean diplomat: “The Dear Leader says shut up, Mr Cameron.” Prime Minister Cameron: “Oh, no worries, wilco, what!”

I kind of suspected all this: Cameron using his tenure as Tory leader as little more than a marketing campaign. And with this Hilton, he seems to have found the perfect foil. He should take note, though, that those who stay loyal to the party in spite of him reducing it to an ideology free shell of a party will only stick with him as long as the polls stay positive. And as The Telegraph notes, there are murmurings of disquiet – not from the centre ground – but from the loyal supporters who kept the Tory party alive in 1997 and 2001:

“A poll for the website conservativehome.com has found that the number of Conservative supporters unhappy with Mr Cameron's leadership has doubled from 16 per cent in January to 32 per cent.”

And that figure probably doesn’t count those of us who have already ceased to be Conservative Supporters…