Tory Democracy: Hands Up for Bottom of the Class Francis Maude

Thanks to Will Parbury for his intriguing questions for the Tory grandee who is 'appearing' on the cult web TV channel 18 Doughty Street this evening to be interviewed by Iain Dale.

Mr Maude may decide he's not playing ball after the first of Will's questions should Iain ask them. But I have some more with a Manchester flavour which may be of interest given that nowhere - not even Blaenau Gwent is a no-go area for Tories.

Dale could ask him about disreputable Tories cheating on their own "Ask Dave/id" polls? Possibly knocking Lord Fawkes off top spot in a late flurry of VEVO rather than OMOV activity.

Or about Rupert Murdoch's merry hordes being disenfranchised on Iain's own blog I suppose.

He could ask him what he thinks about the Lib Dems being so "affronted" by the Tory tactics in the Cheadle bye-bye-Tories-election.

I have it on good authority from a source who used to be close to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister aka the Deputy Prime Minister's Office that these tactics were not new. These were a word and picture perfect repetition of err, Lib Dem tactics used elsewhere against Labour!

Is there a Lab-Con coalition on the go? Apart the one last year in Rochdale which so amused the Fib Dems that is. I mean, fancy a progressive party getting into bed with the Tories. They would never do that.

And Dale might ask Maude why Jake "the Fake" Berry who is now working for the Tories in London CCHQ, having left his lawyering job in Manchester 'voluntarily' (it says on his blog, but why say that?) is STILL pretending to live "on the outskirts of Manchester" when he actually lives or lived nearer to Liverpool. The wrong side of the M6 I think.

Jake geographical 'knowledge' was also on display as part of the Tory team at Boundary Commission hearings and he supported a wholly ridiculous carve up of the NW into meaningless new constituencies e.g. one with central salford, Manchester and Stretford all in it!

Richard Wilson from the Lib Dems was even barmier though suggesting a system which divided this fibber's fib-won constituency into three bits. For some reason Richard is having trouble finding a ward to contest after being bumped out to make room for a hard-graft convicted criminal! He is that popular. Richard was a Labour councillor for a year before being de-selected. He might try the Greens next, if they'll have him.

Jake's replacement as candidate in City Centre ward in Manchester says he lives in the city centre. You never know this may be true, but then again he has a job as a professional fiddler. Actually not so different from Jake come to think of it as he was a specialist in property deals and now works for Tory Central!

Finally, back to the big picture Iain Dale might ask Francis what it is like to have a NEGATIVE and still fast dropping rating out of 100 from his own membership? As shown in the graph above and the league table right. Both courtesy of those chart and table obsessed saddoes at conservativehome.