Cameron is PM
Leader of the Conservative Party David Cameron is the Prime Minister
Ministers announced here
First Cabinet appointments in the Cameron-Clegg Cabinet here
See photos of Dave’s first days in Downing Street via flickr
Keep up to date with all the Cabinet and Ministerial appointments on the Number 10 website including the Cabinet appointments list
Boris Johnson is delighted at the news and felt that the public would: “want to hear what these guys are going to do to sort out the country .. it’s a robust and interesting new specimen.”
DON’T FORGET TO VOTE
How should you vote? Vote Match is a very straightforward brief quiz in The Daily Telegraph and helps you decide who to vote by matching your views on the issues most important to you with each party’s policies. Have a go and click here
You can also predict the result of the Election with a free £5 and win £10. The Times are offering a free £5 bet with Betfair if you think you can pick a winner from the closest election in decades. Place your bet by midnight on 5th May 2010 here
Look out for the following key seats on election night:
Orpington – Boris’s brother, Jo Johnson, is expecting the results at around 5.a.m.
Richmond Park - Zac Goldsmith
Brighton Pavilion
Torbay
Romsey and Southampton North
Briston North West
Hastings and Rye
Feltham and Heston
Harrow West
Eltham
Waveney
Northampton North
Dudley North
North Warwickshire
Erewash
Lancaster and Fleetwood
Bolton North East
Wakefield
Tynemouth
Boris’s Second Anniversary as Mayor on 1st May
London illustrates what a bold, Conservative administration can do
I’m a one-nation Tory
He believes in the capacity of human ingenuity
Dave, he says, will be seen in a completely different light
Benedict Brogan interview with Boris
Boris Johnson was at work on Wednesday when Gordon Brown crashed into the northern rock that is Gillian Duffy. As a connoisseur of forced apologies – Michael Howard once sent him to Liverpool to grovel for criticising the city’s “mawkish sentimentality” – the Mayor of London is forgiving. “If we judged everybody by the stupid, unguarded things they blurt out to their nearest and dearest, then we wouldn’t ever get anywhere.”
Apart from the obvious lesson about never allowing anyone near you with a clip-on microphone, he is more interested in the subtext of the blunder than the mechanics. “The thing I thought was revealing, and went to the way he runs things, was the instant blaming of Sue Nye [Mr Brown’s long-serving sidekick whom he held responsible for introducing him to Mrs Duffy]. It’s always someone’s fault and the world is always organised by a hidden hand to conspire against him. It’s a slightly paranoid view of the universe. But it’s fundamentally insignificant. What matters is his stewardship of the country and the complete mess that he has made.”
Which is why Boris, as he is known from Bromley to Beijing, is more interested in the crisis engulfing Greece and the ramifications for Europe’s financial capital. We are in his office to mark his second anniversary as mayor, which falls tomorrow. It is no surprise that a classicist who is also a big fan of the City is keeping a worried eye on the drama unfolding in Athens. He fears we could be next if we end up with an indecisive result next week. “If we get things wrong next Thursday, this could be something that we have to face in this country. That’s why I worry about a hung parliament. If all we get is drift and indecision, then we will get the same response we have seen in Greece.”
Jo Johnson is the Candidate for Orpington
Boris’s brother has just won the selection to stand in the safe Conservative seat of Orpington where the current MP, John Horam, is standing down.
Stanley, his father, recently described him as “taller and blonder than Boris” and he is the Financial Times’ South Asia bureau chief. Based in New Delhi since January 2005, he leads the team of FT journalists that covers India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives. In addition to his coverage for the print edition, he writes a regular online column, Engaging India.
A graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, from which he received a first class degree in Modern History, he has worked for the FT since 1997. His first job on the newspaper was on the Lex Column, which he joined after a a stint as a corporate financier in the investment banking division of Deutsche Bank.
He completed an MBA at INSEAD in 2000 and served as an FT Paris correspondent from 2001-2004. He is co-author, with Martine Orange, of The Man who Tried to Buy the World: Jean-Marie Messier and the Rise and Fall of Vivendi Universal (Penguin, 2003).
Many congratulations Jo and we look forward to hearing more about you in the coming months ahead.
Conservative Party Conference 2009
As seen from the Blue Room (#cpc09 for twitter)
Expectations and Aspirations for Conservative Party Conference 2009
I am no longer a ‘noob’, having lost my conference virginity at last year’s conference, although I am far from being an old timer just yet either! So I thought I’d share a few thoughts before, during and after conference for newbies and veterans alike since Party Conference is THE major event for any political aficionado anorak like myself, and the wonderful thing about conference is the variety of interesting people to meet.
Firstly, I should say what a pleasure it is to write for Boris’s blog, particularly since Boris has been so pivotal to my political journey, albeit short and as yet unglamorous! I watched with glee as Boris was appointed mayoral candidate, glad that we finally had a candidate with oudles of character and unlimited opinions. I started off handing out flyers, taxi receipts and oyster card holders and met similarly enthused Boris loving activists. Like me, this was the first time many had been activists, inspired by Boris. Towards the end of the campaign we were whizzing around London suburbs as the advance team, preparing the ground for the imminent arrival of the blonde one and I was lucky enough to be invited to the election night party. After which I was addicted to politics and determined to help fight for change. So off I schlepped to my first conference in 2008.
Going to party conference is akin to a chocoholic being invited to a planet of chocolate. From the moment you arrive you are surrounded by fascinating people, enthralling subjects and you feel the force, the sense of being connected. The conference consists of literally hundreds of fringe debates on every conceivable subject, to suit every interest and MPs walk amongst us, like A-list celebrities on the red carpet, not to mention the recognisable faces of the political media.
Even though I knew no-one at first, I soon found myself chatting to people who came from all over the country, from all sorts of backgrounds and of all ages. Before I left, one of my friends had snarkily snorted “you be the only person there under 50”, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the majority of people I saw and meet were under 50 and those who I met over 50 were just as warm, entertaining and energetic. My first dilemma was trying to decide between countless clashes on the fringe, finding rooms and scurrying back to the main hall for the really interesting speeches. Of course last year, Boris was one of the first big speakers on the main stage, still relatively fresh from his recent win. Conference listened in awe. I found it reasonably easy to get a great seat for most of the speeches, although I must admit that I found a couple of sneaky ways to get a good view last year that I couldn’t possibly share. One by one I ticked off my Panini sticker ™ album of shadow cabinet ministers; Grant Shapps, Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt, George Osborne and then the hastily rescheduled speech on the economy from Cameron gave me almost a full house.
Timforchange will be blogging and live-tweeting daily from party conference. Timforchange is a conservative activist based in Surrey. Join Tim and other conservative activists, blog, comment and find out about the latest events on www.theblueroomforum.com or if you’re a progressive conservative www.brightblueonline.com and follow him on twitter @timforchange.
Congestion Charge Extension to be removed
The axe will fall on the Western Extension Zone
You may have heard the scurrilous rumour that I have reneged on my promise to remove the Western Extension of the congestion charge.
I am blogging about this now to tell you that is emphatically not true.
When I was elected, I promised to give Londoners the consultation they never got. Londoners expressed the overwhelming view that it should be removed, and I promised to honour that judgement. I maintain that promise today, and to make it absolutely crystal clear; we will be removing the Western Extension next year.
We have to jump through a number of tedious bureaucratic hoops before the axe can fall, but fall it will. The extended zone will be no more. It will be an ex-zone, the area formerly known as. It will be a dead zone!
Find Boris and more Conservative news here
