Thanks everyone for all these kind comments, and even more for taking the time to read the stuff that gets posted by me. I'm more nervous about reading your comments on my pieces than I ever let on, and more grateful than you'd ever guess that you take the time to read the stuff in the first place. Tim Montgomerie, you are one of life's good guys, and I am forever in your debt.

Malcolm Rifkind was MP for Pentlands for ages & did stand there again in 1992. The most talented Scots Tory of his generation. I don't think you can force people back to their hometown to be a candidate in the UK, not when so many people move through work. Falling in love with somewhere new in the UK isn't the same as US carpet-bagging: Arkansas to NY State is a little further (in every metric) than Edinburgh Pentlands to Kensington (you're reminding me of the Muriel Spark novel, "A Far Cry From Kensington" - well, Pentlands isn't!).

Hi Lorna, thank you for posting here, and on the other one, and for the nice things you say. (Lorna and I were both on Harlow council for a time together ... and we did, *once*, do a not bad coalition-type thing there). Here are a couple of responses to your points: Politics isn't binary, in that we agree. But a cabinet requires to come to an agreement and stick to it. I actually liked in the early days the more grown up attitude of LibDems or Conservatives saying "Well of course we didn't agree on X to start with, but we've found a compromise/win-win position, which is X2, say, and we are both able to agree to it". I *dared* to hope we might get a media response that welcomed this and allowed politicians to speak more honestly, without any deviation from a 'party line' resulting in headlines screaming 'split'. There is a mechanism in place, by the way, to deal with issues not covered by the Coalition agreement, so I don't agree with your point that you only signed up for the words written on those short pages. That's not, quite, though what is currently annoying me about the Liberal Democrats. I'm not so much stamping my foot as doing that deep-sigh thing, you know, the one that drives you up the wall when your partner does it at you. (The "you" is general!). There's a big difference between a Cabinet discussion on (say) the NHS, leading to a cabinet resolution on the NHS, which would become the Coalition policy on the NHS (even if then Tories and LibDems said "actually we wanted something slightly different"), and Tim Farron making a speech that links FPTP with slavery, Chrish Huhne making a speech linking Baroness Warsi with Goebbels, and so on. Do you see what I mean? Reasoned statement of differences, fine. But when it comes to foot-stamping, I think some LibDem MPs could teach me a thing or two. Using the AV campaign (as the increasingly frantic Mr Huhne has done) to try to "prove" what makes Liberals and Tories earth-shatteringly different is particularly pointless, I think. I can't think of a single theme from the Yes campaign that had much to do with truth in the entire process ("The Tories use AV to elect their leader" -lie; "It's just like X Factor" - lie; "MPs will need >50% to win" - lie; and so on). So saying "We would have won if those nasty Tory No campaigners hadn't lied" is at least hypocritical. It's also false. One of my best Tory friends is, sadly, doing his level best to increase the Yes vote. My final point was more of a lament, Lorna. Liberals had a chance to govern, but instead they are using it to attack Conservatives. Much as most Liberal activists identify themselves as leftwing, you have *lost* *those* *votes* and you *won't* *get* *them* *back*. There are some issues electorates don't forget or forgive - trust a Tory on this - and tuition fee pledges before the last GE is one of yours. Your strategic opportunity was to re-identify yourselves, either by splitting into liberal-Tories and social democrats, or by pushing Labour to the *left* and replacing them from the moderate centre. Your current tactics - name-calling, basically - isn't likely to deliver that, is it? As a tribal Tory, I don't really care. But in my more liberal, optimistic moods, I'm a wee bit sad.

Thanks for the advice, Martin. I doubt Mr Wilde would approve of any aspect of my compulsively tidy existence! "Nothing is of the slightest importance" is one of those long-run theories that I distrust though; I'm Keynesian in that sense, if no other (in the long run ... ).

Thank you Elaine, that was a kind comment to leave. I agree not *everything* gets worse as we age! If you can age like a fine wine, you're fine. My problem is that I'm ageing like a bottle of milk.

What would we do without you? Congratulations and Happy Birthday. PS isn't the language in the Times' article almost amusingly quaint? Who are these "bloggers", thinking to take on the "print" giants?

I'm so pleased at this news, congratulations Matthew. "Working Class Tory" is one of the best Tory blogs.

Had we not been in Coalition, would this measure have passed? Probably not. Is it the right measure? Yes (I agree with you re: overall numbers). So a Liberal has stood up to tabloid ridicule and done the right thing. There are two 'lessons' to learn from this. The first is possibly an example of what we were talking about earlier in our separate posts. I think it is possible that some Liberals are being redeemed (in terms of the esteem they are worth) by the fact they are in government and are doing the right thing. You seem to think they are all - all of them - our immutable enemy, and that every time one of them does the right thing (do you think Clegg voted as he did over this measure without a qualm?) it is only because we (Conservatives) have abandoned our 'mainstream'. Since we are today discussing what is by any metric a Tory law, passed into being only because of Liberal support, despite the fact that leftwing students, tabloid newspapers and the social democratic wing of the Lib Dem party have been having hysterics over it, I don't follow this. The second lesson is that any candidate who makes a pre-election pledge to a special interest group is foolish, regardless of the seemliness of the desired pledge, and deserves all the tabloid ordure that can be heaped upon him or her. We don't elect MPs to have them act as the mouthpiece of special interest groups (this is what the Labour party and the unions do). On this I have no sympathy at all for the mess in which the Lib Dems find themselves. He who lives etc etc. I fear over a whisky in the 10 Downing Street lovenest tonight Gosh. Really?

I don't refuse to examine why we didn't win a majority, Christina. I know very strongly why I think we didn't do so, and the reasons would probably surprise you. I might write about that later; my point was just that we spend an awful lot of time talking about it and I wanted to discuss something else.

I don't understand what's amusing about my willingness to see a political difference between "centre-right" Liberals and leftist idiots like Simon Hughes.

You make my point more eloquently than I managed- thank you.

I wish I was on CCHQ's speed dial mate! No, if you disagree with me, you can be sure this is all my own work!

I don't quite agree. I was responding to Tim's notion that we should do nothing to help the handful of Liberals who are doing good work for the country, as though there is something antithetical in being a liberal Tory. I can bore for hours on why we should have a Tory govt, trust me!

"Isn't this where we bought our cleaner?"

Lol

This is a beautiful article. Thank you. (I once said something to Tim over dinner, he asked me something like "Well *what* is central then [to your concept of the world]?" (he was correctly exasperated with my woolliness) and I said "LOVE!". I think the trick (for me anyway) is not to probe too hard at why it's there, the gossamer love-thread that ties us one to another, but just to be glad of it.

I don't know if wicket-keeping did you any good Allan, but it did me, as you made me laugh, so thank you. I understand your serious point, but I still think there are more than enough hurdles in young lives, where effort isn't rewarded and defeat is tasted, without forcing wicket-based versions of it onto them.

My memory must be worsening with age, Andrew, because I have a very strong recollection of sitting with you in the garden of the Barley Mow pub in Kemptown, about three weeks ago, answering this very question! I can't really tell you why you should 'hate' AV, because I'm quite agnostic about it, but I think you know why it is the wrong answer to the question 'How do we arrange for a more proportionately elected legislature?' - because, if that's the question which most interests you, then you know, both in theory and in practice, that AV does not guarantee such an outcome, and can easily produce an even less proportionate outcome than FPTP. So if it is a proportionate legislature you seek, AV is not the answer. Then there's the much vexed question of fairness - why should candidate X with a proportion p < 0.50 of the vote become the constituency representative, when candidate Y has a proportion q > 0.50 of the vote, if we add together Y's first and second preferences (but only if X didn't get > 0.50 on first preferences). To state the algorithm for election in black and white like this I think answers the question for itself. For why should candidate Y be elected, when his/her winning proportion is made up of first and second choices? In other words, AV begs two questions, which no-one ever answers: 1) Why is your second choice as important than my first choice? (It's worth more, infinitely more, if my first and second choices don't get counted). The weight of a vote should be adjusted according to its rank order: a first choice should count for more than a second choice, and so on. Yet this too begs a question: how do you select the weights? The answer, of course, is that you can only do so through some arbitrary selection of weights. Which defeats the whole point of this 'fairness' quest. 2) What is so magical about the threshold of 50%? Why not 70%? Why not 45%? There is no epistemic property attached to "50%" which makes a 50% outcome 'more fair' than a <50% outcome; and if you disagree with me then you have to explain why you're not campaigning for a threshold >50%, since, by your own logic, such a threshold would be even more fair. First-principle thinking is unpopular in politics, where slogans about fairness and so on tend to dominate. But like Melanchthon, I think the last thing Conservatives should be doing is to alter the constitution when the proposed solution to one particular electoral outcome is to replace with it an equally arbitrary algorithm, the properties of which leave as much to be desired as does that of FPTP. If you add in the practical effect of AV - that you get the candidates that are the least-disliked - then I think no Tory should vote for it. (I disagree with Melanchthon regarding the referendum. Of course we should have one.) There are structural problems with our election machinery, which Tories should be attacking with gusto: the first is the size of the parliamentary seats. You can tell how scared Labour are about this by the hysterical nonsense they produce regarding such equalisation - it's 'gerrymandering' to desire seats to contain similar numbers of electors, apparently. Fatuous nonsense. The way to give every elector a say in the final outcome of the election, and to solve the problem of safe-seatery, is to introduce full open primaries at the candidate selection stage. Alternatively, if the AV referendum is passed, then we should allow multiple candidates for each party to stand in each seat.

Thank you *all* so much for your support and generous contributions. Keith (the Hackney Citizen editor) has contacted me to say thank you. Your support means so much, to him and to me. Thank you for restoring some faith in the potential for justice in this borough.

Thanks SO MUCH for highlighting this disgrace. In the east end tonight? Come and help wipe the smile off their Labour faces. The final Boff canvass at 7pm Broadway Market E8. Delivering Andrew's third leaflet and GOTV letters from Simon Nayyar our great ppc. Thanks again to all at conhome for highlighting this latest act of antidemocracy from Labour. Even if you're nowhere near Hackney I hope it helps spur you on in your own campaigns tomorrow. The Labour Party aren't fit to govern. L-day minus one. The "L" is for "Liberation".

Thanks for highlighting the battle in Hackney. The Labour council have deliberately excluded Andrew Boff's mayoral manifesto from the booklet to be sent to voters; you can read about their made-up reasons here. So please take the time to visit the ChangeHackney website, and if you can spare a donation for the campaign to spread the Tory message, from Shoreditch to Stoke Newington, from Stamford Hill to wards that don't even begin with S, then your Tory friends in the borough that Ed Balls & Yvette Cooper like to call "home" (except when that interferes with parliamentary expenses) would be incredibly grateful.

Charlotte is a terrific candidate who so deserves to be an MP (the same for Mike in Hove and Simon in Kemptown too). There's a canvass session this morning at 10.30am in Patcham - I can't think of many more desirable places to canvass than Brighton - it's going to be a beautiful day so bring your beach stuff for after!

I agree with every word of this. I couldn't bear to watch the debate as the outcome- Cleggfestathon girding the "loins" of every amoeba-brained reporter at the BBC- was all too predictable. Cameron should have given Clegg a good kicking in the first ten minutes then ignored him thereafter. Lovebombing LibDem voters isn't the same thing as being nice to inadequates like Nick Clegg, whose fondest wish is to do away with all this election hoohah altogether, and install a system of PR which would leave him or the sanctimonious Cable in every future cabinet in perpetuity. As to lovebombing the LD voters. Inviting the ultra rich to resile from Cable's stupid mansion tax won't work- these people are far too rich to care about such matters; if they notice the policy at all it will simply reinforce their unearned sense of superiority. We should continue (and on doorstep remind them) to bang on about our genuine shared agenda of ending Labour's surveillance state. Vote Yellow, Get Brown- and ID cards, DNA retention and a CCTV in your living room (I'm not making that last one up- it's started already with "vulnerable" people).

Let's ignore your childish rudeness; I already know you can't stand gay Tories. If you were right in the point of your assertion, how do you explain your predecessor's comment, which expresses the opposite? ConHome is one of the best things that happened to the Tories, the blogosphere, and yes, NM, to me. Every shade of centre right view is here. Without censorship. The increasing rancour of the left on this blog, on Twitter and so on is just a sign of how hacked off they are. Do hack off, NM, anytime you feel like it.

Of course there's no censorship at ConHome - otherwise, why would you let me post my ramblings? :-) Serious point 1: it's a sign of the desperation of the Left that this has even become a story. Less serious point 2, but one which still occurs to me. You say Ridley Grove speaks for "many readers". If it's so important that his/her views appear, then he should post them under his/her own name. (I must say, it has never occurred to me to ask my employer if they permit me to post anything here. I work for them, they don't own me.) I'm left with the unfortunate inference that Mr/Ms Grove uses his/her cloak of anonymity to give vent to views with such an unkind bent that it would be better were they left unsaid. Or is the point of the web to give full strength to the expression of our ids? I hope not. Reveal yourself, Mr/Ms Grove, then write what you like, and release the editors from having to apologise for your writing.