There are about 15 seats I think the LDs really shouldn’t have.

I am somewhat re-assured that this government is very focused on the domestic agenda.

You think that Redwood gives a worse impression than Osborne?!?

He might give it out harsh and raw but that’s what the country’s going to get whether it likes it or not.

Cameron could then ‘pretty up’ the message, that’s what he’s good at.

Although being told some harsh truths would do much of the country some good.

Osborne on the other hand didn’t get it before, shows no sign of getting it now and is a PR disaster to boot.

Redwood is very knowledgeable – he has some very good ideas, and solutions, because he is prepared to think afresh. But some of his other ideas are not right though, and he would be politically impossible to appoint – he scares people off.

In fact almost anyone would have been more suitable than Osborne.

It was completely unnecessary for Osborne to have been appointed Chancellor but Cameron is very loyal to his inner circle. How much of that is due to stubborness and/or insecurity I’m not sure.

I was very impressed by Cameron’s speech yesturday, that he wasn’t saying those things before is an indication of how much the Cameroons misunderstood the economy. It also showed how strong Cameron is in speechmaking, Osborne would not have looked realistic if he had made that speech.

I do wonder though if Cameron understands the consequences of what he was saying. In electoral terms alone it means that the Conservatives will have to effectively write off all but a handful of urban target seats and instead concentrate on the M/M areas. In which case they will have to shift resources now in preparation for the next election.

She has a very low opinion of them and their abilities, and they were apparently very bad employers. She couldn’t believe it when she realised that George had become Shadow Chancellor and now Chancellor.

I am therefore inclined to agree with Richard.

Incidentally I think Phillip Hammond would be a fine chancellor, far better than Osborne.

The problems that the UK has are much more fundamental than that. What we need (and what we’ll get whether we like it or not) is a fullscale rebalancing of the econony onto a more sustainable basis. Now Cameron and Osborne will parrot phrases associated with this ‘more exports, less debt’ etc but they do not grasp what the consequences are and that for the majority of people it means falling living standards not just for a year or two but for at least a decade.

What the government needs to do is explain this and explain also the long term benefits that this will bring.

Unfortunately Osborne is possibly the least suitable person to do this – chinless wonder, inherited wealth and never having done a ‘proper’ job. His appointments by Cameron remain two of the greatest political blunders of recent times.

Perhaps I was a bit unfair on Coote but the fact is 3 reasonable chances to get elected and 3 fails.

Maybe he has been unlucky in that the seats were harder to win than they looked (and I would agree with you that they were) but luck is part of being a winner.

And there’s also the possibility that Coote didn’t understand that Hastings and now Cheltenham would be as hard as they were.

Certainly many Conservatives were expecting to reduce the LibDems to below 40 MPs, which would surely have meant a Conservative gain here, and perhaps Coote was one of them.

As to Warsi I liked here before she got promoted.

The problem Cameron has with her (and why promotion on image grounds is so risky) is that she is almost unsackable. This is dangerous in itself but also gives the impression that there are two levels of government minister.

I haven’t been there for some time but whenever i do go there I’m always struck by how generally up-market it seems and hadn’t notice any decline as such

I think the Lib Dems have done well to hold on here and agree that Martin Horwood comes acrodss as a better MP than his predecessor