After UKIP’s serge and the Conservatives less than brilliant performance in the County Council elections earlier this month, I think I now know why the Tories are in trouble.

It has nothing to do with toffs, Etonians and the rest of it. Also my concern here is not with Labour, the LibDems or even UKIP, what they did, are about to do or not do. It’s with my own party whom I see again sleep walking down the self-destruct road.

This might sound unconventional. But from where I am standing, we have three major problems that need addressing if we want to be taken seriously and win the next election.

The first one is easy. We need to talk and listen to each other, do it regularly and remember we are a broad church and that is one of our biggest assets.

I don’t know how we can quite achieve it, but our internal communication sucks and needs to change. We need to take the focus off being on message and put it on being connected and in tune with each other. The type of in tune when one begins a sentence the rest know where that message is going. Once we achieve that sense of togetherness and unity the second point will easily follow.

Next we need to get our mojo back. We need to get back that late 2005, early 2006 feeling when we first elected David Cameron. Get back that winners feeling. There is nothing wrong with winning and wanting to win. Yet we keep talking about losing and dress it up as being realistic. Realistic my foot!? Two years before the election we write ourselves off and call it realistic. No, that’s defeatist and pitiful.

We need our excitement and that sense of winning-ness we had about us back.

Dave is still the same ‘Blue is the new Green’ ‘Huskies drawn sledge’ ‘A List’ guy who will control, monitor and reduce immigration, and repatriate powers back from Europe we loved and admired so much before 2010. We need to think like a family and find a way to love him same as we did back then. Think of our relationship like a marriage we are a little bored with and even not too happy in but we badly need to work and strive at making it succeed.

The final thing we must do is to just stop wanting a new leader, period. Call it killing ambition, lack of vision whatever you like, but all this wannabe leaders are killing our party and if not careful they will soon be leading ghosts in a morgue. They are killing us with their arrogance and selfishness, and it needs to stop.

We need just this one time to accept what we have better and build it up.

Trust me, we have the best leader around, if you don’t believe me then believe the polls. He is the best leader for the country and our party. He is the best leader out of all the other parties’ leaders. Believe me when I say there is no one out there better than David Cameron for this country and the Conservative party.

Six week after Cameron’s famous IN/OUT EU speech and the Conservatives fielding their most right-wing candidate, Maria Hutchings, the Tories dropped to third place and Ukip jumped to second in the Eastleigh by-election. If that is not a clear message I don’t know what is!

Media talk and hype about Conservatives needing or moving the party further right is simply madness. But thankfully, it seems the Guardian Angels of politics are looking out for the Tories. They (the Angles) stopped sending small subtle hints and basically spelled it out in big bright letters – Stop your madness and focus on the job at hand. The warning is very clear – matching Ukip is a trap, a one way street to the graveyard of politics – and will bury the Conservatives forever. In other words be careful and stop the madness!

Chris Grayling yesterday is said to say: “A future Conservative government could scrap the Human Rights Act”. That is nothing new. David Cameron has been saying it since he was elected leader of the party in 2005 and in 2010 it was a party manifesto promise. This is just the kind of thing the media propagates to confuse issues and keep the ‘Tories Lurching to the Right’ talk possible when the party leader has categorically ruled out any change of direction. The Sunday papers also had buried somewhere something on immigration cap – again the Conservatives have always, always said they will cap and control the number of people entering the UK – reducing it from hundreds of thousands to tenth of thousands – again nothing new here either.

So in a weekend when the party had a very bruising kick in Hampshire our discipline and unity were/are formidable. The lesson was clear and simple – don’t take the bait, stay the course and remain united – voters don’t like fragmented disillusioned parties that jump from bandwagon to bandwagon

My personal feeling on all of this – let Ukip be Ukip and don’t allow what happened in Eastleigh to drag the Tories to their level. We are the bigger party, the better party and should continue to act it. I know it’s un-British to say it but sometimes it needs and ought to be said.

Yesterday on the Sunday Politics, Steve White vice chairman of the Police Federation was fast to distance parts of the police and blame the Andrew Mitchell witch-hunt on their organisation being a federation of 43 different bodies. Hinting that the West Midland Federation (then lead by the now deceased Paul McKeever) had the right to sit down with Mitchell and act independently on the findings of their questionings. To Steve White’s credit, he has reiterated that the National Federation did accept Andrew Mitchell’s apology and wanted to move on.

But did they? What about police officers wearing PC Plep t – shirts, someone sanctioned protesting while wearing them? Or regional federations hinting Mitchell lied during his interview with them – when his secret recording proved otherwise? Or when the chairman of the Met Federation encouraged his Twitter followers to fill Andrew Mitchell’s inbox with complaints?

There has clearly been a cleverly organised witch-hunt, with one foot firmly on the ‘we accepted his apology and wanted to move on’ camp while the other is on the ‘kick as hard as you can, see if he jumps’ camp. I fully understand like many other public sectors, the police’s frustration with the cuts and impending reforms. However, I expected better form them. In a country where people are innocent until proven guilty I hoped our police was the first to adhere to that and don’t judge until all the facts are at hand.

Now the facts are hand, their short lived triumph has backfired. Have it on good authority that tonight’s Dispatches will prove this to be so. After four arrests on the Plepgate case, three of whom members of the police, it is high time the Police Federation faced the music.

The Right Honourable Andrew Mitchell MP deserves apologies from them, form the whips office for not 100% believing him, other MPs specially Labour for accusing him without a solid evidence, the Prime Minister’s office for not going the extra mile (I could have done a better, more extensive investigation than they did to find the real truth). They all owe him a profound apology, because they were wrong to disbelieve, discredit and to some extend denounce him.

All this talk about a small group of Tory MPs plotting to oust the current leader, the nation’s Prime Minster is selfish to say the least but it is also a dangerous distraction from what is important, the economy and the much needed reforms. If things were different then maybe it would make some sense. But since that is not the case this plot is a luxury we cannot afford. We cannot appear egotistical and self-consumed when the whole country is hurting in one way or another.

As someone who highly values loyalty and its importance. I find the extent some will go to self-promote is extremely disturbing. So much so, it makes me wonder if they actually inhabit the same universe the rest of us does.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Cameron is perfect, nor 100% on the right track, but he is in a challenging position and doing the best he can to deliver on what he promised in the coalition agreement. Like most Conservatives, I have some issues with parts of the deal, but like most sensible people I understand life is about give and take and about compromise.

Give and take is something most of us do daily in almost all decisions large and small, personal and professional. So why does this particular group of MPs feel that after two and half years in a coalition during a fixed term parliament they are entitled to change the party leadership because now they don’t like being part of a shared rule government? What did David Cameron do that is so wrong, so bad and so unconservative they now need to throw everything away and risk all for a change that neither the grassroots nor the nation will thank them for!? Besides who will replace him? Boris, Liam Fox or David Davis, all wonderful Conservatives but one is the London Mayor; one did not even make it to the leadership finial and one lost big to Cameron!

Of course we don’t yet know who the 12 MPs who wrote to Graham Brady – the chairman of the 1922 Committee – but we can guess who they might be. And, even though this attempt will not trigger a leadership contest, the distraction and lack of allegiance it causes leaves a nasty taste of distrust, not to mention the absence of edification.

What I find puzzling is the notion that the move came about because of the party’s prospects of winning a majority at the next election! Well if the concern is winning an outright majority and it rightly should be, chopping chunks of each other will only benefit our opponents. Besides, if we can’t respect our own leader, why should others!?

They seriously need to consider this, especially on seats and areas where they are not electing police commissioners this November.

With reports this morning that the Lib Dems will begin selecting candidates on the existing boundaries and it seems Labour is/has been doing the same for sometime now. The Tories, as things stand are in a worst position than the other two parties. They are the larger partner in the coalition government and therefore have more to lose. They also have the most apparent inner fighting in the commons, amongst their grassroot, not to mention a decline in their membership uptake.

All these make now the time to become fully focused in imbedding good local candidates in their most difficult seats, local, because its better faster and potentially less troublesome. Plus experience has shown difficult seats work best with local candidates; it is cost-effective both financially and emotionally. Local PPCs will require less work to adopt and can hit the ground running the day after their selection. Plus, with the current growing sense of localism in the country it will be very unwise to buck the trend and even appear to parachute in handpicked CCHQ chums.

If Cameron et al think, pushing through with the Boundary Change Review regardless of what Nick Clegg, Simon Hughes and every Lib Dem said and alluded to in the past week, then he, Cameron, is no different to Clegg, in covering his ears and crying “I gave you AV now give me Boundary Changes!”

Stubbornness can be good; a one track mind tunnel vision can at times get you far. But sometimes it is best to cut your losses and move on. This is one of these times.

Last parliamentary cycle, by around this time (2007) Tories were ready for Brown to call a snap election. So ready they scared him off calling it, remember? Then the Conservatives were in opposition and hungry for government, now they should still be hungry for government because although they are not outside government, they are only half in!

I understand the strategy was initially to wait until after November when the police commissioner elections are done. Nonetheless, politics should and needs to be fluid. The boundary changes are unlikely to happen now, and in light of that, it will be shortsighted to waste valuable time because “that’ was the plan!

“Blue feminists don’t go in for the tokenism their red counterparts support. They despise positive discrimination as a confidence-sapper. Red feminists want the nomenklatura filled with quotas and box-ticking representatives; but blue feminists argue that women, like men, should be chosen on merit, not sex. Knowing they’re the best for the job gives them the self-confidence that the Left’s token women lack.”

By Cristina Odone on the Telegraph Blog

As a Conservative, an understanding and accommodating one at that – and like most fellow Tories there are a few core Conservative beliefs that became painfully diluted to accommodate the coalition. I, like others, understand and accept that compromise and cooperation is what coalition governments is all about but mostly it’s what our nation wanted and needs now. And although many dislike calling this union a marriage but it’s very typical to most successful marriages – full of selfless not always practical concessions.

That’s why it excites me and makes my day when I hear leading Tories affirm their Conservative credentials – if only to remind everyone what we’re all about – which makes days like today exceptionally good!

Thanks to Mayor Boris Johnson for twice confirming what most of us feel needed to at least be aired.

First, when he shared his thoughts on the Greeks’ bailout– he said “the greatest gift to the Greeks might be to let them go it alone” – a feeling shared by many logical thinking people all over the globe.

His second was his comment on soft prison sentencing “Soft is the perfect way to enjoy French cheese, but not how we should approach punishing criminals” – another where liberal thinking has delivered half measures.

However, the cherry on top came from our own leader, the Prime Minster, this afternoon – who admitted to Steve Wright on Radio 2 – that being in coalition with the Liberal Democrats has softened his Immigration and Welfare policies.

To hear all three makes today a very good day if you’re a true Tory.

With two days left before the AV Referendum no matter how much we have or have not done campaigning-wise – it is now time for all of us to go that extra mile. Whether it’s leafleting after work or early in the morning outside tube and train stations, getting the vote out on Thursday or hitting the phone banks at Conservatives Campaign Head Quarters (CCHQ) it’s crucial to do our bit. Because the time is here for that finial ginormous push to the finish line.

For those of us who might be in and around London with time to spare, this evening CCHQ’s call centre is open from 18.00 hours and likewise tomorrow – when the Housing Minster, Grant Shapps MP will spend sometime on the phones. On Thursday the centre will open from 11.00 until 21.30 hours. To help just drop by during these times and ask for either Jonathan or Hugo – the call centre team.

Whatever we can do in these last hours of the campaign and no matter how big or small, it will have a significant impact on the over all outcome – specially in London – let’s do all we can to keep First Past The Post!