GMCF Manifesto

8/3/2019 GMCF Manifesto

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ManifestoFor Greater Manchester Conservative Future Chairman

For the election of

10/5/2011By Henry Hill


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Contents

Introduction page 1

Personal Background page 1

Branch Development and Diversification page 2

Campaigning and Student Unions page 2

Events page 3

Internships and Opportunities page 3

Rebranding page 4

Training page 4

Introduction

Hi,

Im Henry Hill, one of the candidates running in this election for GMCFChairman this November. Im a journalism student studying in

Piccadilly, and I live in Ancoats.

As Greater Manchester is a large area I almost certainly wont have the

opportunity to speak to all potential voters personally, so I thought I

would outline my plans for GMCF in this manifesto. That gives you the opportunity to

find out what I stand for before the hustings.

If you have any questions, please dont hesitate to get in touch. My email is

[email protected].

Personal Background

Im presently studying journalism, after graduating with an Upper Second in History

from the University of Manchester this summer. Next year I hope to start a Masters in

Modern Irish History at Trinity College Dublin.

Ive been a member of the Conservative and Unionist Party since I registered at

Freshers Fair in 2008. I was the partys candidate for Chorlton Park in the last council

elections, polling a sad if inevitable fourth place, and intend to stand again this year.

Im also a respected blogger and political writer. In the 2011 Total Politics Awards I

was voted the8th rankedConservative blogger, two places behind blogging legend Lord

Tebbit, and was also honoured with the Adam Smith Institutes Young Writer on Liberty

Award. Overall, Im the top Right Wing student blogger in the country.

On matters of policy, Im a social and economic liberal, favouring lower taxes and

personal freedom. I support gay marriage, foreign intervention, constructive

engagement with Europe and staunch defence of the Union against nationalism.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://dilettante11.blogspot.com/p/awards.htmlhttp://dilettante11.blogspot.com/p/awards.htmlhttp://dilettante11.blogspot.com/p/awards.htmlhttp://dilettante11.blogspot.com/p/awards.htmlhttp://dilettante11.blogspot.com/p/awards.htmlhttp://dilettante11.blogspot.com/p/awards.htmlmailto:[email protected]


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Branch Development and Diversification

As Chairman, I would work hard to continue my predecessors work in supporting

branches in the outer boroughs of Greater Manchester, including the branches already

established in Salford, Bury and Trafford and continuing to try to reach out to the likes

of Bolton, Tameside and Stockport.

As someone who is no longer a student at the University of Manchester, I live my daily

life outside the Oxford Road corridor and can appreciate how remote a university-

centric executive would appear. I would also try to support members from the outer

boroughs gaining representation on the executive.

I also want to diversify the type of CF branch we have in Greater Manchester. My

priority would be trying to establish CF the grammar and private schools. Altrincham

has a good one and Fallowfield/Withington have three, just for starters.

Getting into these schools would broaden our support base as well as allowing us to

send students off to university already enthusiastic Conservatives. It would only take

one or two initial members in a school 6th Form to establish a CF branch and recruit

members internally.

Structure

I would like to try to emphasise the organisation of CF in Manchester in the boroughs.

As GMCF Chair, I would create the GMCF Branches Forum. This would be a monthly

meeting of the Borough chairs (Bury, Trafford, Salford etc.) chaired by the GMCFChairman. This would allow the branches to coordinate with each other and ensure that

GMCF is kept up to date with the issue facing the outer boroughs.

I want to examine establishing a City of Manchester Conservative Future. Currently the

City borough has no CF of its own, instead being served by the two University

associations. This leaves potential Young Professional and school members with no

recourse but to join GMCF directly, and means that efforts to recruit them are often

minimal.

Area parties are meant to be coordinating bodies. CMCF would hopefully combine theuniversity students with city centre young professionals into a large, dynamic branch

that will allow GMCF to function properly in its oversight role.

Campaigning and Student Unions

Campaigning is at the heart of Conservative Future. If I were elected Chairman I would

continue GMCFs role in helping local councillors and candidates in local elections. I

would also encourage GMCF members to stand as paper or if possible actual

candidates in local elections.


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If during the course of campaigning we make contacts elsewhere in the country for

example in the BackBoris2012 campaign team Ill do my best to turn those contacts

into experience opportunities for Greater Manchester members.

Rebranding

If elected, I will rechristen GMCF Greater Manchester Conservative and Unionist

Future GMCUF and encourage the individual branches within my jurisdiction to do

the same.

With Alex Salmond and the Guardian gearing up to try to break up our country, myself

and some other Conservative Future members have launched an attempt to rebrand CF

by our partys official name the Conservative and Unionist Party. This is to put CF at

the heart of the anti-independence campaign.

The first branch to go CUF will be Portsmouth, and Robert Manning, candidate forNorth West Chairman, is also supporting the change at regional level.

Training

One of the key roles of Conservative Future is training up Conservative members into

effective activists. The partys own role in providing such training is growing

increasingly limited, meaning that branches have to organise their own training from

external groups.

Thankfully, GMCF is now sufficiently large that we can look at bringing uporganisations like the Young Britons Foundation to run their training workshops for

our members.

The YBF Skills Training workshops cover a broad spectrum of topics, which are listed

here. Workshops cost only 15 each (10 for full-time students), and I would hope to

have the YBF up several times over the course of the year perhaps even monthly to

offer GMCF members a broad range of their training services.

Thanks for reading,

Henry Hill

Candidate, GMCF Chairman

Email: [email protected]

Blog:http://dilettante11.blogspot.com

Twitter: @Dilettante11
http://www.ybf.org.uk/training/skills-training/http://www.ybf.org.uk/training/skills-training/http://dilettante11.blogspot.com/http://dilettante11.blogspot.com/http://dilettante11.blogspot.com/http://www.ybf.org.uk/training/skills-training/

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