I predicted a year ago that as soon as there was any serious analysis of the Tories their poll lead would disappear. Most of the things I said then are still as true today. They are worth repeating.

The Tories were seen by the majority of people as right wing, mean, nasty etc. These are my observations but they are also supported by the Tories who lost again in 2005. The Tory party is so arrogant that it sees itself as the natural party of government. It thought in 1997 it was a temporary blip and they would be back in 2001. I work with these people daily and there were many who believed such nonsense. After the defeat in 2001 more started to understand how toxified the Tory brand had become. But not many. And certainly not David Cameron who went on to author the right wing election manifesto they lost the 2005 with under Howard. They thought if we just pull to the right a little more people will support us.

So the Tory party is still seen as nasty, right-wing and for the rich. These are the perceptions people have. I am sure there Tories who would hate this description but recognise it is the perception people have of them. Equally I know lots of Tories who sadly fit the description! They hate the moves to the middle ground being made by Cameron. The Tory party , MPs and many candidates are old fashioned right wing Thatcherites. They can't wait to move the Party to the right again.

Cameron realised the problems the Party faced if it was ever to get back into power. Unfortunately all he has ever done is try a marketing campaign to detoxify the Tory Brand not the Party and its policies.

So you have a right wing party with lots of right wing candidates who hate the NHS, Europe and want to bring back foxhunting. But Tory MPs and candidates are also desperate to get into government. So for a couple of years there has been an uneasy truce. All these MPs and candidates would keep quiet about the arrogance of Cameron and the direction he was taking the party whilst they appeared to be ahead in the Polls and heading for government. Once in they could return to the Right where they feel most comfortable.

The problem is simple. Cameron is no Tony Blair. The Cameron project is a pale imitation of New Labour. It has no overall strategy. It was a marketing campaign to grab cheap headlines for a couple of years without saying very much. Keep your head down say to people what they wanted to hear and let Labour run out of steam. At one level you can see why they did this. But under scrutiny it was always going to fall apart. If they looked like forming a government people would start to ask awkward questions.

Like what so you stand for? Why don't your policies add up? Why are they facing in both directions? Locally they are as bad. They never say anything about anything important. They simply pick up litter or say they are listening. They try never to offend by saying nothing. There is an empty space where a serious political party should be.

Well none of this is good enough for a party in opposition - never mind a party which thinks it should be in government in a few months time.

The other big mistake has been to concentrate so much on Cameron. One way of re branding was simply to ignore the fact there is a Tory Party. Instead it has all been about Cameron. The Tories decided to make this a presidential run off. But now they are paying a price. You see Cameron isn't liked by even his own MPs. The shine has come off with the electorate too. They can see though his airbrushed features and his smug arrogance. They don't like him. We all know they don't like Gordon very much but they certainly don't care for Cameron either.

So it leaves them in a bit of a hole. They have failed the re-brand and their main asset turns out not to be an asset after all. I still predict Cameron will fail to become PM and the Tories will wonder why they ever let him loose on their party.

I was going to Blog about Ashcroft because his influence has been felt in Loughborough. It was one of the marginal seats to get his money. But when I read this article in nearly said it all for me... The Times Editorial. A rare chance to almost agree with a newspaper:

Lord Ashcroft is not just any old political donor. As deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, he has become a significant public figure. Today, his power may be at its peak. His tax status is thus a matter of legitimate public interest. His behaviour in concealing it should be a matter of public concern.

The next general election will be won or lost on the battlefield of marginal constituencies. This, even more than sunny Belize, is Lord Ashcroft’s domain. Quite apart from the sums that he has directed into Tory coffers, the peer is personally responsible for the professionalised strategy that will, very possibly, deliver a Conservative victory.

His system sets targets for marginal candidates, delivers funding on the basis of those targets being met, and then conducts private polling on their effect. Although senior Conservatives have suffered embarrassing questions about his tax status for several years, there has never been the slightest suggestion that he might be jettisoned. If proof were ever required of his value to the Tory high command, this would surely be it.

Despite this prominence, Lord Ashcroft has long appeared to consider himself the victim of a media witch-hunt, which forms an unreasonable intrusion into his private and business life. This has always been a childish conceit. Since he became the Conservative deputy chairman in 2007, it has been an absurd one. If Lord Ashcroft wishes his life to be entirely private, he should not have made himself a public figure of great influence. Most pertinently, he gave very public assurances about aspects of his life as a condition of entering the House of Lords in 2000.

These assurances were given to the Public Honours Scrutiny Committee, this newspaper, and William Hague, then the Leader of the Opposition. In his letter to the latter, written in 2000 but published yesterday, he stated his intentions quite clearly. “I hearby give you my clear and unequivocal assurance”, he wrote, “that I have decided to take up permanent residence in the UK again before the end of this calendar year.”

In fact, as was also revealed yesterday, Lord Ashcroft became a “long-term resident” of the UK and a non-dom, liable only to pay tax on his British earnings. While the Labour Party also has non-dom donors (such as Lord Paul and Sir Ronald Cohen), it is now clear that Lord Ashcroft has been dissembling over his tax status for years. Repeatedly, he has said that he has fulfilled the undertakings that he made. This is by no means clear. Arguably, he has quietly renegotiated them.

For the past ten years, the peer has treated inquiries about his tax status as a game, to be played with a smirk. For the past 18 months, moreover, he has hung one colleague after another out to dry. David Cameron, George Osborne, Mr Hague, Philip Hammond, Eric Pickles and more — each one has been forced, on air, to trot out the same line: that an assurance has been given, and that it has been believed. Repeatedly, he has made the Shadow Cabinet look evasive and weak.

It is to Mr Cameron’s credit that he has forced this issue, planning legislation to require both peers and MPs to pay full tax. In this, the Conservative leader has been both pragmatic and principled. And yet, even now, Lord Ashcroft keeps the same smirking tone. In finally admitting his non-dom status, he does not say, directly, that it will soon change. He merely acknowledges Mr Cameron’s intentions, and adds that he expects to remain a peer. Wilfully, or because he simply cannot help himself, he continues to give the impression of holding not only regular British taxpayers but also his own colleagues in contempt.

Lord Ashcroft has done much for the power of the Conservative Party, but absolutely nothing for its reputation. He is an effective political force, but an enormous political embarrassment.

The shock news that a major company like AstraZeneca can just pull out of Loughborough is a salutary lesson in what globalisation means even in a small market town like Loughborough.

I have been around long enough to be Chair of Economic Development at Charnwood as Astra the Swedish drug company first took over Fisons and started heavily investing in the Loughborough site. Over the last 14 years or so I have visited the site at least twice a year to see new investment, meet staff and talk about the business.

However, as Astra merged and eventually became part of the global company AstraZeneca the duplication of Research and Development facilities across the world and in particular here in the UK became a little bit of a worry. But in the last few years further investment has continued to come to Loughborough.

Sadly 2010 is a bit of a crunch year for AZ. A number of patents have come to an end or are nearing their end and there does not appear to be any major new drugs coming to market which will fill the gap.

Like many people I wondered why drugs are so expensive until you see the sheer scale of the research and development required to get any drug to market. The work of 1200 people at Loughborough AZ is about drug discovery for the future. Then it takes about 12 years to get a drug to market. This is an enormous cost and an enormously risky business. Sadly AZ have not been as good as the competition for a couple of years.

It means that the Global Board of AZ perhaps sitting thousands of miles away are taking 'strategic' decisions over which very few people have a great deal of influence. This is happening daily in Board Rooms across the world. Ironically the day before the news was celebrating a British Insurer buying up the Asian are of American insurer AIG. When we buy these companies we celebrate. When others buy our companies we live in fear.

These decisions are bigger then individual areas like Loughborough and bigger sometimes than even countries and their governments can withstand. I was given the clear impression that there was nothing that can or could have been done to change the mind of AZ when making this decision to 'rationalise' ( I hate that phrase). The survival of AZ and thousands of other jobs seem to require the Board to react in this way.

I am clear that we cannot bury our heads in the sand and hope globalisation will simply go away - but surely 'people' have to take back the control of unfettered market liberalism at some stage. People being used as economic pawns in a global economy is destroying lives. The collapse of the driving force of international capitalism -ie the banks has given us an opportunity to think afresh about the sort of world we live in. Before we slip back into the old ways perhaps we need a fresh debate about the role of government in the free market. It is destroying too may lives and the planet at the moment. For 1200 people and their families in Loughborough they have woken up today fully understanding the global economic settlement and it impact on real people as well as bottom lines.

Clearly there was both delight and despair amongst the sides represented in the town on the failure of County Hall to get their BSF bid supported by the independent Partnership for Schools.

This week the bitter battle continues as opponents remove posts on websites posted by supporters of Limehurst. People supporting closure of the Outstanding school at Limehurst complain the other side did the same on Facebook. This is very sad.

How did it come to splitting our town and its parents in this way? A bid for £80m to rebuild our ageing schools should have been a time to get us all working together in partnership.

Last year after we all overwhelmingly agreed a vision that we wanted to move towards a OneThroughSchool concept County Hall must have set about working out how to realise that ambition. They set up Project Boards and lines of communication. But then sadly they did not use them. Instead they appear to have retreated to County Hall and designed a scheme which upset lots of parents when it was finally revealed in January. It appeared with a warning that there wasn't enough time to consult and that somehow their 2 poorly supported options were the only way forward. Closing Limehurst was the most controversial followed by closing Garendon and Burleigh and creating an Academy time institution as well as dropping a UTC of 800 places into the mix. To be given 6-8 weeks to take this all on board after they had ignored months of opportunities to share this with Heads prior to Christmas was ridiculous. No wonder parents were filled with rage.

I was shocked when I called a meeting of the Heads of primary schools that one by one they had never been asked at any stage to take part in the planning. Even Heads of the the affected High schools hadn't been kept in the loop.

So we didn't get off to a great start. As soon as the plans were announced opposition groups were set up and Parents were organising. This is democracy in action. I attended meetings packed with angry parents demanding changes to the plans.

At this stage you would have thought County Hall would have shown some contrition and made serious attempts to find a solution. Instead they kept hiding behind the 'criteria' and Partnership for Schools technicalities.

Parents, schools and governors wanted more choices to consult on. The idea of opponents having to create their own Option C emerged as it became clear County Hall weren't willing to listen or help.

I called a meeting of Heads and included the OTS campaign. Details of an Option C emerged and were agreed. It was far from a a detailed worked up option - but we did not have the resources of County Hall. Rightly we felt it was there job to do the detailed workings!

OTS suddenly dropped out a week later without telling anybody and then started attacking supporters of option C. This was the low point. Encouraged by County Hall the town now split between those willing to throw Limehurst on the scrapheap to get the money and the majority of respondents to the consultation who wanted another option to consider. Sadly the County attempt to divide and rule only achieved dividing the towns parents.

During this time attempts to draw County Hall into a proper debate and consultation fell on deaf ears. They were so committed to their options A & B they were not listening to the warnings that I divisive Bid would not be successful. They needed consensus above all else.

The technical analysis of their bid and their 'readiness to deliver' was carried out by Partnership for schools - the arms length independent body set up by the government to do the work to run the BSF programme. They sift the bids and make firm recommendations to Ministers about the bids ready to go.

Last Thursday the list of successful bids would have arrived on the desks of Ministers. They would have no 'political' say over the bids they would have to go with the technical recommendations. They received a list with 6 authorities ready to go and a further 3 authorities nearly ready to go. Leicestershire did not get into either list placed on Ministers desks.

For some reason County Hall now want to blame Ministers or a political decision. This is wrong. They should simply acknowledge their failure to get a local consensus and to be seen to ignore the findings of their own consultation.

So where do we go. Well County now suggest they have more than the £4m they threatened was available if the bid failed. They now say suddenly they may have double figures to implement OneThroughSchools. Strange isn't it?

But I think they should not give up on ambition. I think they should now be humble enough to say we were wrong. We couldn't command local support so we will come and listen properly. We will create a local partnership where stakeholders feel they have a say. I believe they should work hard with the time they have and resubmit a BSF bid in the next round.

Of course the only problem here is if the Tories by some misfortune won the election. Under the Tories BSF will basically disappear. As Ed Balls confirmed on Monday - with Labour it will stay.

You see elections are about choices!

I will work with County Hall to help them build bridge locally with disillusioned parents if they are genuine about coming and talking to them.