Francis Maude has asked ConHome contributors for their input into by-election strategy.

This admirable attempt to engage activists has produced some real gems. Do some of the comments, like contributors asking for outside helpers to be given maps of the constituency, indicate that the Conservative campaign organisation was shambolic? Certainly Lib Dem campaigners seem to be very keen on their maps (there was a very nice multi-coloured one on the wall of the committee room I was in yesterday, for instance).

Another contributor says that "the organisation can be left to agents but we need a political brain to mastermind these campaigns". If Conservative party policy is to recruit people with no political skills as election agents, long may it continue.

The ConHomies also seem to be under the impression that their party only does positive campaigning. This might be a new Cameronite policy. People withe slightly longer memories will remember the sheer volume of negative material that arrrived in Conservative-Lib Dem marginals at the General Election, attacking us on tax, crime, drugs, tax again, and immigration.

They might also remember the Cheadle by-election - most people should probably know about the Conservatives' ill-judged crime attack leaflet (you know, the one implying our candidate was a rapist). However don't forget that the main thrust of the Conservative campaign in Cheadle was that Mark Hunter was a carpet-bagging career politician: "an unpopular Council leader from outside the area", as the Conservative leaflets put it. Exactly what the moral distinction between that and the Bromley "Three Jobs Bob" line is, please let me know.