Eric Pickles wants you to feel his love

Writing on Conservative Home, Tim Montgomerie reports that Eric Pickles, the new Tory chairman, is off on a tour of Conservative/Lib Dem marginals in the West Country.

He goes on:

this visit communicates two of the big themes that Eric Pickles wants to characterise his tenure at CCHQ: graft (he promises to match the sacrifice of volunteers) and a focus on the LibDems.

With opinion polls pointing towards a perhaps decisive increase in the Tory lead some party strategists are recommending a significant shift of battleground resources into unseating Liberal Democrat MPs. Eric Pickles is a big advocate of the lovebombing tactic.

Lovebombing?

Montgomerie explains:

After years of unsuccessfully trying to scare people from voting LibDem (because, for example, of their strong pro-Europeanism, their social permissiveness or 'soft' approach to crime), the Tories decided that it was better to flatter them and appear to agree with them on key issues.

The love-bombing strategy was partly a result of fears that negative campaigning against the LibDems risked reinforcing voters' perceptions of the Conservatives as mean-spirited rather than affecting voters' perceptions of the 'nice' LibDems.

But will the average Tory activist be able to keep this niceness towards the Lib Dems up for more than five minutes? That is not what they joined the party to do.

It is also worth pointing out the Labour Party is increasingly using scare tactics against us.