Activities
The CDA fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference in October 2002 was addressed by Roger Knapman, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party; Ashley Mote, prominent UKIP MEP and author of "Overcrowded Britain - Our Immigration Crisis Exposed" (2004); John Gouriet, a founder with Norris McWhirter of the Freedom Association alongside Derek Turner, editor of Right Now! magazine; and Adrian Davies, chairman of the fledgling Freedom Party, a barrister, and prominent critic of the British National Party.
On 6 October 2004, the Conservative Democratic Alliance held a rally in tribute to Enoch Powell as a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference in Bournemouth.
The CDA planned to field its own candidates against Conservative MPs with small majorities at the 2005 General Election, concentrating on Oliver Letwin, the then Shadow Treasury Spokesman, and MP for West Dorset, whom they described as "simply not a Conservative at all".
No candidates actually stood for the CDA at the 2005 General Election, and Letwin held his seat. However, CDA Chairman Michael Keith Smith stood as the United Kingdom Independence Party candidate for Portsmouth North. Both unsuccessful Tory candidate Penny Mordaunt and political commentator Richard North blamed Smith's intervention for the Tories' failure to win back the seat.
The CDA's June 2005 Summer Dinner in Fleet Street, London, was addressed by the 'metric martyr', Neil Herron, who led the campaign against the adoption of the metric system in the UK. The CDA produced a regular bulletin, and formerly maintained a website with discussion forums.
Read more about this topic: Conservative Democratic Alliance
Famous quotes containing the word activities:
“Both gossip and joking are intrinsically valuable activities. Both are essentially social activities that strengthen interpersonal bonds—we do not tell jokes and gossip to ourselves. As popular activities that evade social restrictions, they often refer to topics that are inaccessible to serious public discussion. Gossip and joking often appear together: when we gossip we usually tell jokes and when we are joking we often gossip as well.”
—Aaron Ben-Ze’Ev, Israeli philosopher. “The Vindication of Gossip,” Good Gossip, University Press of Kansas (1994)
“Minds do not act together in public; they simply stick together; and when their private activities are resumed, they fly apart again.”
—Frank Moore Colby (1865–1925)
“...I have never known a “movement” in the theater that did not work direct and serious harm. Indeed, I have sometimes felt that the very people associated with various “uplifting” activities in the theater are people who are astoundingly lacking in idealism.”
—Minnie Maddern Fiske (1865–1932)