Oxford Conservative Association - Standing With The National Conservative Party

Standing With The National Conservative Party

OCA was, until recently, an independent organisation which was not part of the national Conservative Party or Conservative Future. Historically, relations between OCA and the national party have been weak, for example OCA (together with Cambridge University Conservative Association and Durham University Conservative Association) were automatically treated as organisations separate to Conservative Future when it was founded in 1998, and after various unflattering stories in the national press, Conservative Party Central Office has traditionally been quick to distance itself from OCA. However, as of 6 October 2009, the Association officially voted to affiliate to the Conservative Party, and is now an official representative branch of Conservative Future.

In March 2010, an Association event in support of the Oxford West parliamentary candidate, Nicola Blackwood was used to launch Conservative Future's national 'Time to Get Involved Campaign' and the association was praised by the party for its campaigning efforts

OCA members are often asked to stand for election to Oxford City Council. The Council has traditionally been Labour dominated and the Conservatives haven't held a seat on the council since 2001. Alex Stafford (President, Michaelmas 2007) stood unsuccessfully for Holywell Ward in the 2008 Oxford City Council Election achieving an 8.2% swing for the Conservatives - his brother, Gregory Stafford, now a Councillor in the London Borough of Ealing, stood in the same ward in 2004 for OCA.

Read more about this topic:  Oxford Conservative Association

Famous quotes containing the words conservative party, standing with, standing, national, conservative and/or party:

    Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means, in this country, the need to be left. I am driven into grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.
    Kingsley Amis (1922–1995)

    Many older wealthy families have learned to instill a sense of public service in their offspring. But newly affluent middle-class parents have not acquired this skill. We are using our children as symbols of leisure-class standing without building in safeguards against an overweening sense of entitlement—a sense of entitlement that may incline some young people more toward the good life than toward the hard work that, for most of us, makes the good life possible.
    David Elkind (20th century)

    It is neither possible nor desirable to be always attuned to the moods of children because this thwarts their need to test and enrich their individuality by standing up to adult authority. What is possible and desirable is to cultivate an attitude of partnership: to be willing to listen, acknowledge that parents and children at times have different goals, try to reconcile the differences, and agree to disagree if this is not possible.
    Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)

    The national distrust of the contemplative temperament arises less from an innate Philistinism than from a suspicion of anything that cannot be counted, stuffed, framed or mounted over the fireplace in the den.
    Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)

    The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
    Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)

    Last night, party at Lansdowne-House. Tonight, party at Lady Charlotte Greville’s—deplorable waste of time, and something of temper. Nothing imparted—nothing acquired—talking without ideas—if any thing like thought in my mind, it was not on the subjects on which we were gabbling. Heigho!—and in this way half London pass what is called life.
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)