And basically because although he is definitely a Tory he has an interest in accurate information because he seems to be not an idiot (being from the "making a lot of money in business" side of things rather than the "inherited a fortune and has no idea how the world works" side of things), and realises that *most of the time* if you want to succeed you need to understand what is actually going on. And also because he knows that if it is discovered that his polls aren't accurate that he will lose any trust people have in them.
Also, he's not spreading any kind of good news about them, which makes him more believable :-)
I've observed other partisan political commentators who are able to separate what they want to happen from what they think will happen. Pat Buchanan, when he was on tv, was one of these.
Sometimes the kind of conservative you can work with, because they recognise that they can't magically have everything their own way, and might need to face reality and compromise.
Policy negotiation is a different thing, and I don't know how that'd work with Pat Buchanan because he's never been a legislator. As you note, this too varies. But what I'm thinking about is political talk shows on tv. I was initially surprised that, despite Buchanan's infamously strong and extreme positions, he's perfectly capable of engaging in a calm, civilized discussion of electoral prospects with the same neutral view of his own side as anybody else. And so I imagine it would be with Lord Ashcroft.
Ashcroft has an agenda but he is *factual*. He is one of main reasons that Cameron won elections, because the campaign monitoring and development was 'reality-based' rather than wishful and driven by the leaders' egos.
Ditching Ashcroft significantly weakened the Conservative Party's ability to win elections!
...And it is likely that Rishi Sunak is bringing Ashcroft back into the fold.
What do I think of the Tories? They're Tories! I could never imagine voting for one.
Maybe it's because I'm American, where the term "Tory" is a black mark dating back to 1776. But nowadays I feel the same way about Republicans, which I didn't 50 years ago, whereas I would have about Tories if I'd been paying any attention to British politics in those days.
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Lord Ashcroft is a Tory, so Tory he was deputy chairman of the party and sat as a Tory peer.
Why the hell should anyone trust that these polls aren't, well, total lies?
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And basically because although he is definitely a Tory he has an interest in accurate information because he seems to be not an idiot (being from the "making a lot of money in business" side of things rather than the "inherited a fortune and has no idea how the world works" side of things), and realises that *most of the time* if you want to succeed you need to understand what is actually going on. And also because he knows that if it is discovered that his polls aren't accurate that he will lose any trust people have in them.
Also, he's not spreading any kind of good news about them, which makes him more believable :-)
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Fair enough, in terms of the meat of your answer.
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(Although not always)
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Ditching Ashcroft significantly weakened the Conservative Party's ability to win elections!
...And it is likely that Rishi Sunak is bringing Ashcroft back into the fold.
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Maybe it's because I'm American, where the term "Tory" is a black mark dating back to 1776. But nowadays I feel the same way about Republicans, which I didn't 50 years ago, whereas I would have about Tories if I'd been paying any attention to British politics in those days.