CCHQ has officially ditched the much mooted idea of putting “David Cameron’s Conservatives” on the ballot paper. The idea was trialled at the disastrous Ealing Southall by-election of 2007 and candidates were speculating as to whether it would be included at the general election.

A memo from CCHQ sent out this morning to PPC’s tells them to drop Dave:

From: Dolley, Mike
Sent: 19 January 2010 10:17
To: All Battleground Directors; All Campaign Directors; All Regional Directors
Cc: Mabbutt, Alan; Oldham, Rachel
Subject: candidate description

Please note that it has been determined that the agreed candidate description for all parliamentary and local government candidates will be “The Conservative Party Candidate” (Scotland and Wales please ignore)

Michael Dolley
Deputy Director
Field Campaigning Department

Labour are determined to make attacks on Cameron central to an increasingly Guidoised election campaign, and it seems PPCs are going to be spared some connection to that. Dave is still the Tories strongest asset though, which is why Labour are so keen to throw the kitchen sink at him. Labour would have made issue of it if his name had been included on the ballot and they will no doubt claim some kind of victory now that it won’t be…