Former
Liberal Party federal director Lynton Crosby has come out swinging,
defending his tactics for the Tories in the British election – and
talking Kylie Minogue – in The Spectator and on the Beeb.

And his key message? Well, good Aussie boy that he is, Lynton wants the Tories to take lessons from Our Kylie:

“She’s
not a quitter and she never whinges,” Lynton says. “She is a good
operator and she works bloody hard. She knows how to reinvent herself
but still be true to herself. Even with this cancer thing she is being
positive.”

The Conservatives fell just short of their 200-seat
target at the 5 May election. “I always play to win – I don’t want an
honourable draw or a distinguished loss,” Lynton tells The Spectator.
“But having said that, the Tories did have a few problems to overcome.
The party had suffered two significant defeats. It takes time to
rebuild. And they are back in the game again.”

He points to the
situation in Australia before the 1996 poll: “Everyone said we were
doomed; it was the same here. Even the Tories had lost their
self-belief, but it’s clear the voters haven’t written them off. So the
result was encouraging, but not my ultimate desire.”

On BBC TV,
Lynton said the Conservatives could be optimistic. “What the result
showed… is that the Conservative party is clearly back in business
and clearly engaged with the British people and therefore can have
confidence in itself.”

Crosby argued it was always going to be
difficult to overturn two heavy election defeats: “It takes time for
people to understand that you’ve changed and to fully comprehend what
you’re on about, and I think a lot of that’s been dealt with now.”

And
Crosby has hosed down controversy over “dog-whistle” politics: “Of
course we didn’t use a bloody dog whistle, or send secret signals to
particular groups,” he told The Spectator. Everyone could hear
what we were saying to voters; it was more like a foghorn, persistent
and resonant. We ran ads on all our main issues, we sent letters to
millions of homes. And we weren’t just appealing to our core vote; we’d
already got that… One man’s opportunism is another man’s
responsiveness. Michael Howard never said there should be no
immigration, but there is a right way to come to this country and a
wrong way.”