The Nasty Party is back. Bigtime.

The race-baiting strategy failed to remove a politically-damaged Blair government with a disenfranchised core support.

I'm quite happy for the electorate to see what true blue colours look like.

Anyone who would be influenced by such strategies has already been influenced. The tabloids are full of it, and have been so for a long time.

But slimy Karl Rove/ Lee Atwater/ 'swiftboating' tactics on a somewhat more sophisticated level could achieve something unpleasant under the wrong circumstances.

Ian Birrell - one of the very few Conservatives who occasionally says something somewhat reasonable - wrote the following about Crosby, which at any rate counteracts the idea that he is some sort of electoral public-relations Superman:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/lynton-crosby-is-a-disastrous-signing-for-the-tories-8327050.html