Glastonbury 2011: Christopher Shale was already in the news today

It could just be one of those strange coincidences, but Christopher Shale, the West Oxfordshire Conservative Association chair found dead at Glastonbury this morning was already in today's headlines, as the Mail On Sunday had got hold of a document he produced basically slagging the Tories off:

In a sign of how hard the party is finding it to attract new members, the document concedes that the Prime Minister’s own association gained only 22 members in the past year.

Their response is ‘Operation Vanguard’, which is designed to achieve a ‘transformational increase in [West Oxfordshire Conservative Association] membership, in ways others can apply to similar effect nationally’.

The plan is brutally frank about the failings of the constituency party. Shale writes that ‘collectively we are not always an appealing proposition’.

He slams the association’s fundraising efforts, saying: ‘Over the years we have come across as graceless, voracious, crass, always on the take.’

Strange timing.

[Thanks to @dillpickle]