OLO Purge

CTV reports that Stephen Harper has purged five members of the OLO staff, not 15 as some earlier reports had stated.

The official reason is "duplication" between members of Peter MacKay's and Harper's old staffs, a reason which seems rather unlikely, because they've had 18 months to scale down two staffs into one.

My utterly uninformed speculation suggests that Harper's rolling the last few heads in communications and policy that needed rolling after a disappointing spring and lacklustre summer BBQ tour. To be honest, though, expectations were raised far too high with the summer tour; it was foolish to think that Harpermania could be generated after the drama of the spring sitting of Parliament reached an anticlimax, during the least politically active time of the year.

No names have been released, but no doubt we'll have an unofficial body count within the next few hours.