POLITICS: It’s getting thin out there
The season draws to a close
Startling breakthrough by IDS supporters
Come in Number 56 . . . Colne Valley has plumped for the charms of Michael Flynn, over Paul Brierley and solid John Harthman. Mr Flynn, 33, (educated at Finchley Catholic High School and Welbeck College, the sixth-form centre run by the army) is a business development manager who fought Newcastle-under-Lyme in 2001. The association which has a recent history of picking populist Right-wingers — Graham Riddick, MP from 1987-97 and Philip Davies in 2001, who has moved to more winnable Shipley — has stayed true to type; Mr Flynn — a past chairman of Tottenham Conservative Association, hardly a bastion of limp-wristed Toryism — is very much from the garagista wing of the party.
Portilloite clean-sweep
News is dribbling out from Surrey South West, Virginia Bottomley's playpen. The Snake can exclusively reveal the shortlist of four. Youthful Tim Charlesworth (Ashton-under-Lyne, 2001) is a Thames Water strategy analyst who has the misfortune to be a Portillista and a graduate of St Paul's and Bristol University — he is however a decent human being and brick; up against him will be Mark Page (Wigan 2001), another Thatcherite-curdled-Portillista, a finalist in Bournemouth East, Westminster councillor and son of the MP for Herts SW; Jerry Hunt, a highly thought of Oxford grad, Hammersmith & Fulham activist and, apparently, millionaire publisher, is also in the race. The fourth man is believed to a mystery man called Mark Hudson. Apparently Nick St Aubyn, Mr Portillo’s former PPS and defenestrated MP for Guildford, applied but was not interviewed.
Lift up thine eyes
My deep throat from within Wantage brings tales of woe. 40-odd profiled CVs were sent from CCO to the local association, which opted to stay within that edited group. Less than 20 are to be interviewed, and the rumour is that they are looking for — surprise, surprise — a Eurosceptic woman; basically, the polar opposite of cerebral Robert Jackson, the retiring MP and kamikaze pro-European. Such is the lack of decent candidates one senior officer, The Snake hears, is dubbing it a “lifeboats” selection process — Central Office cries out for ‘women and children first’. A whole swath of rather decent Tory Reform Groupies and their fellow-travellers (of a higher calibre than many of the know-nothing dingbats that are being selected) have fallen at the first hurdle: Roger Gough (neighbouring Henley finalist in 2000 and Dulwich & West Norwood); John Cotton (a South Oxfordshire councillor and Blackburn 2001); David Gold (Brighton 2001 and then the only openly if unspangly gay candidate); nor the civilised and splendid David Platt (Henley loser to Boris, Huntingdon runner-up 2000 and Cambridge candidate 1997). Now, The Snake does not hold with the traditional Tory left world-view (as distinct from the self-hating defeatist anti-conservatism of the Modernisers) but hopes that there should be room for them in the party especially if they are talented, amusing or troublesome. Come on Wantage, buck up.
Barrels, scrapping
Next time out of the traps, I’ll unveil the PPC with 2 names and enjoy myself — though you won’t — by chatting about the SW Euro selection, and sundry other such delights as you might care to share with me.
— The Snake
CandidateWatch, November 18, 2002 11:18 PM