POLITICS: How can we fail to win?
My unblinking eyes are going fuzzy with pleasure
Associations are selecting candidates with speed akin to the process of the departure of natural animal waste off a shovel. This week, The Snake can unveil ten — yes, ten — new spear-chuckers. Not only can The Snake offer size but something for everyone, from die-hard right-winger through wimmin' to the Bercowesque.
Let's start with some good news for the hard-faced stage-villainous Right-wing. Peter Bone — scourge of the workshy, bogus asylum seekers and the Europhiliac — has been reselected for Wellingborough. The fifty-year-old is an alumnus of Westcliff-on-Sea Grammar School and the university of life. He fought Wellingborough in 2001, Pudsey 1997, Mid and West Wales euro-seat 1994 and Islywyn against the Welsh Windbag in 1992. Battle-hardened, I am sure that he does not worry too much that the Daily Mirror dubbed him ‘Britain's meanest boss’ because of his vocal opposition to the minimum wage. Jimmy James, Charles Walker and Ali Miraj were on the shortlist.
Something for the Portillistas and woops of joy in Central Office, Ali Miraj, a Muslim of Pakistani parentage, has triumphed in Watford. Of the 53 PPCs selected, he is the first selected from an ethnic minority. Mr Miraj is a Hillingdon councillor who fought Aberavon last year. Aged 27, he is an accountant whose claim to fame is that he has done the books for the kicking pleasuredrome of youth, The Ministry of Sound, innit. Mr Miraj supported both Michael Portillo in his leadership bid and Steve Norris' fight to be London's mayoral candidate. However, he did oppose the expulsion of John Townend for thought-crimes. Michael McManus, former special advisor and oceanic Wykehamist wet, was its standard bearer last time.
The forces of unconservatism will be happy that Douglas Carswell has triumphed in Harwich, replacing former minister Iain Sproat. A bluff figure, old before his years of 31, he has written a C-Change pamphlet about adopting US-style direct democracy. This can only mean that his mind is crazed by dangerous modernising tendencies. The off-spring of doctors, educated at Charterhouse and the University of East Anglia, Mr Carswell fought Sedgefield in 2001. Quentin Letts described him in the Daily Mail as being ‘a tall, gulping bean of a fellow’ and The Daily Telegraph said of him that ‘his current job in the City is so high-powered that even after 10 minutes of explanation one still doesn't know what he actually does’.
In Putney the cause of women was advanced by the selection of Justine Greening, a 33-year-old slip of a thing. Of the 53 seats selected the number of women chosen numbers nine (this is compared to four in the same seats last year). Ms Greening is a product of Oakwood Comprehensive School, Rotherham and took an accountancy degree from the University of Southampton, followed by an MBA from the London Business School. She is business strategy manager for a pharmaceutical company, an Epping councillor and former Bow Group officer which can only suggest a mind contorted by ambition. She was the candidate for Ealing Acton and Shepherd's Bush last year. And it should be said, she also has a degree of gamine charm. Ms Greening replaces Sandhurst-educated Michael Simpson by narrowly beating Simon Allison (Croydon North, 2001), a bouncy little Europhile from Kensington & Chelsea. The excellent Edward Lister, a Thatcherite pioneer on Wandsworth Council failed at an early stage to get selected.
A figure proclaimed as modern by The Economist has triumphed in Warwick & Leamington. Chris White who fought Birmingham Hall Green in 2001 has moved to greener pastures. A 35-year-old principal engineer at the Rover Longbridge plant, the weekly journal of the financier classes described him as ‘the very epitome of the new Conservative Party that William Hague is trying to build out of the ashes of the 1997 defeat. Young, comprehensive school-educated and an engineer by profession, he's very different from the upper crust Tories who used to occupy Midland seats’. Manchester University-educated Mr White supported IDS in the leadership election and replaces former special advisor David Campbell Bannerman in Anthony Eden's old constituency.
There was a respite from all this "progress" in Milton Keynes NE, the less ghastly part of that carbuncular development, where someone with a rather more traditional CV won. Mark Lancaster, a former Huntingdonshire councillor — a product of Kimbolton School, Huntingdon (the sort of place that has a militantly healthy Combined Cadet Force), Sandhurst and Buckingham University (the equivalent of agricultural college for those who don't want to work al fresco) — beat Graham Stuart (Cambridge, 2001) and Mark Greenburgh to replace Marion Rix, who will hope for a safe seat (remember those things?). Mr Lancaster, aged 32, fought Nuneaton at the last general election and is a Director of a fireworks manufacturer. Before that, this son of a clergyman, served as officer in the Brigade of Gurkhas for a couple of years. He remains a TA officer with the Royal Engineers. Good show.
Less well-known figures are: Daniel Kawczynski, a tall 31-year-old Polish-accented Polish emigre selected for Shrewsbury & Atcham. He fought Southall in 2001 and by beating Caroline Mosley and Robert Lancaster replaces Anthea McIntyre; Robert Collinson, a law lecturer, who beat local right-wing councillor Kris Hopkins to win Keighley, replacing Simon Cooke. Mr Collinson failed to impress in his attempt to win back the seat of Crosby last year; and James Airey, (Barrow & Furness, 2001), a young local man with farming interests, peeks his head above the trench in Morecambe & Lunesdale. Mr Airey replaces David Nuttall, a solid right-winger.
The Dear Leader must have hit on a new way of ensuring a pliant parliamentary party: cloning himself to create an army of gleaming-domed cyborg-IDSs. In Yeovil, a Duncan Smith has been chosen. The Snake cannot divulge any more information about him because Mr Smith has only just been shipped in from the MegaCorp HQ, Reading industrial party. Certainly, CCO is now trying to get tough on dissent. Nick Weston, a former candidate with a great degree of chutzpah, has been kicked off the list and out of the party for his role in the abortive ‘Start Again Party’ farago. He was told by John Taylor, deputy chairman of the party, that he was ‘unsuitable and lacked judgement’. Looking at today's front-bench you would have thought these characteristics would have catapulted him into a senior job. The way of the politician is difficult for an amateur to discern.
In Scotland, the future of the 19 Tory MSPs looks clearer. John Young, the ancient wet, is standing down, and Ben Wallace is coming down south to wrest Lancaster & Wyre from Labour. Keith Harding and Lyndsay McIntosh — a sort of Tartan Miss Widdecombe minus the soundbites — are unlikely to be returned having, by the wonders of party democracy, been voted low down the placings for their regional list. Margaret Mitchell, an aide to David McLetchie, long-time activist and schoolteacher, won the number one slot in Central Scotland. Miss McIntosh slipped from her first place ranking in 1999 to four for the 2003 contest. Ted Brocklebank, a 59-year-old MD of a TV production company gained the Number 3 slot in Mid Scotland & Fife behind the energetic right-wingers Murdo Fraser and Brian Monteith. Keith Harding slipped to fifth place. The only other likely new winner is Nanette Milne, a hospital consultant and grandmother, who stands a good chance of succeeding Captain Wallace in North East Scotland The selection of the lists led to the resignation of Craig Stevenson, the candidate for once safe Eastwood. Mr Stevenson claimed he had been ‘carpetbagged’ by Scottish Central Office when it came to fighting for a place on the West of Scotland regional list. He came third on the list behind Annabel Goldie and Murray Tosh. Mr Stevenson, a plumbing entrepreneur and lecturer, and darling of the media (well in Scottish Tory terms), complained: ‘Central Office said it had to be a level playing field, but the MSPs got to wear trainers while I was made to wear lead boots’. I am sure that we will not see any of this bad blood in the selections for the European parliamentary lists . . .
— The Snake
CandidateWatch, November 4, 2002 11:39 PM