POLITICS: Thick and fast
I’m sure I’ve seen this lot somewhere before
A leaden list
Happy conference-going, especially to the five white, heterosexual (one assumes) males who have been selected since I last slithered out my judicious musings.
Mike Penning (ever-so-liberal Thurrock 2001) — a CCO press officer — won through at Hemel Hempstead, a new town perfectly suited to his rough-hewn vowels and naturally matey approach. He succeeds Dr Paul Ivey. But there are two Mr Pennings: his present, house-trained incarnation, and Mr Penning Mark One, the effective organiser and publicist for the whipless Group of Eight (Gorman, Budgen, Marlow et al, remember them?) who caused such trouble to the big blue pants of Mr Major. If we can have the rebellious, campaigning Euro-sceptic Mr Penning, hooray! If the other (the sort who obediently closed down CAFE on demand for instance), hmm, not so sure. And of course, my heart goes out to the poor, dear Leader: first his office manager combines her day job with a target seat, then his ‘personal press spokesman’ does the same thing. Something’s got to give.
A natural social counterpoint to ex-squaddie and firemen Mr Penning is Ben Wallace, who won outright on the first ballot at Lancaster & Wyre. A former Scots Guard captain and serving MSP, elected for North East Scotland, Mr Wallace has an old school Tory look despite being a champion for Michael Portillo in Scotland. The Union maybe one step closer to being saved. He beat George Lee, Matthew Palmer and Tobias Ellwood to succeed Steve Barclay, he of the somewhat briefer military career. Clearly they like that sort of thing up there.
Dorset South — stolen in 2001 from Ian Bruce by Labour — is the site of the victory of Ed Matts (Oxford W & Abingdon, 2001), a previous runner-up in Somerton & Frome and Guildford. Churchy, Christ Church, Oxford and an advisor to financial institutions, Mr Matts, an IDS supporter, again hails from central casting circa the glorious Baldwin years. He beat Charles Walker and Joanna, I’m in a tizzy, Richardson.
Lower down the social scale comes Philip Davies, who was selected by the Shipley association with a stonking 79% of the vote on the first ballot, putting George Lee (again) and Philip Allott to the sword. Young and right-wing, Mr Davies is an Asda manager, and replaces David Senior who has his eyes on more winnable seats.
The Wrekin, which was fought by the excellent Jacob Rees-Mogg (who surely deserves a hereditary peerage), has chosen Mark Pritchard, (Warley, 2001), an unknown quantity, even to me. Good, bad or indifferent let me know.
Mea culpa
The Snake — unlike the Pope — is fallible, sort of. Last week, this column suggested that there were doubts whether Richard Benyon, Newbury's candidate in 1997 and 2001, was going to have another crack at ousting the Lib Dem cuckoo. But news has come in from that sage journal, The Newbury Weekly News, who quote Mr Benyon, landowner, a former Green Jacket, and scion of the Cecil family, as saying, ‘it's been the unanimous opinion of the executive to readopt me without going through the whole applications process’. He will be anointed next month.
Something must have upset him
Some bad news for us. Andrew Hunter, that principled stalwart of the traditonal right, has resigned the whip so that he can stand as a DUP candidate in Lagan Valley at the next Stormont elections in May 2003 (should the Assembly survive that long). Basingstoke's Tory majority is a piddling 880 (1.8%) over Labour. A little bit of cheer for the Tories though. David Chidgey, the Lib Dem MP for Eastleigh, is standing down. Once his personal vote — and those pesky Liberals are damned good at building personal power bases — is subtracted from his 3058 (6.4%) majority over spunky Conor Burns, the seat looks just that bit more winnable.
Now for the really sick stuff
And news from Wales: the vote for placings on the Assembly election list has begun. There has been one casualty from the team of 9 AMs. Peter Rogers, an Anglesey farmer, took the second of the two list places the Tories won in North Wales. This time he has slipped to seventh place where he stands zero chance of returning to the august body that is the Welsh Assembly, unless by some amazing feat he wins Ynys Mon. He apparently didn't bother to have his CV or an address included in info sent to members. The top two places have gone to Brynley Williams, the farmer and fuel protester who so frightened the Blair junta in 2000, and moustachioed Mark Isherwood, candidate for Alyn & Deesside last time.
The fate of Mr Rogers should excite sitting Euro-MPs as they seek
renomination later this year. Yes, by special request — there is a very unwell person out there, you know who you are — The Snake will look at who's up and who's down, amongst our boys in the European Parliament. Any snippets — anything at all, do we even have any MEPs? — will be gratefully received since this at best can be described as an esoteric area of study.
‘Everything I do, I do it for yooouuuuu’
Since all Tory candidates are now required by top secret CCO policies to have the looks of Whitney Houston, the social concern of Kevin Costner, and the personal warmth of Alan Rickman, it becomes ever more of a challenge to find out factoids about these unlikely folk. So keep in touch.
— The Snake
selected Tory PPCs
CandidateWatch archive
CandidateWatch, October 6, 2002 11:53 PM