Thursday, 25 October, 2007
 | Euro-Dodgems |
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It was good to visit my friend George Scarrot’s funfair in Wootton Bassett a couple of weeks back. I will never forget the day when he came up to Parliament to give evidence to the Environment Select Committee on the subject of travelling fairs and showmen. His was a refreshingly direct and down to earth contribution to an otherwise rather vague and woolly evidence session. He hit a few bulls eyes on the rifle range and knocked a few coconuts off their stands.
Mr Brown’s been on the helter-skelter over the last few days – or maybe the big dipper would be more accurate. His bluster at the EU summit in Lisbon, trying to pretend that the new EU Constitution to which he has signed up is somehow quite different to the last one was laughable. It dropped the EU flag and anthem but precious little else. And at the Statement on the subject in the House on Monday, frankly no-one accepted his dodging and weaving around the question of why he has reneged on his Manifesto commitment to have a Referendum on the subject, which recent polls suggest that 75% of the British people want. It represents a fundamental change in the way in which Britain will be run, and that can only be done by a vote of the British people.
How can the very same Mr Brown have felt no embarrassment a day or two later to have flown to his photo-op standing side by side with thousands of English fans with the flag of St George painted on their faces in support of our rugby team. (We were robbed. For sure that was a try. Never mind, we’re good losers.) He looked distinctly uncomfortable in his rather shiny suit alongside the two young Princes who were entering into the spirit of the match with such gusto. But then does he really support England? Or does he still believe as he is once reputed to have said that anyone who beats the English at sport is a friend of the Scots?
There is a close correlation between those who are strongly in favour of an “ever closer European Union” and those who want regionalism within our own countries. If you break our great nation states up into little bits, they need the umbrella of an all-powerful bureaucracy in Brussels. Well I’m not one of them, and I suspect that precious few people in North Wiltshire are either. I am staunchly opposed to an ever-stronger EU. It should be a loose amalgam of trading relationships and no more than that. I abhor the ghastly blue flag with yellow stars we are forced to wear on our car number plates, detest the smug committee men populating Brussels and Strasbourg, get rid of the hideous “Euros” from my wallet as soon as I can after returning from the Continent, loathe the idea of an EU Constitution, incorporating amongst other things the dreadful idea of a European Foreign Minister and permanent President. (A role tailor made for Mr Blair, methinks.) “A pox on all your houses” as our eighteenth century ancestors might have said.
Lets have the direct down to earth Englishness of the funfair’s musical horses, not the Euro-loving promise-breaking deception of the Gordon Brown’s dodgy dodgems.
Thursday, 18 October, 2007
| An MP's Surgeries |
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There is often a sharp contrast between the two halves of an MP’s life - four days a week in Parliament challenging the Government and representing your views, and a long weekend in North Wiltshire attending functions and helping local residents at my constituency surgeries.
This was our first week back - and we all had that ‘back to school’ feeling, trying to get back into the swing of the Parliamentary regime after the summer break. The Government were struggling to get what’s left of their legislative programme through both Houses before prorogation in a couple of weeks’ time, the Queen’s Speech on 6th November and the start of the new session, while we Conservatives, still buoyed by our excellent Conference and newfound popularity in the country, enjoyed watching the Government take on some of our ideas on inheritance tax and benefits for families and admit that they were rather good ideas after all!
Prime Minister’s Question Time on Wednesday was a real win for David Cameron, who taunted Gordon Brown again and again about the ‘almost election.’ His excellent performance and a very cheerful meeting of the Parliamentary Conservative Party gave us all a spring in our step while MPs on the Labour benches looked very glum during the statement on Iraq.
On Saturday, ten people came to see me in my Chippenham and Corsham surgeries, their concerns respectively being:- potential bankruptcy; a property fraud in Yorkshire; a dispute over the sale of a flat; a work permit for a US citizen; vehicular access to some Westlea properties; the sale of Chippenham’s Donkey Field; potholes in the Bristol Road; floods in Dauntsey; the cost of traffic lights at Queens Bridge; housing for an expanding family; and MRSA at the Royal United Hospital in Bath. A varied bag indeed, many of which I was pleased to be able to help with!
I thoroughly enjoy my surgeries because they really are a way for me to make a difference to my constituents’ lives and help them personally. In Parliament by contrast, all my speeches, questions and lobbying do a good job, I hope, in holding the Government to account, but have little personal effect on the people I see on Saturdays who approach me with their personal issues. Some MPs do seem to object to the degree to which we have become unpaid social workers and general advisers on myriad subjects and think we should focus on being legislators and critics of the Government.
But I don’t agree with them. My surgeries are well up there with the most important things I do as your MP and I think that only by being constantly out and about in the constituency, talking to people about their lives, their hopes and their worries, can I get a true feel for what you are thinking and would like me to talk about in the House of Commons. So I have relished and enjoyed the 500 or so surgeries I have conducted in my 10 years as your MP, and gladly tried to help the 5000 or so people I have seen in them. I am certain that they are an essential and central part of my job, and promise to keep them up for as long as the electorate allows me!
Thursday, 11 October, 2007
| Grand old Duke of York |
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“He marched them up to the top of the hill…..”
Grand Old Duke of York analogies abounded last weekend as Gordon Brown bowed to the post-Conference pro-Tory polls in the marginal seats and cancelled his long-planned General Election. What a shambles it all was. Massive Election hype plunging in the space of a few days into internal Labour Party post-mortems as to where it all went wrong? Avid readers of this column will recall that even I had predicted a hanging-up of the old quill for at least a month or so. A week in politics….
Quite leaving aside the party political spin as to who would have won, and when and why, it seems to me that there are two or three clear themes emerging from the muddle. First, as I commented a couple of weeks back, it seems to me quite wrong for a PM to be able play ducks and drakes with Election dates in this way. A fundamental abuse of our Parliamentary democracy. I remain deeply suspicious of fixed-term Parliaments, but this episode may open up discussion about how they could work without undermining the all-important accountability of a Prime Minister.
Second, the only thing to beware of more than a politician “spinning” is a politician who promises an end to spin. “I’m a kinda straightforward guy,” as that arch-spinner Mr Blair said. “An end to spinning, and announcements all to be made in Parliament” said that down to earth son of the Manse Gordon Brown shortly before he sped off to Iraq in a massive, if rather cack-handed pre-election spin involving our troops. What a disgrace that episode really was. 250 of the 1000 troops he promised to “withdraw by Christmas” are already home in Tidworth. He came back to Parliament on Monday to re-announce it all. So much for his respect for that once great institution.
A third lesson is about the sheer volatility of the polls. People seem fundamentally unhappy with Labour, not yet convinced about the Tories, and ignoring the Liberal Democrats altogether. (The delayed election may have deprived Ming Campbell of his Get Out of Jail Free Card.- Watch out for the young Turks behind you, Ming.) A blindingly brilliant speech by David Cameron took us from something up to 11 points behind to 6 points ahead in the polls in the space of a week. Hardly surprising that Mr Brown chickened out!
A fourth lesson is for us Tories. When we started to offer people what they want – an end to Death Duties, help for first time buyers; tough sentencing and more prisons, a healthy dose of Euro scepticism and a myriad other carefully thought through and attractive policies, the people flock to us, at least if the polls are to be believed. A message there, Mr Cameron? No more knocking grammar schools, car parking charges in supermarkets, photo opportunities on the Arctic ice-cap? Democracy is all about giving the people what they want as well as what we think is good for them. So let’s get on with it.
Overall my instinct is that the Brown honeymoon is thoroughly at an end as a result of this debacle. He has been seen for what he really is, and it is hard to imagine how he can ever recover all of the lustre which the last week has so dramatically taken off him. Less of the Grand Old Duke of York, a bit more of a Humpty Dumpty perhaps? “All the King’s Horses and all the King’s men…”
Thursday, 04 October, 2007
| Despatch from Blackpool |
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Every Autumn I set off for the Party Conference with a nagging thought at the back of my mind that I really would much prefer, and indeed might make better use of my time if I instead just stayed in the Constituency. But that thought is quickly dispelled after a day or two of (relatively) stimulating thought and discussion, relentless networking and partying, and just a general refresher of why it is that I am a Conservative.
After a dodgy start, with the sound system breaking down, the Tory Party Conference was a huge success, with a wide variety of popular and outstandingly good new policy ideas. The virtual abolition of Stamp Duty for first time buyers would help people get onto the property ladder in areas such as ours, where the average property price is wildly out of sync with the average family income; and the effective abolition of death duties will allow us to pass that family home onto the younger generation without having to give 40% of it away to the Chancellor. And who could not cheer at David Davis’s announcement of an end to halftime Prison sentences, and the building of more prisons to accommodate it.
But the talk in all the bars and fringes, of course, was overwhelmingly about whether or not Gordon Brown would call a General Election. And as I write – from the dining room of my excellent boarding house – there are rumours and counter rumours swirling around Blackpool. Mr Brown’s Iraq visit, and a likely announcement of withdrawing 2000 troops looks like a necessary prerequisite. I hear that Labour are bringing forward a major announcement on the NHS from next April to today, there is said to be a Labour Party Political Broadcast booked for next Tuesday; some of the retiring Labour MPs are said to be clearing their rooms, the Electoral Commission sending out special instructions about the conduct of a snap election, and even certain arrangements between Parliament and Buckingham Palace to do with the Queen’s Diary and the State Opening of Parliament being discussed.
And I have to say that if I was Gordon Brown I would think that while I stand a chance of doing quite well now, who knows what the polls will be like 12 months or more from now. The Stock Exchange, house prices, wage wars with the unions, Afghanistan, the European Constitution, and so much else is looming up on the horizon. So unlike most of my colleagues here in Blackpool, I am inclined to expect a General Election announced on Monday or Tuesday next week and called for 8 November. And for myself I’d say “Bring it on.” Fresh from a vastly more successful Conference than anyone was expecting, we Tories believe that it’s Time for a Change, and that the people attracted by some of the bright new ideas announced in Blackpool will vote for that change.
Locally, I’ve got my battle plans in place, and we are ready to go. If there is an election, this will be my last Column for a month or so, after which I very much hope to continue these occasional musings about matters political. If so, can I thank you for your continuing support at the ballot box. If not, I thank you for your friendship and support over 10 years, and will wish my successor whoever he or she may be well in representing this wonderful constituency.
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