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Queensberry Rules

A bogus newspaper calling itself the “Wiltshire Mail,” but which is actually a voice piece for one of the other political parties, has been joining the other junk mail on North Wilts doorsteps in recent weeks. It contains a number of relatively mild personal attacks on yours truly, which I have no intention of dignifying with any kind of response.

However, it might be timely just to say this to the other parties who will be fielding candidates against me at the General Election:- I pledge that I will be campaigning on the issues and the issues alone. I will be seeking to persuade the voters that a Conservative Government led by David Cameron will be better for all of us than a Labour one led by Gordon Brown, and that I personally will continue my thirteen years of fighting for the people of North Wiltshire. I will make no personal attacks of any kind on other candidates, nor indeed will I react, aside from libel, to any underhand personal remarks they may choose to make. Let’s make this a clean campaign discussing the problems the nation faces and how each of the parties will try to solve them, and leave personalities out of it.

I do also feel strongly that the same should apply nationally. We all sympathise deeply with Gordon Brown’s tragic loss of a child. Of course we do. But that tragedy will neither make him a better nor a worse Prime Minister. His Piers Morgan interview and its content were carefully planned. It was a wrong thing to do. I equally dislike claims in the tabloids that he regularly abuses and assaults his staff. If he does, he certainly should not. But I want to know what he’s going to do to mend our country if he gets another five years in the job, not about his relations with his secretary.

Talking of pretty nauseating and unconvincing press interviews, I have to say that all I want to know about Tiger Woods is whether or not he will win the next major golf tournament.  I want to know about Sir Nicholas Winterton’s political views and career rather than his pretty dopey remarks about Standard Class railway passengers. And when we get to the much-vaunted TV debates amongst the party leaders during the campaign itself, I very much hope that they will be weighty and courteous exchanges about the great matters facing us all, rather than a PMQ- style punch-up. (Which may be fun but really adds very little to the sum total of human happiness.)

So let us try to leave behind our fixation with each other’s private lives, and focus on the problems facing the world, whose magnitude is perhaps greater now than ever before. Poverty, ignorance, terrorism, warfare, climate change, jihadism, the national debt, profligate overspending, the economy in turmoil.

When it comes – and it may not be long away now - I shall be carrying on the very long and honourable North Wiltshire tradition of decent, pleasant, civilised campaigning. I shall robustly argue that our great country is in a shambles, the blame for which lies squarely in Downing Street, and that only a Cameron Government can start to get things sorted out. But no matter what the personal foibles, characteristics, private lives or history of the other candidates may be, I shall make no reference to them whatsoever. When the bell rings to signal the start of the campaign, let’s come out fighting. But let’s stick to the Queensberry Rules.

Cross Party Consensus

Government- or at least good government - is a tough and difficult business. You could even argue that the true test of a government’s success is not how popular it is – which after all might just demonstrate that they are doing what the people think they want in the short term rather than what will be good for the country as a whole in the longer term- but how unpopular it is, which may well indicate that it is actually doing the right thing – videlicet Margaret Thatcher in 1981/2. If we Conservatives form a government at the general election, I am confident that we are taking on such a huge mess that we will soon be one of the most unpopular governments in recent history, which will actually demonstrate that we are doing a good job. By the time of the following general election, it is to be hoped that the people will have come to realise that we did what we had to do for the long-term benefit of the nation as a whole.

There’s been a bit of - slightly self-righteous - media tut-tutting about Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley breaking off talks about long-term care for the elderly because we would not contemplate the death tax which Labour are considering. Why should those who look after their loved ones at home in later years then have to contribute a whacking £20,000 to those who can’t or won’t? We are proposing a voluntary form of insurance instead - a lump sum payment of £8000 on retirement against the cost of possible long-term care. We estimate that those who eventually do not “claim” on that insurance policy will pay for those who have to.

But quite leaving the policy question on one side, I have some difficulty with the very notion that cross-party consensus is necessarily the right thing anyhow. Surely our system of parliamentary democracy depends on groups of people of a like mind – our political parties – coming up with ideas for the betterment of society which they then put to the people in a general election manifesto. Voters consider the various options on offer and cast their votes accordingly. Cross-Party consensus denies them that opportunity to choose. What’s more, since it would involve greater or lesser compromises it may well land up with some kind of lowest common denominator. Tough government demands tough choices which may be temporarily unpopular with the electorate, even if they are actually the right thing to do. Cosy cross-party consensus, government by committee, is likely to produce weak and therefore ultimately unsuccessful government.

And anyhow, it’s not just about how we should care for our evermore aging population. It’s about how we should pay for that care. The devolved government in Scotland, for example, chose to guarantee free long-term care at home for all. That is a political decision which the Scottish Nationalists took, and they have had to cancel a number of other projects to pay for it. At the elections the people will judge whether free long-term care is more or less popular than more or better schools, fewer potholes or rebuilt hospitals. That is a political judgement, and it is right that it is made by a political party who submit themselves to the judgement of the people in a general election.

So roll on our election. It cannot come too soon. The people will then cast their (doubtless quite definitive) judgement of the last 13 years without having that judgement clouded by bogus “cross-party consensus.”

A Rotten Parliament

It’s been another rotten week for Parliament, with the - perfectly justifiable - massive media focus on MPs’ expenses. Those who were on the fiddle in any way must pay the penalty by losing their jobs (as has happened to perhaps 20/30 people) or being prosecuted (and they should most certainly not be allowed the defence of Parliamentary  Privilege ). Those MPs who over claimed and are objecting to the retrospective change in the rules should just pay up and shut up. In my case Sir Thomas Legg decided that I had overpaid my landlord by some £300, or £75 per year, against my rent over the four year period . I cannot imagine how he came to that conclusion. I have always paid my rent on demand and by direct debit straight to the landlord, and reclaimed that figure. However, for the sake of closure, and to avoid endless crawling over ancient accounts, I have indeed  repaid the £300 requested . And I wholly support the efforts of the new independent body, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, who are busily consulting on what system should be put in place to replace the widely discredited system of pay and allowances which currently exists.

All of this is a huge diversion away from real life. As we see the beginning of what may turn out to have been the most intense period of warfare for many years; as our economy totters along with the highest national debt for years; as the Greek and Spanish debts look like endangering, perhaps toppling the Euro project; as this discredited Government tries to do whatever it can to avoid humiliation in the polls which cannot come too soon; as all of that goes on, we in Westminster are chattering about whether or not an 18th Century Bill of Rights should be used to protect three Labour MPs from prosecution in the courts. What we need in the nation is direction and leadership on these great issues and more. So let’s deal with Westminster scandals and move swiftly on to the Election and set about putting our country back to rights.

For myself, I had a busy week - calling my own Westminster Hall debate on Multiple Sclerosis issues (I am Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for MS and Patron of the North Wilts branch of the MS Society); welcoming Neston Farm Shop to Parliament for the Countryside Alliance Rural Awards, of which they were the Wessex Regional Winners; visiting Scisys, a company in Chippenham producing high tech solutions for industry and government; meeting the new Station Commander at Lyneham (You can just guess what we discussed!); attending yet another repatriation in Wootton Bassett; spending a fascinating and enjoyable 6 hours of Friday evening with the Wootton Bassett Police, Sergeant Jo Spencer showing me around and giving me an insight into the excellence of our local police force; surgeries in Wootton Bassett and Malmesbury, looking into the Malmesbury Health Workshop, canvassing in Calne, attending a drinks party in East Tytherton. These things are the real meat of a Constituency MP’s week, and I would not swap them for all the great affairs of state you could mention.

So I do hope that Sir Thomas Legg and his aftermath, and the ever-more imminent General Election will truly draw a line under the last ghastly twelve Parliamentary months, and begin to restore the reputation of politics and our Parliament. We have so much to do and must not waste more time before we set about it.

Royalty

It’s been a bit of a Royal week for us all in North Wiltshire. It was great to see HRH the Duchess of Cornwall, or just “Camilla” as she is known to local people at the 60^th Birthday event for Age Concern Wiltshire on Wednesday. They are a great organisation doing important and sometimes difficult work, which was marked and celebrated by the Duchess’s presence.

Then, of course, as has been extensively reported, she and the Prince of Wales were back in Wootton Bassett on Friday to thank the people of that wonderful town for the way in which they support our armed services by paying respects to the returning bodies of servicemen. There was something absolutely magical about the deluge of snow which landed on us all just as they were laying their wreaths.

It was a unique honour for the town to see the two of them wander down the High Street, stopping off for a drink in the Cross Keys which has done such great work supporting the bereaved families, and then dropping into the Conservative Club to chat to so many local people. The whole event was very much in the spirit of Wootton Bassett- no ceremony, no pomposity. Just two very special Royals quietly thanking the people of this very special town for what they do so well.

I don’t think I am breaking any confidences when I report the Prince’s brief remarks to me when I was presented: - HRH: “Hear you’ve been seeing a lot of my wife lately?” MP: “Yes, Sir. It was great to see her at the Age Concern Party on Wednesday at RAF Lyneham.” HRH “Ah yes, Lyneham. Got to keep it open. Keep up the good work.” MP: “I promise to keep fighting for it, Sir.” Hmm…. I’m not sure that the excellent new Station Commander who was standing beside me liked what he heard!! It was a simply wonderful visit and a huge honour for the town, which will without doubt go down in its annals.

The visit exactly coincided with Mr Blair’s evidence to the Chilcott Inquiry. Sounded like pure spin to me, at which Mr Blair is an unequalled expert. There was an irony that at the precise moment that Their Royal Highnesses were thanking the people of Wootton Bassett for what they do, Mr Blair was twisting and turning to try to avoid any personal blame, seeking to justify the unjustifiable without anyone knowing he was doing it, trying to obliterate the memory of the many servicemen’s bodies which had been carried down that very High Street.

I simply cannot understand Republicans. The Royal family do wonderful work being the true leaders of the Nation without fear or favour. They have their influence – like the prince’s off-the-cuff remark to me about RAF Lyneham – but rise above the hubbub. Their presence at an event like the Age Concern party or so many others in this area is so vastly more important than it would be if, for example, we had a President. If that were the case, it might well have been President Blair. But he couldn’t have come to Bassett because he’d have been too busy with Chilcott. We should thank and respect our magnificent Royal family - ours would be a vastly poorer nation without them.

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