Thursday, 27 September, 2007
 | General Election Fever |
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Reports emerging from the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth seem to be indicating that the momentum towards a snap General Election is unstoppable. It's rather reminiscent of the early months of 2003 when everyone was saying that the build up of troops in Kuwait made the Iraq invasion inevitable whether the House of Commons voted for it or not. I suspect that the logic of an imminent General Election is just about as questionable.
Unlike America, for example, where President, Senate and House of Representatives enjoy fixed terms, our Parliamentary style of democracy quite rightly allows variable terms. Were it not so, then an Administration would stay in power no matter how slim its Commons majority. So I strongly support the Prime Minister’s right to “go to the country” at a time when he feels it is right. Inevitably that means that they tend to time it to suit their own electoral advantage. So be it. But let us not forget that it is just over two years since this Labour Government – with Gordon Brown as its No 2 – was returned to office with a substantial majority. They are nowhere near completing their Manifesto promises, and there really is no good reason at all why they should have an election at this very early stage in the cycle. It will cost money and disruption, and it can be justified only on Mr Brown’s egotistical need for his own “mandate”, and because he fears that things can only get worse from here. It is naked electoral opportunism, and as such an obvious abuse of our system of flexible Parliamentary terms.
Having said all of which, I am one of those who is by no means convinced that Mr Brown will “do it.” He must know as well as everyone else that he is personally responsible for all that has happened over the last ten years – the disgraceful state of the Health Service despite record money being spent on it; the £5 billion snatched from Pension funds every year; Iraq; the debilitated armed services; the ridiculous muddle in our Constitution and so much more. Despite their spin, this Government has a huge amount to answer for, which is of course what we Conservatives would focus on in an Election Campaign. We will be asking whether or not the people want five more years of this Government, and my strong instinct is that they will not. Now Mr Brown, I suspect, is a shrewd enough politician to suspect that a ridiculously early General Election held against that backdrop may well do him no favours at all. So despite the hype, I am one of those who still finds it hard to believe that within a week or two we may be in the midst of a General Election Campaign.
The only thing I would say is that if are, we Conservatives are ready for it. I believe that we have a range of interesting new policy ideas just beginning to emerge from David Cameron’s Policy Groups; and I believe that in David Cameron we have a man of the youth and energy, ability and wisdom to run our Nation as Prime Minister. At all events I will make just one prediction about any imminent electoral battle: it will be a great deal closer and harder fought that recent polls might suggest. It was Ian Macleod, I think, who likened elections such as that which may be imminent as “the two great mill stones of the Labour and Conservative Parties grinding against one another, the unfortunate Liberals being squished in between”.
Well, the millpond is full, the sluice gates closed in the meantime, but it is anyone’s guess how long that can last.
Thursday, 20 September, 2007
| Wootton Bassett |
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Sometimes the world feels as if it's on the edge of its seat desperately watching out for developments. Farmers nervously fearing Foot and Mouth; Investors and borrowers alike jittery about Northern Rock and the effect it may have on the housing market; politicos anxiously watching the No 10 runes in the expectation of a snap General Election; all of us worried about the Middle East as a whole.
With all of that going on, there is something terribly re-assuring about the ordinary everyday things of life. I seem to have spent most of the last week or two in one small part of my Constituency- Wootton Bassett. Here’s a glimpse of events in the town.
The little ceremony of the mayor and townsfolk standing silently as the Union Flag-draped coffins of our fallen military heroes wends its way down the High Street has now been noticed by the authorities, who clear the street of traffic and noise, the cortege stopping for two minutes silence alongside the War Memorial. No orders; no commands, no notables; just the people of Wootton Bassett in silent tribute as the police-escorted hearses glide to a halt. There were four coffins last Friday, more to come this week.
By Sunday I was attending Mayor Audrey Wannell’s Civic Service, Pachelbel’s Canon being beautifully played by her daughter Heather, the town sword, originally presented by the MP in 1810 being ceremoniously laid on the altar; on Monday it was the Wootton Bassett in Bloom awards ceremony in the Conservative Club masterminded by the third Wannell – Chris; on Saturday, there’s my surgery in the morning, the Mayor’s 40th wedding anniversary party in the evening; on Sunday we can look forward to the Wootton Bassett Carnival procession, and on Monday I am to visit the groundbreaking and ultra-green housing development next to the Golf Course.
None of these things are necessarily glamorous nor exciting, but I love them all. They are real people involved in real down-to earth events. People just enjoying their lives, and putting themselves out to preserve that intangible reality which exists in Wootton Bassett with spades on – Community. But there’s something else about Wootton Bassett- the people overall give the impression of being happy, or at least contented. By and large they are nice to one another; look after each other. They are wholly unpretentious, neither snobbish nor inverted snobs. They are ordinary people, but my goodness they do things well and do them properly.
I sometimes feel that if the great and the good of the Nation and of the World took a bit of a lesson from the people of Wootton Bassett – if they were just nicer to each other; if they spent less time attacking each other, and more time just appreciating the good things in life; if they could but adopt the down-to-earth straightforwardness of the people of Bassett, then maybe the World would be just a little better place.
I’ll try and remember that when I go back to Parliament; try to remember it every time I go past the Wootton Bassett coat of arms so prominently displayed in the entrance hall to the Palace of Westminster, and try to bring some little part of that very special Wootton Bassett outlook on life to getting a better perspective on discussions of great and weighty matters of State.
Thursday, 13 September, 2007
| Political Parties & Democracy |
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I find it very hard to understand why my colleague and constituency neighbour, Michael Ancram’s recent leaflet should have “Ruffled a Few Tory Feathers” in the words of the Gazette headline. Michael chose to set out in a well-argued and easy to read leaflet why it is that he is a Conservative, and why he believes that people in Devizes vote Conservative, and what he believes that the Conservative Party should (or should not) be doing to make life in Britain that little bit better. So far as I could make out from my very thorough reading of the actual leaflet itself rather than the tabloid interpretations of what he said, it was all eminently sensible. It most certainly was not an attack on David Cameron.
By contrast, I am much less sympathetic to Patrick Mercer and John Bercow, who for reasons best known to themselves have seen fit to accept jobs of one kind or another from Gordon Brown. Surely being in Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition is a honourable and necessary ingredient of a good democratic system - pointing out deficiencies in what the Labour Government are doing, rather than just helping them along behind closed doors.
Like Michael, but unlike Messrs Bercow and Mercer, I am an instinctive, tribal Tory – blue through and through. (Nearly) always have been and (certainly) always will be, and I believe that that is what the 26,282 people who voted for me last time want me to be. A few of them may have voted for me as an individual. Some of them may have voted against me as an individual! But the vast bulk of them voted for me because they wanted a Conservative Government, or to get rid of this ghastly Labour one. They believe that on balance a Conservative Government would best look after their interests, and altruistically best look after the Nation. That‘s what party politics under the “ First Past the Post” Parliamentary system which has worked so well in this country for so many centuries is all about. Strong Government, a strong but loyal Opposition. Westminster politicians doing their best for the Nation first, for their constituents second, and only for their Party machinery and members in the third place.
That is why I am so disappointed that some members of my own Party locally have been playing internal (if pretty incompetent) political games over the last few weeks. I am glad that I was re-adopted by a good majority of the members of the North Wiltshire Conservative Association last January, and I am glad that Parliamentary Commissioner Sir Philip Mawer has since dismissed their vindictive allegations against me. More importantly, I am very glad that all of the indications are that those members, and indeed the wider electorate, still have every faith in my candidacy at the next Election. So those who do not like that democratic decision should now be gritting their teeth and rowing in behind the majority.
For me, I shall just be getting on with my job working for the people of North Wiltshire and doing my best to represent you all in Parliament. I am very glad that I will be your Conservative Candidate at the next Election, when I will be asking for your support and acknowledgement for ten years work, and I hope that the Conservative party locally will be unanimous in their endorsement of my candidacy.
Thursday, 06 September, 2007
| Public Service |
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As the Mayor and townspeople of Wootton Bassett stand week after week with their heads bowed at the War Memorial, paying their respects as yet another cortege of the Union Flag draped coffins of our fallen heroes pulls slowly down the High Street, even the most committed and patriotic of them must just sometimes wonder “Why? What’s it all for?” That was the message I received this week from the Malmesbury Royal British Legion, as the latest cortege- this time bearing the three soldiers who were killed by a US bomb last week- passed through Wootton Bassett.
I had been looking forward to a visit to Hellmand Province which had been planned for this week. I was to have been “embedded” as a Major with a frontline unit so that I could just get a feel for what it was all like, and try to assess how morale is holding up at the front. Sadly “Operational Commitments” have forced the postponement of the visit, but I am determined to ensure that it is not cancelled. At least it has enabled me to attend a service of the Oasis Church to be held in Chippenham’s Olympiad tomorrow to wish the soldiers well due to be deployed from Buckley Barracks in Hullavington within the next few days “God Speed and a safe and swift return from the battlefield.” I shall spend the service simply thinking about what a magnificent job our armed services do on our behalf; how uncomplaining they are; and how very proud we should be of them all.
“Service before Self” was also at the front of my mind when I visited the Fire Station in Chippenham, particularly to meet those who had been in the forefront of rescues in Gloucester and in Kellaways during the recent floods. I was shown their flood rescue equipment, and their rope rescue equipment, and was astonished to be told that they attend 10 times more road traffic accidents than they do house fires. What wonderful people they are. How much we rely on them without ever properly showing them our appreciation.
Councillors- at County, District and Town and Parish levels are also people who work tirelessly for the good of all of the people of the area, but whose efforts are all too rarely appreciated. I was dismayed when two or three of them led a now failed plot against me as their candidate for the next General Election whenever it may be, but glad that this week we were able to patch up our differences, and that they have agreed to get on with their very demanding roles as Councillors, and to withdraw the petition they had assiduously collected against me. They can be certain of my unswerving support in their true role as Councillors.
These differing groups of people are all in their own way in the “public service.” They are here to “serve the public,” and they do so with a professionalism, grit, cheerfulness and self-denial which should be an example to us all. It’s all too easy to knock them, so for once let us all salute and thank them for all they do.
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