Celebrity Tory candidate plan backfires shock - no comments

Here's Tory by-election candidate, Tony Lit (to his friends) pictured at a Labour Party fund-raising dinner (also here), with his political friend, later, arch-enemy, Tony Blair, just 5 days after paying this nice cheque, 7 days before joining the Conservative Party, and one additional day before being 'parachuted in' as Tory candidate.



I imagine you're lucky if you don't work in a profession where you're expected to smile for the camera whichever saint or scum-bag you're stood next to. All the same, you have to wonder about the intellectual seriousness of any political animal who's prepared to look so relaxed with a party leader when their views are so in flux that they jump party within a week of the photo having been taken (this logic applies just as readily to defecting members of Parliament). In the unlikely event of David Cameron appearing at a function I was invited to, I doubt I'd be able to crack much of a smile with him even if I was wobbling, politically (which, thanks to DC, I'm a very long way from doing).

I don't know anything about Lit's political views. He might be reasonable for all I know, but appearing to be a fraud from Day 1 isn't a good start: with luck we won't have to worry after Thursday, July 19th.

Thanks - and apologies - to Mr W and Mr B.

Grantham and Stamford go Labour - 6 comments

Quentin Davies MP's defection to Labour is a great publicity coup for what we should now be calling the new Brown/Harman team. If they can continue to appear fresh, dynamic, cunning, and also lucky, then the sooner the vacuous Cameron effect will be neutralised, and perhaps the sooner the media will convince us that policy differences are worth the public's while again.

But amidst the celebrations on our side, not all bloggers are sure the new recruit is worthy of our wholehearted support. Owen at Labour's Fightback is quite right to remind us that Davies is not a social liberal in the manner we have come to expect of Labour MPs since the elimination of the old Right in the 1970s and 80s (Tory Alan Duncan says so much himself). Davies' record on homosexual rights can be seen here - green (on the right-hand side) is good, and there isn't any. And yet he would not be alone amongst Labour MPs, so it would hardly be consistent to disbar him and not others, who have a mandate both from the electorate and their own party members.

Davies is unlikely to change his views at this stage in his life/career, and can't live down a lifetime of opposition to the reasonable left; as his switching party neither helps nor harms the social liberal consensus, it can only really be enjoyed for its pretty devastating criticism of the Cameronite Conservative party, extracts of which can be found here, here, and everywhere else beside. There's very little to disagree with, apart perhaps from the tone. Sure, there's some evidence that the Tories were making progress, but thinking back to last year, when I feared they might make a pitch that could sweep up wavering Blairites en masse, I can't help but feel now that the strategy has completely failed. The battered red squares hold; the slowed, demoralised, blue cavalry forced to skirt around the edges.

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I'm curious: do MPs switching to Labour face mandatory re-selection for the next General Election? I don't know. There must be a tremendously strong case for having such a rule if it doesn't already exist.