UK Politics
Tory regatta for Boris's seat
Published 29 May 2008
Henley is in the bag, and other by-elections could go blue, too
It's at this time of year that young Tories' thoughts turn to Henley, and not just to the regatta. With Boris safely ensconced in City Hall, the next by-election and who the lucky candidate might be are very much the topics of discussion. It's the ultimate golden ticket, a possible job for life for whoever wins, in a south Oxfordshire utopia by the Chiltern Hills; the Holy Grail of Conservative seats.
Henley has its royal event and a River and Rowing Museum. It holds summer balls attended by proper celebs - nice boys such as Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet and Sir Steve Redgrave. Oh yes, it's good: it has a Loch Fyne oyster bar and sheep racing; it also regularly makes the final of the Royal Horticultural Society Britain in Bloom competition. Yet this is no stuffy backwater. It's got a cool Fairtrade Town certificate (very Cameron) and recently elected a female mayor with blond, swishy hair and bootleg jeans . . . Progressive.
Rumours are that the by-election will be called after the parliamentary recess on 2 June, although Gordon Brown may try to delay when it is held to give the Liberal Democrats more time. The Lib Dems are taking this seriously; they already have their candidate in place and have been sending in foot soldiers from miles away.
During the atrocious May bank holiday weekend, various Tories on the candidates' list made their way to Henley to "check it out". Who were they kidding? They'd all been before and they know it's perfect. But they just wanted to torment themselves, enjoy that idyllic hour at the Bull and Butcher, fantasising over a pint of Brakspear what it would be like if the constituency was theirs. Wannabe candidates who clocked each other either pretended not to notice, or made creative excuses about "seeing chums locally" or "just passing through".
The desire for a safe seat increases as the months go by. Those keen to become an MP are spending huge periods of time applying for and driving to and from selections. One female on the candidates' list who has made it to the final of two desirable seat selections says: "It takes over your life. You find yourself doing unmentionable things like checking out all the MPs over 60 and wondering if they might give up their seat . . . or die."
This is normal. At a dinner party in Westminster this past week, news that an older MP had "had a bad fall" induced a collective clenching of buttocks among those seeking seats. Husbands and wives shot rapid, knowing looks at one another, mentally reminding themselves to keep an eye on the health of "X with the bruised shin".
Cameron has told Henley to pick a local candidate whether it wants to or not. This is a town used to big-hitters - before Boris, it had Michael Heseltine - but the party has changed. The victory in Crewe taught the Tory machine many lessons, the benefit of a local candidate being one of them. And attending the regatta every year does not count as being local.
Gone are the days when safe Tory associations could bray for a celebrity MP. As one shadow minister says: "Henley has never had to be a campaigning association, but those days are over. The Henley Tory mafia are going to have to come to terms with the fact that their representative might not be presenting Have I Got News for You."
The star of the Crewe campaign, the by-election marvel Eric Pickles MP, is unaware whether his services will be needed in Henley. "If they do want me in Henley, they haven't told me," he says coyly. Everyone at Conservative Party headquarters is nuts about Pickles and most have their own Pickles anecdote. Pickles fans who consider themselves superior because they liked him before the Crewe success liven up boring local government stories by adding a Pickles reference.
Whether or not Pickles will mobilise could not be confirmed, but the Tories now have a certain blueprint for how to run a local campaign. To excite matters further, there could be another by-election, in Winchester. The word is that the city's Liberal Democrat MP, Mark Oaten, may step down before the next general election to pursue another career, and there is every possibility Winchester is a seat the Conservatives could take. If Oaten bows out soon there would be a double by-election - an almighty, thrilling challenge for the Tories. It's also one that would terrify the government and multiply the fronts that the Lib Dems have to fight on. Someone call Eric.
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