With parliament in recess, even more attention will be concentrated on the Eastleigh by-election in the last full week of campaigning. All Conservative MPs have been instructed to make at least three visits to the constituency before polling day on 28 February and it’s not hard to detect increasing nervousness in the Tory camp about the party’s chances of taking the seat off the Lib Dems. Interviewed on The Sunday Politics yesterday, Conservative chairman Grant Shapps, who defended Tory candidate Maria Hutching’s comments on state education, did not sound like a man confident of winning. The Lib Dems’ local advantage – the party holds all 36 council seats in the constituency – is beginning to tell, with the party estimated to have three times as many helpers as the Tories.
The row over Hutchings, who claimed that it would be “impossible” for her son to become a surgeon if he went to a state school, is rumbling on this morning after eight doctors signed an open letter criticising her comments. The medics, all of whom were state educated, wrote:
As GPs and surgeons who all started their education at state-funded schools, we are proof that Maria Hutchings’ assertions are not true. The education system in this country provided us with the knowledge and skills we needed to follow our dream career.
It’s such a shame that Conservatives like Maria Hutchings want to do our education system down instead of sending the message that whatever your background, you can achieve what you set out to do in life.
The imbroglio is a good example of why, as I wrote the day after Hutchings was selected as the Conservative candidate, a significant number of Tories thought she was the wrong choice for the seat. Hutchings, who fought and lost Eastleigh in 2010 (Chris Huhne increased his majority from 568 to 3,864), was viewed as exactly the kind of political novice that the party should avoid. Nothing that has happened since suggests this judgemenet was wrong.
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