I appreciate the rapidly dwindling Conservative Party – down to half the size when David Cameron was elected leader – is desperate to win new recruits but the latest drive to boost membership is a bit fishy. A snout rang with the tale of an Essex man who went along to a Clacton fish-andchip supper organised by the local MP, Douglas Carswell. The chap paid his £10, enjoyed his cod and then listened to the debate before going home unconvinced by the Tory case on Europe. So imagine his perturbation at a letter from Carswell’s office informing him that his tenner would be converted into membership of the constituency association unless he wrote back renouncing the party. The chap couldn’t be bothered to reply and – hey presto! – an unwanted Tory membership card duly popped through his letter box. It’s no surprise Carswell can boast he’s doubled membership in Clacton when it’s as cheap as chips.
Fun and games are often had behind the Speaker’s chair during Prime Minister’s Questions. If Michael Gove arrives too late to squeeze on to the front bench, the school pugilist stands out of John Bercow’s sight and, rocking back and forth on his heels, deliberately winds up Labour MPs with a stream of sneers. The strapping six-foot two Labour whip Tom Blenkinsop has the job of blocking Gove to minimise altercations, but the language can still be unparliamentary. My informant clutching an order paper swore he heard Dame Margaret Beckett, a former foreign secretary well versed in the art of diplomacy, call Gove a “ducking twit” or some such creature.
Cameron’s pet northerner, Eric Pickles, helps keep Ed Miliband’s children in shoes. The Labour leader’s significant other, the barrister Justine Thornton, fights planning cases on behalf of Big Eric’s Department for Communities. She’s assured friends the work is on the legal cab rank principle. Small worlds, politics and the law.
The misfiring Adam Afriyie is a Tory with a bank account to match his ambition. The multimillionaire wannabe leader is employing the ex-News of the World editor Phil Hall to give him PR advice. Another wealthy Tory, Frank “Zac” Goldsmith, hires the ex-Mailman Ian Monk to burnish his image. Both are thorns in Cameron’s side. A newsman on the payroll is the new must-have accessory for the Westminster elite.
Ivan Lewis, the shadow cabinet minister, is unhappy he’s been banished to Northern Ireland. Lewis, whom Damian McBride admitted smearing during the Big Gordie era, was overheard moaning: “The Brownites finally got me.”
The Tory Tyke Alec Shelbrooke, asked if his Jack Russell-poodle cross, Boris, was a randy pooch, answered bluntly: “No, I chopped his balls off.” A course of action that Mrs Johnson may wish she’d pursued.
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