The parachutist from leafy Surrey
ARE THE Tories committing political suicide in Anglesey, writes Clive Betts from the National Assembly press gallery ?
And even if the party is not committing suicide on the island, their choice of a rank outsider who has probably hardly been to the island, or indeed to Wales, demands that the gent concerned must be politically neutered before he sets foot in parliament.
According to the way that the Commons is currently operating, any MP from Wales can help strike down law-making proposals produced by the democratically-elected Assembly in Cardiff.
Unless Mr Anthony Ridge-Newman, the newly-selected Tory candidate from Surrey, can reveal that he knows a hell of a lot about Wales, he should take a string of cotton to the Commons when (more probably, if) he ever enters it. With the aid of a needle, he should tightly sow his mouth shut so that he never has any effect on anything to be with the governance of this country.
After all, Ynys Mon is considered a winnable seat at the Westminster election by the Tories both in London and Cardiff.
It has been held before by the party and seems to many commentators a prime target – provided the right candidate is chosen.
Unfortunately, fate is not dealing well with the local right-wingers. An excellent local candidate who was hoping to be picked had to drop out because too little time had been left for all procedures to be completed – although the individual might put his name forward again for the Senedd seat.
With an election due by June, no time could be lost in finding a replacement. But the party has run into a major mess finding a suitable one.
They have ended up picking a rank outsider, who with any luck will likely to perform exceedingly badly. Anthony Ridge-Newman comes all the way from Surrey. If he knows anything about the island, it may be about how to find a decent beach.
Mr R-N is described as a researcher into “internet democracy” – whatever that is. He’s aged in his 30s, and gossip is that he is one of London Central Office’s favoured sons, although that is denied by the Tories’ spokesman in Wales, who says he performed well from a decent-length short list.
This is not the first time the local Tories have made a total hash of finding a candidate – presumably too many on the selection committee are either blow-ins, or are aiming to gain the blow-ins’ votes.
Perhaps they are thinking of following the line taken by some Labour constituencies – pick a Welshman or someone with Welsh orientation for Cardiff, and someone as English as they come for London.
Some years ago the Ynys Mon Tories parachuted into the seat a candidate from Monmouthshire. In fact, he was a good candidate – but only for somewhere else. Such as Monmouth, which he won and held for a time.
I covered that election for the Western Mail at the time. As Roger Evans went around the constituency, he had to put up with local people (generally of the younger voting generation) physically laughing at him (from a distance, of course).
I thought the Tories had passed the stage that they treated Wales as an offshoot of the Home Counties for promising candidates. So did Nick Bourne when he was questioned at the first press briefing of the new term.
Under questioning, he made it clear that he was concerned about a parachutist taking over the seat. Mr Bourne had checked with London about another Surrey gent who had been named as favoured by London Central Office for Anglesey –- but he was not even on the candidates’ list.
So there was a second blow-in being considered by local Tories…
Not that the party’s press spokesman in Cardiff would agree with concerns about the Englishness of his own party’s candidates. ‘Ninety per cent are either of Welsh background or living in the country’, he said.
Whether that figure includes Ynys Mon’s new blow-in, I don’t know. Whilst one has to put up with trainees standing in unwinnable seats, it’s pretty unacceptable that any total outsider could potentially second-guess decisions already taken by the Assembly.
Should he ever win the seat, he should be formally barred by his party from saying anything at Westminster about any policy which comes under the remit of Cardiff.
Mind you, not all parachutists need be total failures. The previous Tory MP for the island was Keith Best, who was broad-enough minded to turn out one of the best … in many ways.
The problem is that the Labour Party in London has left Wales with a potentially-dangerous constitutional non-settlement. Quite clearly, no party should now be allowed to choose outsiders to contest winnable Welsh seats, from which basis they can proceed to overrule democratic decisions by Cardiff.
