Second Tory MP to defect to Labour?

6 Comments to “Second Tory MP to defect to Labour?”

1. Winning here... Says:
   27th June 2007 at 4:15 pm

   The good money is on John Bercow

2. Ryan Cullen Says:
   27th June 2007 at 5:21 pm

   Who?

3. Only we can win here... Says:
   27th June 2007 at 6:03 pm

   Chris Pattern to be Foreign Secretary

4. Tony Hill Says:
   27th June 2007 at 6:27 pm

   Iain Dale has been writing posts for weeks claiming that one or more Lib Dem MPs were about to defect to the Tories. Yesterday in respect of the defection of Quentin Davies he wrote, “Of course it is upsetting. Political parties are tribes, and tribes don’t like it when one of their own kicks them in the face”. Kind of hard to feel much sympathy in the circumstances.

5. Tony Hill Says:
   27th June 2007 at 6:44 pm

   However, even when people are defecting to us I always feel rather uneasy. Of course there are circumstances where the refrain “I haven’t left my party; my party has left me” are true, as with the Labour Party in the early eighties, but it is a lot less common for someone to have genuinely re-thought their political views and to decide that they are no longer in the right party. Far more commonly, in local politics at least, a defector has been thwarted in one way or another: they may have had an obsession about a particular issue; they may not have got on a committee they wanted to be on; they may not have got on with their colleagues: whatever, the chances are that they will dress their defection up as a matter of principle - which it rarely is.

6. anon Says:
   27th June 2007 at 9:48 pm

   Iain Dale is also offering speculation about Shirley Williams being spotted in Gordon Brown’s Commons office… well beyond the realms of possibility?

   
   
   

Leave a Comment