Tag Archives: margot james

Stephen Tall

Proof that not *all* Tories are bonkers on Europe (and nor was Mrs Thatcher)

By Stephen Tall | Thu 17th January 2013 - 9:25 pm

margaret thatcher europeAmidst all the Tory Euro-hysteria (‘Eurotic’, I’ve heard it described as: and I seriously hope I didn’t mis-hear) it’s easy to forget there are a few Tories, a diminishing if stoic band, who have kept tight hold of their senses.

And though it was David Cameron’s desperate last-ditch pitch for the job of Tory leader — his 2005 promise to his party’s Europhobes to withdraw the Tories from the mainstream centre-right EPP alliance, a policy even David Davis wouldn’t touch — which has, slowly but inevitably, dragged the party ever more fringewards, a few of his backbenchers remain hopeful they can persuade him, even now, to do the sensible thing.

Here’s some of what they’ve written to him:

We acknowledge the EU’s shortcomings and understand the desire and, under the Lisbon Treaty the possibility, to repatriate powers. However, we do our nation, as well as Europe, a disservice by not confidently exerting the same level of engagement and leadership as we demonstrate in organisations such as NATO, the G8, the UN Security Council or the Commonwealth.

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Mark Pack

Has Conservative candidate Margot James been breaking the law?

By Mark Pack | Sun 29th November 2009 - 11:10 pm

The BBC reports:

The Electoral Commission will be asked whether a Conservative Vice Chair has broken the law in the marginal constituency she is contesting at the next election.

Margot James is the Conservative candidate in Stourbridge – one of the most marginal seats in the country.

The seat’s current Labour MP, Lynda Waltho, is to ask the Electoral Commission for clarification of the law on “treating”.

At issue is whether Ms James might have committed an offence by hosting a lunch for a group of pensioners at her constituency home and some receptions for the local Muslim community.

I don’t know more about …

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