Tag Archives: nick bye

Public in dislike of petty partisan politicking shock!

By Stephen Tall | Thu 6th August 2009 - 6:15 pm

Nick Bye, the third-placed Tory candidate in their Totnes ‘open primary’, writes a cheerily self-deprecating account of his experiences in today’s Times, A popular raspberry against yah-boo politics:

Matthew Parris chaired the big hustings meeting, which I reckoned would be a walkover for me — it was very much my home territory. I’m a mayor and used to traditional, on-the-stump speeches. But this is where the open primary system really worked for Dr Wollaston. She had the good sense to appreciate that party political point-scoring was just not what this audience wanted to hear.

I, however, made the mistake of using one of of my favourite lines of attack. “The biggest myth in British politics is that Liberal Democrats are such nice people” went down a storm in front of the party executive. But in front of a wider audience, it fell as flat as a pancake.