The news that Dr Dan Poulter, the now ex-Conservative MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, has defected to Labour has come as a bit of a shock to many – and let’s face it, how on Earth could it have taken him so long to realise that the current Conservative leadership have no real interest in public services? – but I ought now to admit that the evidence was there as far back as 2010.
As the brand new MP for the constituency, elected that year, he came to the village as part of his “getting to know the patch” efforts – he was an “incomer” from Reigate and Banstead – and I had the opportunity to find out more about his politics. And, in truth, nothing he said then suggested that he would be any less at home in a Clegg-led Liberal Democrat party than in a Cameron-led Conservative Party.
What might have surprised me was that, with an obvious professional alternative – he’ll earn far more working for the NHS and, possibly, in private practice, than he ever would as an MP – he stuck it out in an increasingly alien Conservative Party. And not only that, he voted through a whole plethora of legislation that should surely have troubled him had he remained true to his supposed principles.
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