Widdecombe: I’ve just had enough
David Blackburn 4:58pm
It's worth reading Iain Dale’s interview with Ann Widdecombe in the latest issue of Total Politics. Widdecombe is, of course, standing down at the next election, and much of the interview concerns her future plans: she wants to appear on Strictly Come Dancing, for instance, perhaps as the feminine answer to John Sergeant. But, naturally, the outspoken MP makes some forceful points about the current state of British politics. Her conclusion? That things are so bad she’s had enough. First, she attacks Cameron’s ‘A-list’ candidate selection policy:
‘We have gone for category rather than ability. We're looking for more women. I'm all for more women, I'm all for more members of the ethnic communities, I'm all for more anythings as long as they get there on merit. I believe, as a woman, that every woman in Parliament should be able to look every man from the Prime Minister downwards in the eye and to think she got there on exactly the same basis that he got there. And if she can't she's a second class citizen. We're going to have a Conservative Party full of second-class citizens.’
Her final statement is a little OTT, but the argument that candidates should be chosen by merit first, category second is unanswerable. The Tories should recognise that lessening the ministerial talent pool for the sake of a politically correct quota is counterintuitive – the ‘A-list’ won’t necessarily produce an A-team. Widdecombe then extends this argument to Parliament in general:
‘If we're not careful, we are going to end up with a Parliament full of professional politicians, with precious little contact in a sensible way with the outside world. We're going to end up with rules and targets and all the things that currently paralyse so much of British life. And it has no appeal at all. We're moving away from a loose gathering of people from all professions who get together to make law and decisions of state. We've passed from that to becoming actual employees. Now that might suit some people. It doesn't suit me. I do not believe that in the end, it's going to suit the country. I think we're going to have a thoroughly third-rate Parliament.’
Her disillusionment recalls that of Paul Goodman, and speaks volumes about the gradual decline of morale in Westminster. While the public’s faith in the political class is probably at an all time low, so is the political class’s faith in itself.
Previous
Andy
August 21st, 2009 5:38pm Report this commentI agree about selecting on merit alone. Anything else demeans the person who's been shoe-horned in to fill a quota, rather than being the best for the job. No candidate should be able to stand unless s/he has had a real job in the real world for at least five years, too. It would be an advantage if some MPs had some experience of the military as well.
Maggie
August 21st, 2009 5:40pm Report this commentShe needn't worry about all the Tory women candidates. Like Blair's babes, most of them will be pregnant for the first ten years.
Verity
August 21st, 2009 5:47pm Report this comment"Her final statement is a little OTT, but the argument that candidates should be chosen by merit first, category second is unanswerable."
Her final statement is not OTT, except to manipulative lefties. Candidates should be chosen on merit - FULL STOP - not "category second". No quotas, David Blackburn. No quotas. Conservatives don't do quotas. Conservatives do merit.
Ian
August 21st, 2009 6:16pm Report this commentI notice that Ms Widdecombe is disillusioned with "rules and targets". May I jog her memory? It was the Conservative government from 1980 that introduced these debilitating measures, enthusiastically taken up by the Blairites. Rules and targets have emasculated British civic life to a frightening extent, with citizens reduced to "customers" - customers, by the way, who are unable to change the civic shop they have to patronise, unless they are very lucky or very rich....
Verity
August 21st, 2009 6:27pm Report this commentAndy,it should be 15 years in the private sector. Five years is nothing. You can't get much experience in your first five years in a private job. I would like to see it set at 20 years, but could accept 15.
mouse1
August 21st, 2009 6:44pm Report this comment"The argument that candidates should be chosen by merit first, category second is unanswerable..."
Surely good character should come into it somewhere?
Why should 'category' (what a horrible word to describe a human being!) even come into it?
Completely agree with the rest of her comments, though.
R King
August 21st, 2009 6:45pm Report this commentAnother old school has-been trying to rock the boat?
drakes drum
August 21st, 2009 6:58pm Report this commentShe articulates the major problem with David Cameron. She sees that under Cameron "We're going to end up with rules and targets and all the things that currently paralyse so much of British life".
When will the Tory party wake up and realise that David Cameron is NOT a conservative. More likely a Whig! but certainly no tory!
When will people in the tory party realise that with his cabal of toffs and public school 'prats'
he will soon scare people away from the tories.
A one term (three years maximum) parliament and the splitting of the Tory party.
Wake up and ditch this poser!
johnny come lately.
August 21st, 2009 7:00pm Report this commentLord Tebbit and now Miss Widdecombe ringing the alarm bell that loyal Tory party members should respond to.
David Cameron will be a disaster.
Senor Frizby
August 21st, 2009 7:01pm Report this commentIt is refreshing to hear someone speak sense on this issue. The daft comments by Harman regarding the same subject set alarm bells ringing. Last thing we need is the "I am a woman so I know best" mentality anywhere near the seat of power.
If you're good we need you, if you're not we don't - that applies to all genders and types etc.. Such sensible attitudes sound progressive in these days of utter madness.
Marcus Cotswell
August 21st, 2009 7:12pm Report this commentI'm not passing judgement either way, but surely the contention of those who support 'positive discrimination' is precisely that leaving things as they are does not ensure the most 'meritable' candidates come through the process. They may be wrong, they may be right, but they're not seeking to pick candidates regardless of merit; they simply believe that the current system isn't an efficient 'merit filter' - or at least that it could be improved.
Looking at the present crop of Tory MPs makes me think they may have a point ... until I look at the present crop of Labour MPs ..
David Ossitt
August 21st, 2009 7:42pm Report this commentMerit first, merit second and merit third.
In other words only those who are worthy of being a candidate should be selected.
No men lists, no womem lists, no gay, black, white or brown lists, no ethnic, no able, no disabled, simply men and women who have the qualities and a wide experience of this world and who are worthy and will be honoured to do the job.
Verity
August 21st, 2009 7:52pm Report this commentmouse 1 - "Good character" is included in "merit", surely?
Drake's Drum, my own thoughts precisely.
Suki
August 21st, 2009 8:11pm Report this commentShe's pure, quiet, unshowy class.
She's a huge loss when you look at the muck in much of the rest of the party.
She's the sort of safe pair of hands a PM would die for.
Occasional Ostrich
August 21st, 2009 8:15pm Report this commentExcuse me? I'm wondering what experience Ann Widdecombe gained in the 'real world' before she entered politics. Not being rhetorical, or anything, I'd just like to know.
Edward
August 21st, 2009 8:24pm Report this commentNow she can go and give that poor cat a break from mowing her lawn.
Glyn H
August 21st, 2009 9:28pm Report this commentNobody should enter Parliament before having made a success of their career, and made themselves financially secure first.
Having done that they would not be at mercy of the whips, and would have a degree of judgement based on experience.
The very though that Polytechnic Lecturers, or those who have gone from University to a think tank, and then to be a PPC, should become an MP, let alone a Minister, let alone a Secretary of State in the cabinet is horrifying.
And that this is the case; why do we wonder at the mess that we are in. A more self-aware person than Gordon Brown would have known he was unsuitable for public office, let alone to appoint others of his ilk!
An aside: Did not Brown write his doctorate about a Marxist (I think his name was Maxton), was not Mandelson a Young Communist, was not Milburn and that pillock Ainsworth Trotskyites? And yet we have these ludicrous people as MPs and sometime Ministers? And they are advocating democracy in Afghanistan using our absurdly underfinanced armed forces to achieve this? Pleease…who voted this toeraggy trolls into Westminster?
Trevor's Bum
August 21st, 2009 10:45pm Report this commentWiddecombe : "I've just had enough".
So 'ave we, darlin'.
But we haven't got your pension.
john
August 22nd, 2009 12:21am Report this commentConservatives will lose the GE.....SIMPLY FOR encouraging more ethnic minorities, the public will simply reject this barbaric idea. dont employ people by there colour but by there ability.
john
August 22nd, 2009 12:22am Report this commentCameron has lost it , what is wrong with him??, he was doing so well up until now.
Bruce Robertson
August 22nd, 2009 1:10am Report this commentHas anyone seen Iain Dale and Anne Widdecombe together? Just asking.
JohnAnt
August 22nd, 2009 2:48am Report this commentHer final statement is not OTT: it is absolutely accurate. The incoming Tories will be so obviously flawed by lack of grip that they will make the next administration a very short one. Then we shall need a change of leadership again.
Thank God for that.
John Page
August 22nd, 2009 7:53am Report this commentLet's have open parimaries, then, and start to move away from party hacks and hackettes.
Quotas are undemocratic old hat. It's voters who should decide.
logdon
August 22nd, 2009 9:47am Report this comment'R King
August 21st, 2009 6:45pm
Another old school has-been trying to rock the boat?'
No R King, that would be Hazel Blears.
drakes drum
August 22nd, 2009 10:00am Report this commentJust what is Bruce Robertson getting at with his comment? I find it rather stupid!
But JohnAnt agrees with me. I cannot see Cameron lasting more than three years. That will see the tories lose again and the party split into two parties. Those that are patriots and want to be a nation state again and those wedded to the EU Communistic State.
But, by then, I suppose we shall have EU troops and EU police on Englands green and pleasant land.
That is the future those that are backing Cameron are bringing for our children.
Ian C
August 22nd, 2009 10:08am Report this commentThis is an excellent shot across Cameron's bows. He - and we - have been warned.
In the meantime though we are in a position of having to go with Cameron - Verity don't bother replying! - because the alternative is too awful.
Having said this, Widdecombe does say "we are going to end up with a Parliament full of professional politicians, with precious little contact in a sensible way with the outside world". Well, I have news for her - that is precisely what we have got already and with which we are as fed up as she is.
Cameron, despite his obvious drawbacks, is better for the next 4-8 years than anyone else out there.
That is as enthusiatic about any politician as we should let ourselves become. Look what happened when the idiots fell in love with Blair and now Obama.
It will not happen again. I have more faith in our options if Cameron proves to be a disaster.
R King
August 22nd, 2009 10:19am Report this commentlogdon
Not much point in Hazel rocking the nulab boat........ it's already sunk!
C Powell
August 22nd, 2009 10:58am Report this commentCompletely agree that merit should be the basis on which candidates should be chosen but, honestly, do you really think that the bunch we have now have been chosen on merit? Come off it!
And Widdecombe herself is not so wonderful. Didn't she vote against making MPs expenses transparent?
Simon Denis
August 22nd, 2009 12:03pm Report this commentQuite agree about merit. The left's point - "so why doesn't your meritocracy reflect the population as a whole?" - is amazingly stupid, but it must be given a public answer. Alas, for tactical reasons, Cameron will no longer give it. Perhaps once he's in power... I'm not very optimistic about it, but as another contributor says, he's better than the alternative, which is what politics has come down to.
Verity
August 22nd, 2009 2:25pm Report this commentIan C - If you want your country to be subsumed in the giant, ravening maw of the ever-expanding, ever creeping forward EU, vote for David Cameron.
Simon Davis, no, Cameron is not better than the alternative, because the alternative, if elected, will only be able to stagger on for around 18 months, most of it on its knees. Then we will surge to victory with a new, competent, committed Tory at the helm.
logdon
August 22nd, 2009 2:48pm Report this commentR King
August 22nd, 2009 10:19am
I agree but was referring to the badge.
So full of it when resigning (and wearing the aforementioned), how they dissolve into the substance of jelly when totally outmanouvered by that dark master of the Labour network.
If he can be intrumental in freeing killers in return for oil deals just think how he chortled when faced with her babbling rhetoric?
Easy-peasy!
Still, if they want to act like lemmings who are we to interfere?
Forlornehope
August 22nd, 2009 7:26pm Report this commentIt isn't counterintuitive; it's just wrong. Something that is counterintuitive appears wrong or even absurd at first sight but actually works. A good example is reverse steering on a motorbike. You turn the handlebars to the left and go to the right (the explanation comes in the second year of a top level mechanical engineering degree course!).
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