Truss's candidacy must stand

Holly ......

I didn't know!

Alex Massie

I believe the apt phrase is "Normal for Norfolk".

Martin

The natural justice angle is a good one. It avoids you having to say that the party is inherently mysoginist.

Peter From Maidstone

Have you spoken to the chair of the Association and asked his opinion? Are there more facts we should know? Or is this just your opinion? I mean we all have opinions, but is this one based on any research or just reading the papers like we all do?

Bill Rees

She looks a very promising candidate who I would certainly vote for. She seems to want to think about the relevant issues. And it's rather nice to think she is both an intelligent and a hot-blooded lady.

Vulture

In a Parliament of whores, will one more make much difference?

NorthernJohn

Surely it would also be an offence against natural justice to sack her because of an affair irrespective of whether it was public knowledge at the time of her selection?

I loathe adultery, but nobody else would lose their job over infidelity, so why should an MP (or prospective MP)?

If we protest against one rule for politicians and one rule for the rest of us regarding the fiddling of expenses, then we can't advocate it for extra-marital affairs.

Ivan D

Except it wasn't known by the association. It was by Truss, and by CCHQ, but neither of them told the Association. And the rules Cameron has introduced mean anyway that no one in the association would have been able to ask about if even if they had known. But it's good to see that, whatever station in life James occupies, he still doles out the line to take as obediently as ever.

Dennis Churchill

But known by whom?
The only relevant issue is whether the selection committee knew.

David Ossitt

"It is now imperative that Truss’s candidacy stands. It would offend against natural justice for her to be deselected over something that was already known at the time of her selection"

If the selectors did not know; then natural justice, as you call it, would be for the selectors to reconsider.

Possibly in her favor possibly not.

TGF UKIP

If in her interviews she was asked, for example, is there anything in your past that might cause embarrassment and she answered in the negative, then of course her candidacy should be under review for a lack of candour.

It would have been for the comittee to decide whether the affair was material or not and I'm sure they would have decided not - that though is beside the point.

Verity

"she had once has an affair with a Tory MP".

Did she once have an affair with a Tory MP, or a married Tory MP? If he was married, she behaved dishonourably and therefore cannot be an honourable member. The monkeys that already occupy the HoC are bad enough without importing more of them.

If the MP was not married, I can't see that it reflects on her character at all.

It was correct to deselect her.

Snowman

Whether the selection committee knew or not seems irrelevant. The matter is for her, the chap, and their spouses (if they have any) to sort out.

Reg

Liz Truss should tell them to get lost in the strongest possible terms. She will find a better CA elsewhere. I would be sorry for any Conservative candidate trying to pitch for the seat with that bunch of dinosaurs.

Ed

An affair is, by definition, about broken promises. Hardly a good attribute in an aspiring MP.

old fogey

Now i'm not a pro-feminist, but really would this have reached such a pitch if the candidate had been a man, with a slightly messy affair behind him...

Peter From Maidstone

I don't see why the local Association was quick to insist it was not a moral matter. If a prospective candidate can't be trusted in the most intimate of relationships then it does bring in to doubt whether she can be trusted in the relationship between candidate and constituency. Adultery is not a private matter, even if it is personal.

Tiberius

I reckon Cameron has more nightmares about Associations than Brown does about waking up in the morning.

Of course she should stay. But that will depend on whether the Association officials remember to take their senna tablets the night before.

Gawain

If it is being put to a full association meeting I would deduce that a large number of members were not aware and they should be allowed to reconsider on the basis of having all the facts. Past affairs do impact views on the character of a candidate. In my experience Conservatives are mature, sensible people but you take them for mugs at your peril. Liz Truss' best approach would be open and honest with her future constituents.

Ben Elford

Of course it's a moral question. It has a direct bearing on whether the candidate has integrity, and is to be trusted in the future.

It's also a matter for the local constituency association to sort out on its own, without centrally imposed interference.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Ed

"An affair is, by definition, about broken promises. Hardly a good attribute in an aspiring MP."

Au contraire! These are exactly the qualities which we have come to expect.

Alexandrovich

I see most journalists in this neck of the woods have grabbed (or been handed?) the requisite hymn sheet, regarding moral rights and wrongs, from which to sing her defence.
Nothing to do with the bloke who led her astray in the first place I suppose. A man considerably older than her.
Whilst I agree with you, PFM, I think we should bear in mind 'what's sauce for the goose...' If you go to the MP's website there's a link entitled 'get involved'. Laugh? I didn't think I'd start.
Actually, I couldn't give a toss about all this - not when there's the rank-closing over the Neather issue to seethe about.

EC

I suspect that the members of her local Conservative will be asking themselves what has become known as "The Paul Merton Question."

Judy

Both Liz Truss and the Tory MP had her affair with were married. His marriage has since broken up, once his wife found out about the affair. This was all published in the Daily Mail a year ago.

The local association should have googled all its candidates. Her affair was reported, the MP named and the resultant divorce proceedings also reported, in the Daily Mail back in May 2006. She didn't get selected for the safe seat (Bromley and Chislehurst that she was then tipped to take. The Tory MP seems to have vanished from Cameron's high profile team.

The voters will not be thrilled at a candidate with a track record like that, even if the local association does try to keep her on.

Why are you huffing and puffing about "natural justice"? What sort of natural justice did the wife of the MP and her husband get? And why should a local association have to retain a candidate it believes will damage the constituency vote?

In2minds

I recognise this woman, I saw her scrumping when she was a child I bet she didn't tell the panel that either, it's a disgrace.

John Richardson

So what ?
So she is a liar, to the man she promised to love & honor.
She was driven by lust.
She was so stupid as to be caught, though she would have preferred to lie successfully.
So what ?
How can we expect to renew Parliament with the stink of morality in the air ?
What's being a delibarate long term liar got to do with debate and Governance ?
I'm shocked just as you are Jamie.
How can you idiots make a point of this when homophobia is on the rise & the icecaps are melting ?

All power to lying adulterers !

Carl Gardner

This is a disgusting business. The officers of this association are acting as the willing instruments of Paul Dacre, the man who thinks "adultery is a proper cause for public condemnation" and who ran the old story about Liz Truss's private life as part of his one-man moralising crusade.

This woman's private life should have stayed private, and the affair is no one's business except hers and the others involved. The mere suggestion she should be punished in her public life for a perceived moral lapse shows the Tory party still contains a prurient element that loves to police other's lives, glories in judgmentalism and is eager to cast the first stone.

If they propose to go any further with this, then the officers of this association should first be required to fully disclose in public any matters in their own private and business pasts that might, if known, embarrass the Conservative party.

Verity

Fisk Alert:

The mere suggestion she should be punished in her public life for a perceived moral lapse shows the Tory party still contains a prurient element that loves to police other's lives, glories in judgmentalism and is eager to cast the first stone.

Interesting concept, Socialist Whatsits, that you think honour has no place in public life, or a contract. That you believe that putting one's own immediate gratification counts for more than a solemn contract made with another.

This lady made a vow to the man she married. If she couldn't keep her vow to one man, how is she going to keep her vow to the entire electorate and HM if something better comes along?

I don't care about anyone's private life, but she broke a solemn promise and now expects the electorate to take her word that she herself devalued.

People who betray once will always betray again, when the next attractive opportunity strikes.

Verity

"If they propose to go any further with this, then the officers of this association should first be required to fully disclose in public any matters in their own private and business pasts that might, if known, embarrass the Conservative party."

Why, you little rat-faced socialist?

i> not standing for public office as representatives of the voters.

Coney Weston

If we went around not allowing people to get a job because they had been guilty of having an affair then a great many people would be jobless - Sex has been around for a very long time - let others get on with their lives and let's stop being so judgmental.

Cuffleyburgers

Get a grip verity for god's sake you are pathetic.

Nice looking lass, has an affair - happens all the time.

I bet Gordon Brown has never had an affair, instead he's f*cked the whole country.

Liz Brown

The affair was in the past - it is irrelevant now. How many amongst us can say that we have lived lives that are purer than pure and that we have nothing to be ashamed of? More important, will she be a good MP and she seems to have passed the selection process.

Peter From Maidstone

I don't think I would be happy voting for someone who had recently deceived the person closest to her over an extended period and broken a solemn vow she had made. I am well aware that people fall, but we are talking about being an MP, not selling burgers at McDonalds. We already know that many MPs are not trustworthy. I would have thought that being able to trust an MP was rather important.

It hardly matters that many people have affairs. They are equally a matter of a breach of trust.

I am fortunate that Anne Widdecombe is not likely to fall in such a way.

I would not think that someone recently convicted of serious fraud should be an MP either, whether or not there are many such fraudsters.

As Verity has said, it is irrelevant whether or not Association members are guilty of such failings. They are not seeking to represent the constituency on a basis of trust.

I have many failings, and am well aware of them, which is why I would not stand for public office. That we should expect more of those given such responsibility and authority is a well established rule.

Housekeeper

Peter; many failings, yes, indeed. Proloxity is one that stares us in the face all too often.

Frank P

Has it not crossed your minds that the local party is not at all keen on having the dictates of Central Office imposed upon it against their wishes? Have we not been bitterly complaining about the current mob doing just that for the past twelve yonks? East Anglians have for many centuries kicked against the pricks. As a Dumpling myself, I don't care who she fucked, but Fuck Central Office - and their quotas!

Alex Smart

Your argument for Truss is mysogynistic and not good enough. You and the other commentators miss the point. What does sexual history have to do with a political candidacy? Did the members of this constituency provide such details before being appointed?

A J Scott

Perhaps Mr Dacre will bare all his own secrets, so that we may judge his fitness as a commentator on public affairs?

Verity

Chuck Unsworth – V good!

Coney Weston, I’m afraid your posturing as a sophisticate has failed. Truss
was looking to elevate herself into the rather prominent position of an “honourable member”. Her behaviour, betraying solemn promises she made, is not honourable behaviour. It just isn’t. And an affair between two married people involves a lot of lying, a lot of scheming and a lot of sneaking around. Granted that a high proportion of the current crop of Honourable Members are far from honourable, we don’t want to degrade Parliament to the point where this is the acceptable norm. She betrayed her vows and she betrayed her husband. In other words, it’s in her to betray. (Were she not essaying a place in Parliament, I, too, would say it’s no one else’s business. But she is, so it is.)

Cuffleyburgers, it is in her to betray.

Liz Brown: “How many amongst us can say that we have lived lives that are purer than pure and that we have nothing to be ashamed of?” How many of us are essaying to become an “honourable” member?

As so often, what Frank P said, in equally robust language.

Suffolker

Apart from being a deceitful trollop, who has been thrust upon the unwilling local party, I cannot see how some woman who is a councillor in Greenwich can possibly bring anything to South West Norfolk. There are plenty of people (who may be Normal for Norfolk in that they know right from wrong, don't indulge in low behaviour and immorality) who would be suitable for the job. Or perhaps she just wants a well-paid job in Norfolk with lots of town and country living paid for by the taxpayer.

Andy

In response to Carl Gardner 11:21pm: I happen to think adultery IS a "proper cause for public condemnation". It destroys families and shows lack of self control. It also involves cheating. If we want a moral HoC, we need moral MPs - Lord knows, the lot we've got at the moment wouldn't know morality if it leapt up and bit them on the nose.

Perhaps we need more than a "one-man moralising crusade". Perhaps we need society to stand up and say commitment is good, morals matter and selfish behaviour is unacceptable.

Faithful in little, faithful in much, after all.

Peter From Maidstone

Housekeeper, or is it General Zod? You don't have to read anything I write.

Novalis

All this anguishing about the morals of an affair is totally missing the point. As a prospective Conservative Party candidate Ms Truss would have had to complete a section in the application papers which asks whether there is anything in the candidates past which could cause embarrassment to the Party. It would appear to me she has been deceitful and dishonest in not declaring this affair. At a time when the public are crying out for honourable and truthful politicians she has failed a basic test at the first hurdle and should be deselected.