My only surprise about Quentin Davies’ defection is that he joined the Tories in the first place. Last year he stopped me in the Commons to tell me he’d just “36 hours ago” become head of the Conservative pro-Euro group and started evangelising. Isn’t it crazy, he asked, that every country has its own foreign aid budget working to its own priorities? Wouldn’t it be better to pool the budgets and have the EU decide one set of priorities? He went with this collectivist nonsense for a while, saying he’d rebel and vote for the EU constitution. There were 4-7 more Tories like him, he said. Well, he’s found his spiritual home.
UPDATE: I’ve just spoken to a distraught Tory MP who dislikes Davies but is furious about the move. Defections should be going the other way, he says. He added that the Tory whips had no idea about Davies.
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