A mystery announcement
I'm racing to Gordon Brown's House of Commons office. Cameras have been summoned there to record interviews in relation to a mystery, but major, political annoucement expected any minute.
I wonder if it's a defection? Certainly Brownites are saying they intend to make the political weather from now on...
More later...
UPDATE 1448: It is a defection. But not one of the biggest. It's Quentin Davies - pro-European Tory MP. He's repeatedly with David Cameron about plans to leave the .
I'm 
Comments
Baaaaa!
Interesting chappy this Quentin Davies. Certainly his wide ranging experience from multiple business interests to work in the diplomatic service many years ago could make him an interesting back room boy - we are talent spotting now, remember?
In his resignation letter to the Boy David he states his unhappiness with the Tory party: "A sense of mission has been replaced by a PR agenda."
Does he therefore predict that under Brown the New Labour PR Agenda is to be replaced by a sense of mission?
Now, how many more sheep are going to follow?
Nobody
(PS: Apologies for the outdated sheep reference. Baa!)
Why is it a party can change a PM who said he was going to stay for a full third term - i.e "You vote for the party not the man (the PM)"
But when an MP changes parties we don't have a bi-election as we "vote for the man, not the party"
Yawn. Quentin who?
And Quentin thinks that NuLabour has a "sense of mission" and not a "PR agenda".
Forgive me, but what has been core to NuLabour for the past 13years if not a PR agenda???
I just think this is another ego issue. Same old, same old. Doesn't matter if you're a political party or some big wow. Sure, David Cameron has issues with turning the Conservative's into the blow dried party but it's over-individualistic members aren't too hot. I do sympathise with Cameron for being held hostage by the blue rinse brigade et al, and Davies for getting fed up with banging his head against the wall. One of those things, I guess.
I remember when Teresa May was giving a speech at the Tory conference and had to change beat because the rank and file didn't like having their noses rubbed in how unpleasant and unpopular they were. Maybe this defection is the beginning of an SDP style breakaway from the Tory equivalent of the failing Labour party of history? Would be funny if this is another round the houses defection to the Liberal Democrats.
Vote Euro Liberal People's Democrats. Bit of a mouthful, that.
Most returned MPs may be immodest enough to think their constituents "voted for ME!" He or she would then assume they are taking their flock with them to a new pasture. The MP wouldn't want to be Shorn of the sheep!
And in that world of woolly thinking the sky is polka dots of red, blue and a sort of orange.
Quentin Davies - welcome!
A bi-election? Civil partnerships are one thing, but bi-elections are going too far!
So turkeys do vote for Christmas. Quentin Davies has 'no plans to step down from public life', i.e. he is not going to give the voters in his constituency the right to be represented by the party they voted for by calling a byelection. However, the stats would show that his chance of representing Grantham and Stamford for much beyond the next couple of years is limited.
While I am very very happy that the Conservatives have lost one of their principled number to Labour, crossing the floor is never ultimately a happy act.
More importantly, defections usually show a party is in decline and happen when governments are about to fall - not when the opposition is supposedly in the ascendant.
In 2005 Quentin Davies was elected as CONSERVATIVE MP for Grantham and Stamford.
Given that the Labour Party were not just beaten but thrashed in Grantham and Stamford in 2005 I believe that Quentin Davies should resign the seat immediately and let the people decide.
He is an absolute disgrace who I have no respect for.
I am absolutely sure that the electorate of Grantham and Stamford feel the same.
Isn't this the same Quentin Davies who described Gordon Brown as "extraordinarily incompetent" and stated "I trust and believe that something nasty will happen to the Chancellor in electoral terms before too long. He will have no one but himself to blame".
Nice.
"He is an absolute disgrace who I have no respect for.
I am absolutely sure that the electorate of Grantham and Stamford feel the same."
Well, maybe. But if he fundamentally disagrees with Cameron - is he supposed to just button it and carry on? That is, carrying on lying to those same people from Grantham about a set of false beliefs?
Also, to MikeA:
"Forgive me, but what has been core to NuLabour for the past 13years if not a PR agenda???"
Hang on. No-one in their right mind can deny thay the transformation of the Labour Party is more than merely ephemeral; more than just mindless PR. Just think back to the policies Labour used to stand on!
It's not surprising why Blair and Co are media driven at times: the media (and the largely right of centre main daily papers) absolutely ruined Kinnock. It would have taken a prize fool not to have been so concerned about the a media image.
In response to Mike Fisher: you vote for an individual candidate and not for either a party or a potential Prime Minister. Edmund Burke in hid "Address to the Electors of Bristol (1774) set out what has been accepted as the definitive statement as to the relationship between the electorate and their MP: "...it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgement, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution... Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. ."
An MP is thus not a delegate instructed by the electorate but a representative bound to use his own judgment in the service of his constituency. There is therefore no legal/constitutional or moral obligation for a "defecting" MP to resign his seat and submit to a bye-election.
Regards
Andrew Cullum