Ed Vaizey

Naturally, the news media is concentrating on Labour’s woeful fifth place showing in the Henley by-election, because that has the most impact on the national picture.  But the real story for me is the Lib Dems’ failure to show their usual by-election success.  Two years ago, in Bromley and Chiselhurst, they came within an ace of taking the seat from us.  On the same swing, they would have taken Henley.  But they barely increased their share of the vote, and I would argue that, as this was a by-election, that “barely” translates as a disaster for them and their candidate Stephen Kearney.

The Lib Dems showed their usual hypocrisy and penchant for dirty tricks throughout the by-election.  When it was pointed out their candidate came from Plymouth (where he had contested the City elections on 1 May and declared “I am settled in Plymouth and I love it”) the Lib Dems hit back - this must be a positiove campaign!  They then proceeded to smear the Conservative candidate with a number of completely untrue or misleading stories.  Breathtaking!

Their campaign was entirely negative, but it ended up biting them in the ankles.  They accused John of voting through council tax increases, without pointing out that they voted for bigger rises themselves.  They said local schools were doing badly and underfunded, until the schools themselves hit back.  And they constantly referred to their candidate as local when everyone knew he wasn’t, and that really annoyed people.

Finally, the Tories ran an exemplary, positive campaign.  We responded to the Lib Dem smears, but then quickly moved back to the positive. It worked.  John Howell more than deserves his victory and he will be an excellent MP.

From the guy who brought you the Romney vs Clinton prediction for the US Presidential election, comes my prediction for the next general election.  According to gallery news, the opening of Parliament is on 3rd December.  The last time this happened was in 2000, when we had a summer election in 2001.  So the next election will be the summer of 2009.

I just received this from a constituent, which made interesting (if depressing) reading, and rings true:

“I recently had cause to speak with the support office at Companies House as my company is being struck off their register. When I enquired what date the company would cease to exist I was told that they could give no firm dates as they had a back log of ‘thousands’. Over a month has gone by since the last date I was given so they are at least one month behind on their schedule. As I thought about this afterwards it occurred to me that there must be a large number of companies going to the wall under Mr Brown’s prudent stewardship and yet the media have hardly mentioned this. Alternatively the Government is hiding the number of companies failing by slowly releasing the names to the London Gazette.”

Brown is wrong on 42 days, any way you look at it.  Let’s start with the basics.  It is an exceptional act for the state to deprive someone of their liberty.  That is why there has always been a limit on how long the state can hold someone before telling them what they are charged with.  In the US it is just a day.  We are now on 28 days, the country nearest to us, Australia, is 12 days.  In this context 42 days loks well out of step.

The second point - the Government used up all its credibility on the 90 days vote.  Labour MPs were told to tell Tory MPs they would have “blood on their hands” if they voted against.  Disgracefully, Kitty Ussher said this to me on Radio 4.  Well, it has not happened, and now 42 days looks like an arbitrary new figure simply so the Government can show it has extended the limit, come what may.  There is no evidence the extension is needed.

The third point - the safeguards proposed by the Government are barmy.  Why one earth should PArliament approve each case where 42 days is asked for?  Whatever happened to separating the legislature from the judiciary?  What kind of logisitical operation is required to get parliamentary approval?  Would it be all MPs, or just a small committee?  What would Parliament bring to the process that a High Court Judge would not?  Parliamentary approval is simply an unworkable gimmick that makes me oppose the proposals even more.  

I had the privilege of chairing the selection meeting in henley on Friday night.  Almost 300 local party members turned up, and the whole evening was conducted with the right combination of good humour and seriousness.  Three very good local candidates competed - Anne Ducker, the leader of the local district council, John Cotton, a member of her cabinet, and county councillor John Howell.  In the end John Howell came through.  He has lived in the area for twenty years and represents a County seat in the constituency, one of the safest in Oxfordshire thanks to his efforts and hard work on behalf of the community.  John is a great choice, with huge business and local government experience, plus three teenage children to keep his feet on the ground.  He will be a worthy successor to Boris, and a fine MP.  I am looking forward to campaigning for him for the next few weeks.

Speaking of Daniel, no one has yet written about this MP’s extraordinary contribution to the recent success of the Conservatives.  Daniel, as you may know, has three distinct characterisitics.  His surname is almost impossible to spell, he is the tallest MP in Parliament’s history (six foot seven), and he is Polish and proud of it (though born and brought up in Britain).  During Boris’s campaign, Daniel wooed the Polish community with devastating effect.  Then he was despatched to Crewe, where lots of Poles settled after the war.  When I spoke at his annual dinner, I said jokingly our majority would be 7,100, the number of Poles living in Crewe.  It turned out to be 7,800. Spooky. 

I was amazed, visitng Daniel Kawcyzinski’s constituency, to meet a company boss and hear his tale of woe about the Pension Protection Fund.  The PPF was set up by Labour as a kind of state sponsored insurance company to protect company pensions, and most companies must make a contribution.  Any way, this guy was hit out of the blue with a £200 grand bill.  He appealed, and got it down to £12 grand!  Quite a big difference, but why such wildly fluctuating assessments.  Is the PPF the new Child Support Agency (or tax credits, or…)

All the 22 Post Offices ear marked for closure by the Post Office in Oxfordshire have now been closed. You can imagine how the postmasters feel when they see the chief executive Adam Crozier, trousering £3 million.  Especially when they all have very strong views on how much better run the organisation could be.  I agree - the Post Office does not even know how profitable individual offices are.  And now comes this e-mail, to show how appalling and crass the Post Office has been to the offices it is closing, including forcing them not to use the word post office, re-directing their mail and cutting off the phone!!   Incidentally, the postmaster who wrote this had been promised a personal visit to tell him whether he had survived or not.  In the end, all he got was a call from a call centre.