Grant Shapps, Parliamentary Candidate for Welwyn-Hatfield 2024. A longstanding, hard-working, MP.

The Witchfinder will be voting for long serving, hard-working, local MP Grant Shapps and the Conservatives, not Reform UK, Labour, Liberals nor Green.

I’ve met a lot of politicians. I’ve been one. I was a Labour Student, Chair of my Labour Society at University. Later I was a Labour Councillor, and was a politician. I’ve been Labour Party staff and one of those be-suited people walking around behind Tony Blair during a local visit. I’ve been a Conservative and a blogger. I’ve been invited to eat at the House of Commons by Labour MPs and Conservatives.

My experiences on both sides are why I’ll be voting for Grant Shapps and the Conservative Party. I have the good fortune that is relatively easy in Welwyn-Hatfield, which has a had a genuinely good Conservative MP in Grant Shapps. Sadly, our society has lost its way. The so-called expenses scandal, now almost forgotten, revealed that much of Parliament was on the take. From moat cleaning, to pornographic movies, it seemed that almost the entire House of Commons was quite literally taking the mickey. Grant Shapps was one of the few Members of Parliament who was not – he was called an, ‘expenses saint’ (archive) even by left-wing paper the Independent.

Some Labour MPs I have met were spiteful and petty. One instructed me to exclude an annoying, un-telegenic party activist from events on an, ‘unofficial’ basis contrary to their own party rules. They were overruled on one occasion by redoubtable Labour (former) General Secretary Margaret McDonagh, who was organising a national event featuring Tony Blair and was able to manage the behaviour without needing to mess about with secret exclusions. The incident was memorable to me, because it was rare for a senior Labour official to do something non-sociopathic, leaving me with a permanent good impression of McDonagh. Sadly, she was the exception that proves the rule, in my experience.

Shapps shares some of McDonagh’s better traits. As a local MP, he is hard-working but not unkind. He has his flaws, but the worst attacks that have been on him are that (i) he used some pen names, like many authors (e.g., ‘Michael Green’) and (ii) he once, as national Co-Chair failed to act swiftly on conduct allegations – but I agree with Conservative Home’s opinion that the buck for that stopped with Lord Feldman. Others clearly share that view, because Grant was taken back into the cabinet as Defence Secretary.

Character is not the only consideration of course. The key problem facing the Conservatives is the government’s national performance. Here, I understand the doubts and why some people might vote for other parties, until you look at the alternatives. Continue reading →