Always win when you’re singing

  There’s nothing like an insider’s view to get a real insight into the workings of a local party, so I was fascinated by Watford Conservative Craig Lewell ’s view on the Ian Oakley case, posted at ConservativeHome. The spelling mistakes are all his.

I actually took part in the candidate selection process in Watford and was part of the commitee that selected the candidates to go through to the open primary as I was a young Parish Cllr in the seat.

(Sara: A co-opted Parish Councillor, who lost as soon as he was up for election)

The candidates that we got to choose from were generally quite poor, one was abysmall, and I wrote this on the Intouch forums at the time, and we decieded that we couldn’t follow CCO guidlines and send a 50-50 split through of men and women to the open primary without blocking the best candidates. I voted for the best candidates ignoring the 50-50 split rule that was tried to be imposed on us.

(Sara: Good to see Watford got the best the Conservative Party has to offer!)

I have to say that i voted for Dr Evans as my first preference and told Ian this around the time and spoke to Dr Evans afterwards to wish him luck in the search for other seats, unfortunately as a party we had/have become a bit obssessed by youth and Ian was by far and away the runaway favourite as he was the campaign manager for Ali Miraj (whilst I was at Uni). Ian also could canvass voters before the ‘big day’ as he had everyones contact details (which I thought was a bit unfair, but cest la vie its, politics).

Personally I thought Ian lacked the ‘life experience’ to be an MP just going from uni to a seat in wales then political adviser to full time Cllr to being PPC seemed a bit poor for me. There was a short period of non-political work in between but it was overshadowed by the politics.

I left the local party back in late 2007 because we lacked direction locally and I believed that nationally we have some suspect candidates and wrote to this effect on the CF Intouch Forums. Ultimately, theres no point us winning elections if we get there without the ability to do the right thing.

In regards to Ian, I’m happy to shoot myself in the foot, by saying I think he is at heart a good guy. I remember when I first met him, before knowing he was going for Watford, telling him outside a bar in London, after a CF discussion on housing with Michael Gove, that anyone who went for Watford was nuts as the Lib Dems were all over us.

Thats the bottom line for me, ive had ales with him, hes been round my house to discuss intouches, he is not a bad guy. I know that his dream was to be an MP and as a result I believe that when he realised how strong the Liberals were he just let reason fly out the window and in an atmosphere of visceral hatred for the Lib Dems went far too far. I think CCHQ mentoring needs to be better, as I remember Ian saying that Anne Main wasn’t helping him much and I think that we should require candidates to hold down employment of some kind to keep them rooted during their time as a PPC.

(Sara: So who was promoting or generating this ‘atmosphere of visceral hatred for the Lib Dems’ in the Conservatives? And how far wouldn’t have been ‘too far?)

Regarding criticisms against the association, its a group of volunteers, not a company and there was nothing untoward in Ians behaviour whilst I was there. I think the prosecutor summed it up by saying that Ian was motivated by a desire to change the political landscape of Watford. The motive wouldn’t have had association members raising eyebrows and they certainly were not there when the activities were taking place.

I think Ian is at heart one of the good guys but was way out of his depth as a candidate and when he run out of ideas against a backdrop of hardwork for no results and Lib Dem lies, went off the rails.

(Sara: ‘Way out of his depth’? I suppose that’s one way of putting it!) 

At least Craig was prepared to speak out publicly and attributed. Which is more than you can say for the rest of them