Photo: Conservative Home
I mentioned the expenses saga in my last post. It looked pretty awful for Labour at the end of last week when they were the focus of the Daily Telegraph’s reports. Now the wrath of the nation has turned to the Conservatives, and with revelations of MPs spending taxpayers’ money on swimming pools and chandeliers, it looked pretty dire for them too. But you know that the situation has hit a new low when the former chairman of a party tells the electorate not to vote for it.
Norman Tebbit, a chairman in the Thatcher years, and one of the party’s leading Eurosceptics, told the BBC (and the Daily Mail) that the main parties do not deserve their support and they should look elsewhere to find a party to vote for. He said that the electorate could send a shot across their [MPs'] bows” by not voting for the main parties in the European elections.
“What I am advising people is to show the major parties that it is the electors who are masters and the electors are extremely upset with their employees in the House of Commons.”
“Whether they choose to vote for one of the other parties or not is a matter for them. I wouldn’t advise anyone to vote for a party that’s a party other than the Conservative party. I’m not doing that.”
He said explicitly that he did not want us to vote for the BNP. So in what was a slightly coded message, it is pretty obvious who he does want people to vote for. UKIP. The reason for not saying it explicitly? The last Tory who did - donor Stuart Wheeler - was chucked out of the party by David Cameron.
Last month, a Labour minister wrote an article under the headline “I want you to vote Tory”. But he was making a point about mobilising everyone to vote, for whoever, as long as it’s not the racist BNP. The polar opposite, Tebbit is telling voters to ditch the major parties. Thanks to his not-all-that-subtle advice, Tebbit now risks expulsion for telling Conservative supporters to switch their allegiance.
You can listen to the BBC interview here.
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