No more tiers for Labour?

With Norwich at the centre of yet another political storm with the Climategate saga, it’s been a bit frustrating for Bunnco as Your Man on the Spot in Norfolk with the UEA in lock-down mode. Despite a bit of digging, there’s no juicy intel to report on the Climate story that hasn’t already been covered in WattsUpWithThat. But like the proverbial bus you can wait forever and suddenly two stories come along at once so in this article I’m going to write about something that we’d all thought had gone away – Local Government Reorganisation [LGR] in Norfolk, Suffolk & Devon and whether it tells us that Labour really has given up on winning in 2010.

Just when it looked like Labour had nothing to lose and was destined for cataclysmic defeat, the media narrative has changed and they might have something to play for after all. So you’d have thought that Labour strategists would be straining every sinew to protect as many English seats as possible from the Tory onslaught if they’re to be in with a chance.

But what’s this? Plans for local government reorganisation [LGR] in Devon, Suffolk & Norfolk have been reignited by Communities Secretary John Denham following a Court of Appeal ruling this week, which undid an earlier block to the process from the High Court dating back to July.

Normally this sort of thing would only be of interest to local political anoraks and readers of the Municipal Journal but over on the main site, Mike included the following paragraph in his post this evening,

“Among the other cabinet members who might be at risk I’ve noticed that Ben Bradshaw’s Exeter seat is more marginal with Thrasher and Rallings than with Anthony Wells. “

That’s right, Exeter is in Devon. So you’d have thought that it would be careless to say the least for Denham to knowingly jeopardise the risk of re-election for fellow top-table colleague, Ben Brashaw by pressing-on with yet another expensive and unnecessary public sector reorganisation in Devon if he could avoid it.

And that’s no mere assertion. There’s evidence for this. Cast your mind back to July and the Norwich North By Election, where Chloe Smith took the seat when Labour’s Ian Gibson stepped down over the expenses crisis.

But new baby-of-the-house Chloe Smith didn’t just win the seat from Labour by a whisker. The margin was 39.44% to Labour’s 18.12%. What local factors caused such a wide margin and a disproportionate swing from a previous Labour stronghold?

As Bunnco reported at the time, whilst the expenses backdrop and anti-politician narrative was strong, the leaflet that really drove the Tory vote in the final week was one that highlighted the council reorganisation issue. With a failing Labour Norwich City Council on the rack over a series of housing scandals, voters were galvanised to Vote Tory to save Broadland Council in the leafy suburbs, where MORI polling had shown a remarkable 94% satisfaction rating and district-council tax about half that paid in the Norwich City area. The Tories made it clear they’d cancel any Council reorganisation and reaped the votes accordingly, squeezing the LibDems in the process.

So, as a local voting factor, getting rid of local Councils in favour of so called Unitary versions is not exactly what you’d call a vote winner. In Norfolk, MORI polling confirmed a previous YouGov survey – LGR was rejected by voters by a margin of two-to-one. In Cornwall, the Tories romped home by a landslide in the June Elections. The former Labour strongholds in Northumberland are now led by a LibDem and the Tories have a stranglehold on other recently created Unitaries in Cheshire and Bedfordshire. In Devon itself, the Tories romped home last June as well. Unitary is electorally toxic for Labour.

In his post this evening, Mike’s identified Ben Bradshaw’s Devon seat as increasingly vulnerable and over in Norfolk, Norwich South is held by Charles Clarke, Great Yarmouth by Tony Wright, Lowestoft by Bob Blizzard and Ipswich by Chris Mowle. That’s five English Labour Seats that Labour really needs to hold if it’s to be in the running come Election Day.

Given the proximity of the election and the crowded Parliamentary timetable, Denham would have been forgiven for kicking the botched process into the long grass. After all, the hapless Boundary Committee had mishandled the sifting of the various options so badly that it had got nowhere after nearly three years of trying. He could have blamed it on the incompetent Boundary Committee, which he is abolishing in March anyway.

So why pick an unnecessary fight on five colleagues now with three months to go? It just doesn’t make political sense.

The LGR process was the brainchild of Hazel Blears during her time as Chairman of the Labour Party and later as Communities Secretary herself. Forget talk of council reorganisation leading to increased efficiencies and better accountability in local government, the motivation of the diminutive chipmunk-like Blears was quite simply to reduce the number of Tory councillors in the shires. Let’s do the maths. On my home-patch there are 420 Councillors in Norfolk of which about 300 are Tory. If the district and county councils were replaced with a single monster council with about 80 councillors, then the Tories might be deprived of 250 activists and organisers for the General Election.

So you can see the crude political logic for Labour but the figures on which the proposals are based are now three years old and the local government financial landscape has changed dramatically since the heady days in early 2007 when it seemed such a wizard wheeze. The savings from recent unitary conversions in Northumberland, Cheshire and Cornwall have failed to materialise and creating a new class of professional ‘Unitary’ Politician on bumper salaries isn’t exactly in tune with the public mood either.

Caroline Spelman and Bob Neill [Shadow Local Government minister] reassured their own activists this week that an incoming Tory Government would reverse the move if Labour managed to get the secondary legislation required through Parliament when the near-two-month delay for consultation that starts on Tuesday has elapsed.

There are very few Parliamentary sitting days between now and Easter and with plans to reform the House of Lords as well as a number of other scorched-earth policies to enact, it’s a surprise that business-managers have let the LGR issue to slip through the net to compete with more mainstream issues, especially with rumours of a March 25th election reaching fever pitch.

So the lesson from this little story is that either Labour is masochistic and willing to damage the re-election chances of 5 MPs south of the border, including 3 big-hitters, or they really have written-off the election and are pursuing a scorched-earth policy in three counties where, otherwise they have nothing to lose. Perhaps, for all the bluster, they are resigned to defeat after all.

Bunnco - Your Man On The Spot

Cinders Shall Go To The Ball

It’s pantomine time in Norfolk and next week sees Cinderella take to the stage at Swanton Morley Village Hall, not far from Swaffham. The publicity blurb promises ‘a few twists’ but I wonder if they’ll have learned a few things from another production that’s just ended a three-week run just down the road.

The South West Norfolk Selection Saga has had the lot in a laugh-a-minute production that’s gripped the nation in the last few weeks.

Elizabeth Truss has taken the leading role as Cinders. But no traditional Panto would be complete without the baddie, Norfolk’s very own Baron Hardup – Sir Jeremy Bagge.

The Ugly Sisters were played by local Party Agent Ian Sherwood and Deputy Chairman, former CCHQ Insider, Hugh Culver who hilariously tripped-up at every opportunity.

Additional comedy material was provided by Tweedle-dum & Tweedle-dee Shaun Lowthorpe and Chris Fisher from the Eastern Daily Press [EDP], who kept prodding and aggravating the chorus line dressed in earthy ‘taliban’ garb when the laughter started to peter-out.

After a intermission caused by the Glasgow North East by-election, all things have to come to a happy ending and in traditional style, Cinder’s own fairy Godmother, Baroness Gillian Shephard, former S W Norfolk MP who lives just a few hundred yards away, appeared in a puff of smoke to wave her magic wand to mark the end of the proceedings. Hurrah, Cinders shall go to the Ball after all! No wonder the theatre producer Cameron [aka Mackintosh?] is happy. He’ll be packing ‘em in for weeks after this show. It’s a winner.

As regular readers will know, there’s been a lot going on in Norfolk Politics this year and as Bunnco – Your Man On The Spot, I hope I’ve been able to put an amusing slant on the serious business of politics. So what lessons have I learned from this?

The Pantomime performed in Swaffham was really just a side-show to a battle between the reformers and traditionalists in the party. And in the battle of wills, it’s Cameron who has been the winner. To have knocked-off the Europe Issue and taken-on the reactionaries and come-out ahead in two short weeks is probably why The Guardian today has begrudgingly recognised that Cameron has what it takes.

As I reported twice during the performance, this issue was never really about Miss Truss or her previous behaviour, the real story was about a monumental foul-up in communications between CCHQ and the local party which became a proxy war between modernisers and traditionalists inflamed by metropolitan types who couldn’t resist lampooning Norfolk with rural stereotypes.

It’s easy to forget that the backdrop for the whole affair was some unguarded comments by Cameron at The Speaker’s Conference last month, when he appeared to give a commitment to All Women Shortlists [AWS], an incendiary issue amongst activists.

The comments were prompted by the realisation that most of the recent candidate adoptions had been predominantly male and there was a desire to achieve a better gender balance amongst PPCs. As the media pack latched onto the issue, CCHQ was trying to get off the hook as the news arrived that Truss had been selected from a mixed shortlist.

If South West Norfolk had choosen a woman of its own free will with over 50% on the first ballot, perhaps the panic over AWS was unnecessary after all. And if she was telegenic and well-connected with the party, well that was a bonus. As I reported at the time – you could hear the champagne corks popping on Millbank.

But in Act Two the scene change was botched as it became clear that someone had been less than frank with the local association. The local association had been somewhat naive in taking official assurances at face value. Following the Mail on Sunday ‘Cameron Cutie’ story, simmering indignation was exacerbated by the excessive secrecy in the candidate short listing, the lack of due-diligence following that and, reportedly a less-than-even-handed set of questions to the candidates at the selection meeting, whilst the regular Chairman, the combative David Hills, was sunning himself on a cruise ship off Hong Kong. The ‘Ugly Sisters’ must surely take the blame here for mishandling the issue on the ground.

At this point, the Association became ham-strung by its own rules, which required two week’s notice of a general meeting of members. The option of re-running the selection as an open primary was vetoed by the Regions Top Tory and in the fortnight’s vacuum, the local party’s hands were tied whilst the blogosphere lined-up to lampoon the locals.

Having been aware of the story in advance but deciding not to run it, the EDP then began to play catch-up in its own back-yard as it made it up for lost-time with a series of alternately positive and negative stories from tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum on the news desk. If the EDP couldn’t organise its editorial line, no wonder the national press were given a free-hand and when old Etonian Sir Jeremy Bagge Bt. popped-up as Baron Hardup complete with turban, the story became irresistible.

On November 7th. I posted a PB2 Article including the following passage.

But as Bunnco – your man on the spot, my view is that this is increasingly seen as a problem, not in Norfolk, but caused by some ham-fisted interference in London. Someone down in the smoke was less than frank with the local association. Today’s revelations [EDP’s reports of Truss’ behaviour in Calder Valley in 2005] suggest that there was central subterfuge and that the local association, and in fairness, Truss have been caught in the resultant cross fire.

Subsequent events have proved that analysis to be spot-on. A cosy arrangement between the metropolitan bloggers and the central press operation had initially deflected public opinion against the Norfolk locals, accusing them of excessive sexual prurience coupled with misogynistic prejudice. Playing to the rural stereotype image makes for good copy but disguised the fact that the root cause of the whole farrago lay in London’s insensitivity to local associations and excessive secrecy over selection procedures.

Perhaps this central truth would have remained obscured had ‘Open Letters’ from Tim Montgomerie on ConHome not inflamed local resistance. I’m reminded of the letter that the Guardian sent to voters in Iowa during the 2004 Presidential Election imploring them to vote for Gore. It backfired spectacularly and might have done in South West Norfolk too had Cameron not had the enormous luck to find himself pitched against fellow Old-Etonian Sir Jeremy Bagge, who played the Village Idiot role to perfection. Who says that Old Etonians have all the sway in party?

Once more, the media narrative moved on. And all the time, Liz Truss was mute as the storm swirled around her, a pawn in a proxy war for the soul of the party. It wasn’t her fault that all the experts fouled-it-up.

You know the rest but what lessons can we learn?

1. Cameron has shown that he was right to stick to his guns. It’s all very well wanting to lead the Country but in order to do that you need to lead your party. And it’s the latter that’s actually a lot more difficult than the former. The South West Norfolk saga has given Cameron the authority he needs to run the Party but by the same token, Cameron has realised that it cannot take the Party from which his mandate flows entirely for granted. There’s been a re-balancing of authority and both sides will want to take the moral high ground but in reality Cameron's the one who's come out on top with a candidate with unrivalled name recognition.

2. Central Office will have learned from this that they need to be less dogmatic about candidate selection. No doubt they’ll still wish to promote some ‘A’-listers but there needs to be smatterings of local candidates mixed-in, if only to show them up in the final selection. He doesn't now need the All Woman Shortlists. The lessons learned centrally will now be used to defuse a smoking timebomb in Central Suffolk and in other constituencies.

3. For the Tories, we’ll see a new ‘dividing line’ against Labour with more Open Primaries to defuse the secrecy problems and to flush-out the Sir Bufton Tuftons. In the coming months, it will be Labour on the back-foot as they impose fixed lists on their own local parties.

4. But most of all, Liz Truss has come through this. A lesser woman would have buckled and gone elsewhere. But she’s stuck her ground. She’s one helluva tough cookie. To have stuck this for two weeks when the entire media has laid-out the details of previous peccadilloes and to maintain the support of her family, shows mental toughness, sheer grit and determination.

Perhaps EDP Political Correspondent was right when he melted last week “If she can survive the next week and a bit, then it strikes me she can get through anything, and my sense is that people will warm to her for doing so. I've seen enough to believe she deserves the chance to be an MP. But what I really wonder is: do the Tories in South West Norfolk deserve her?"”.

What Norfolk needs is a tough voice. Whether they knew it when they selected her two weeks ago, they should do so now. Liz Truss. One to Watch. Oh yes she is.

Bunnco - Your Man on The Spot

Traditional Cinderella Pantomime with a few twists. Written and performed by Estrella Productions Amateur dramatics group. Friday 27th and Saturday 28th November 2009. Doors open 7pm, Curtain up 7.30pm. Swanton Morley Village Hall, Swanton Morley, Nr Dereham Adults £4, Children under 16 £2

South West Norfolk - We're Going Into Extra Time

Bunnco - Your Man on the Spot has just returned from a skiing lesson on the Norwich Dry Ski Slope. What should have been an easy glide down the slopes was been punctuated by twists and turns and the odd crash. Rather like the South West Norfolk selection saga... and as bunnco reports, it's not just from the local Tories that we're getting mixed messages.


EDP Political Correspondent Shaun Lowthorpe's been having fun at the Norfolk Tories expense all week. He's been highlighting the issue of Twin-Hatters expenses whereby some local councillors, who sit on both the district and county councils and assorted quangos, have been revealed to be earning as much as £40,000 per year. The issue became inflamed when the Tory County Council refused to allow its scrutiny committee to examine the issue in public refusing to debate a paper raised by a local resident. Lowthorpe took up the case on his behalf.

Then he revealed that two councils South Norfolk and Breckland councils were in secret talks to join-up services characterising the move as 'behind closed doors merger talks'. He's been on quite a roll. And that’s without the continuing side-show in South West Norfolk.

Whilst Lowthorpe’s been focusing on the Council stories, the EDP's London Lobby Correspondent, Chris Fisher has been chronicling the Truss affair almost drooling over Norfolk’s new notoriety. The EDP is the country’s largest selling regional paper and sales are through the roof as the public laps-up each fresh revelation.

Yesterday's EDP features a front-page article from Lowthorpe following an exclusive interview with Truss under the headline "I'm Sorry".

In gushing prose, Truss opens her heart to Lowthorpe explaining that she'd been open with the party about her previous peccadilloes and declaring that "I'm a fighter with staying power and character." Without laying a glove on her, Lowthorpe concludes his article with the words "If she can survive the next week and a bit, then it strikes me she can get through anything, and my sense is that people will warm to her for doing so. I've seen enough to believe she deserves the chance to be an MP. But what I really wonder is: do the Tories in South West Norfolk deserve her?"

Shortly after reading the article, one of the seat's candidates called me and, in a brief exchange, I explained that I thought it was all over. If Truss could get past Lowthorpe's gimlet eye when all other Tories in the county had felt the sharp nib of his pen that week, then she was really unstoppable. Truss 1. Turnip Taliban 0. Game Over.

Truss, Lowthorpe reported, had moved upto Swaffham with her family and was now assiduously courting local members in advance of the re/deselection meeting a week on Monday. It was just a matter of time before the issue went away and the media circus decamped to somewhere else. Glasgow North East, perhaps.

But I'm not sure her walk around Swaffham market place this morning has been quite as she might have hoped because the today the EDP front-page baton passes to London-based Chris Fisher with a headline that reignites the issue once more.

In 144-point type, "Deceit of Would-be MP" screams from the front page as toe-curling revelations about her failed 2005 election campaign in Yorkshire's Calder Valley are regurgitated for the masses.


Inside, Fisher reveals that she kept quiet about her 2005 affair with Mark Field whilst winning the Tory selection that Yorkshire constituency. Given that the incumbent candidate Sue Catling had been de-selected because of allegations of an affair with an Association Member, local activists were initially confused and then furious when their new candidate then proceeded to bring Mark Field MP along with her to canvass each weekend and it was revealed that, having deselected one adulteress, they'd fallen for another! With the 2005 election fast-approaching, locals were reported to have gritted their teeth and were doubtless relieved when Christine McAfferty retook the seat for Labour, although Truss cut the majority to just 1367. As Paul Rogan from Calder Valley tells the EDP today "After all our trouble with Sue Catling we wanted someone without reproach in their political and private life." Quite.

Tellingly, EDP enquiries of CCHQ revealed no denials of the revelations and the paper wonders quite how Cameron and the Party machine can continue backing her. One local councillor is reported to have said she “has the cheek of old Nick”. Local refuseniks are now emboldened regardless of the carpeting given by Eric Pickles to the local Association on Wednesday.

It's been suggested that the South West Norfolk's treatment of Truss is somehow upsetting women. That might be the case nationally but on the ground here in Norfolk, those of the fairer sex close to the situation are now truly hardening their hearts against her, whereas the males seem to melt as she fixes them with her gaze. And if the hardened Lowthorpe melts, she really must have something about her.

It's really too close to call. But with Lowthorpe and Fisher taking seemingly opposing views on the front pages of the EDP, first backing her, then plunging the knife, no wonder that there is no consensus in the constituency despite the derision expressed by [male] bloggers against the locals on the interweb.

Tim Montgomerie's intervention on her behalf has been like the Guardian emailing Iowans to back Al Gore in the 2004 US Elections. Whoops.

But as Bunnco – your man on the spot, my view is that this is increasingly seen as a problem, not in Norfolk, but caused by some ham-fisted interference in London. Someone down in the smoke was less than frank with the local association. Today’s revelations suggest that there was central subterfuge and that the local association, and in fairness, Truss have been caught in the resultant cross fire.

Last week bunnco referred to the regional Party Bigwig who vetoed the Open Primary compromise, which could have snuffed-out the flames before they took hold. Last week that bigwig Sir Graham Bright stepped down at the end of his term as the Region's Top Tory to be replaced by a Norfolk woman, Tiz Baskerville. To Kremlinologists, these things matter.

With the national perspective on this issue lazily framed in terms of male vs female candidate selection, that's not how it's seen here in Norfolk. Whilst it's easy to lampoon the locals, the continuing SW Norfolk saga is a proxy war for those want to limit central control in the party.

And Truss is a pawn in that proxy war. It’s a bit unfair on her that CCHQ was somewhat economical with the truth and the local association simply took official assurances at face-value rather than perform its own due-diligence. But today’s revelations illustrate a pattern that can't be ignored. It’s a game-changer. Truss 1. Turnip Taliban 1.

Like today’s televised FA Cup first round clash between Norwich City and lower-league minnows Paulton Rovers, will there be an upset with the underdog beating the favourite? Who knows, but in South West Norfolk we’re all going into extra time.

Bunnco - Your Man on the Spot

All Trussed Up and Nowhere to Go.

Bunnco - Your Man On The Spot has been asking around on his home patch. Here's his take on the South West Norfolk selection saga.



Last week the news cycle was gripped by the fallout over Nick Griffin's appearance on Newsnight. An entire program was devoted to those that peddle racist views and there was much hand-wringing over whether the BBC over-did the attack on the BNP so as to make them appear the victim. Clearly there could only be one version of free speech and the commentariat and bloggers all lined up to give Griffin a kicking.

But what's this? A week later page after page in the press and online about "Turnip Taliban", "Normal for Norfolk", "I suppose it would have been alright if she'd been sleeping with her cousin", even snidey remarks on Have I Got News for You. All jokes at Norfolk's expense. It's just not good enough for it is a form of racism. But enough of my hobby horse, Let's see what actually happened in South West Norfolk shall we?

About five years ago SW Norfolk Conservatives botched the selection of the man who would eventually become their current MP, Christopher Fraser. The membership selected someone, I think it was Nick Hurd, to replace the much respected [Baroness] Gillian Shepard upon her retirement. But there was some sort of kerfuffle at the selection and it had to be re-run. By local accounts, the front-runner Nick Hurd fluffed his lines at the final stage when he vacillated about his commitment to buying a second house in Norfolk [ironic really] and Fraser, who said he kept pigs [as pets it transpired!], came up the middle to win the seat.

Fraser was formerly an MP in Dorset and in Norfolk he seemed to revert to previous type not being an assiduous attender of local functions or known for his courting of the local press. Some unfairly characterised him as the 'invisible man' of Norfolk politics but when it transpired that he claimed for a house in the constituency, whilst maintaining his primary residence in Dorset, local worthies breathed a sigh of relief when he honourably announced his retirement to look after his wife, who was afflicted by serious health problems.

Over 150 people applied to stand in the seat addressing their applications to Ian Sherwood, the SW Norfolk Agent, who also oversees neighbouring Constituencies from the base in Swaffham, star of the Kingdom period TV drama. Awkwardly, Sherwood himself had appeared to express an early interest in the seat. As had local council Breckland Council leader William Nunn and other prominent local councillors, for example Nick Daubney, leader of West Norfolk Council and Steven Betts, Chair of the Police Authority.

But both Sherwood and Nunn renounced their intentions and in due course the long list of applicants was whittled-down to a list of seven at a meeting between a handful of Association Officials and Party managers in London. It's at this meeting that the Eastern Daily Press [EDP] suggested that the national officials were less than frank with the local association about 'previous' embarrassments. But it does seem odd that the handful of officials and especially the Agent who went to London didn't look-up the candidates on the Interweb thingy.

The Seven Candidates became six as the Executive Committee met in early October to select the half-dozen people to face the Full Membership. One more dropped out when he was selected for ?Macclesfield so that left five to face the locals. Amazingly, given the less-than-happy experience with the outsider Fraser, only one candidate, Norfolk-born Barrister James Tumbridge, who had set his heart on the seat, had local credentials. And this is, in part, what has fuelled some of the subsequent problems.

One prominent party member was annoyed that the final clashed with half-term and, in retrospect, the younger members of the association with children, who might have been more technically clued-up with Blackberries were absent.

Why "Blackberries"?

Given the shenanigans five years ago, the Agent insisted on absolute secrecy as to the names of the final five that would face the members. This will be seen to be the crucial mistake. This is why I am convinced that this whole story is the result of a cock-up rather than from some befuddled conspiracy.

The wider membership only knew which of the candidates were on the list when they were in the room on the Saturday morning. So the rank-and-file had no chance to 'google' the shortlist in advance. And those attending the selection meeting were not allowed to leave the room if still they wished to vote so, by the end there were rows of people with crossed legs trying to avoid thinking about waterfalls and flowing rivers whilst former CCHQ insider and deputy chairman Hugh Culver asked the questions.

But the list wasn't entirely secret. On the Tuesday before the selection the EDP, which had tipped Tumbridge from the start, was fully aware that Truss was a candidate and crucially knew about her 'previous' but judged that, as it was 3 years ago, it was hardly news. But as the week went on, the EDP seemed to want to change its mind but wished to check that the leaked list of names was correct. But I understand from the paper that one of the candidates was named as “Tony Renton”, whereas in fact it was Sir Anthony Brenton, former ambassador to Somewhere. The association told the paper that its list was wrong so the story was spiked. And the membership didn't get the chance to do their Google homework first.

As it happened, High-Flying Truss won by a convincing margin in the first ballot at the meeting and the Mail on Sunday scoop about 'Cameron's Cutie' was posted on the paper’s website that evening.

Now all of this would have been an interesting side-show had Cameron not been drawn into some ill advised comments at The Speakers Conference the week before regarding the election of Women to Parliament. This was [wrongly] interpreted to mean the introduction of all women shortlists, ironically, something that former SW Norfolk MP Gillian Shepard subsequently denounced in robust terms.

CCHQ was madly trying to get off the all women shortlist hook as the media hounds started to tuck-into the issue, enormously unpopular amongst grassroots. Don't forget that the majority of recent selections had all been men and as the media storm intensified, news emerged of the Truss selection and you could hear the champagne corks popping on Millbank. If South West Norfolk had selected a women, perhaps the AWS was unnecessary after all. Panic Over.

But the relief was short-lived following the MoS story. And the EDP was playing catch-up to the national media in its own back yard. To locals on the ground, this wasn't so much that they'd been let down by the candidate but embarrassment that the local party had failed in its due diligence. It's not helped that the Constituency Chairman David Hills is on a world cruise at the moment.

It's the fact that "the local association has taken them [grassroots members] for fools" is what the problem is. Whatever the bloggers might say, [and Truss seems to know all of them remarkably well: Tory Bear, Iain Dale, Tim Montgomerie - quite a cabal] this is nothing to do with double-standards on the treatment of women. The decision to have another look was an expression of the frustration by the members in the immediate aftermath of the selection at the association that had failed to do its job. Absentee Chairman Hills is said to be ‘apoplectic with rage’. I can understand why.

So, what were they to do? They were caught on the hop. With the AWS issue now reignited. what they should have done was to re-run the selection [including Truss] as an Open Primary, at a stroke addressing the apparent secrecy argument, embracing the new Cameron arrangements and allowing Truss, who was by a distance the best performer on the day a fresh start and the whole more open process would get the media onside. The outcome of this would have been to allow her to talk over the local members direct to the electorate and to put the issue behind them.

But I understand that the Regional Party bigwigs vetoed this obvious and elegant solution, and one that was eventually proposed by the EDP some days later. The caravan now moves on for the next few weeks whilst the required fornight’s notice for the next meeting passes. Awkward.

So, it's a sorry tale that’s been blown out of proportion, partly because of the attraction of lampooning Norfolk and other rural types by a metropolitan media. But I have a feeling that the outcome of this will be positive in the long run. The root cause of this incident was the unnecessary secrecy over the selection process in the first place, which did not give the public or press the opportunity to make their own enquiries of the candidates in advance. With everyone on the back foot when the MoS story broke, nobody grasped the obvious solution that an Open Primary might lance the boil, whilst down in London they were panicking over the AWS issue.

What will come out of this, I am convinced will be less secrecy. a move to open primaries, learning the lessons of Totnes, Bedford & Bracknell. and, as a result, the Party will get better candidates with good name-recognition and with a mandate-of-sorts on Day One. Which is what Cameron is after.

Meanwhile, I wouldn’t want to be in Ian Sherwood’s shoes when the combative local Chairman Hills gets back from sunning himself in Hong Kong. Oh no.

Bunnco - Your Man On The Spot