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Tuesday 4 February 2014

Guido Fawked – Nobody Cares About Yeo

The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog were cock-a-hoop yesterday at the news that Tory MP Tim Yeo had been deselected by his South Suffolk constituency association. For them, this was a victory, but for most outside the Westminster bubble it meant very little. And here on Zelo Street the only surprise was that Yeo’s career had lasted this long.
Yeo was first returned to Parliament in 1983, and progressed via a spell as Douglas Hurd’s PPS to being appointed Environment and Countryside Minister by “Shagger” Major in 1992. Sadly, one of those little local difficulties was just around the corner, and in the slow news period of Christmas 1993, under the headline “Yeo Ho Ho” (geddit?!?) the Screws revealed Yeo’s extra-curricular, er, screws.

The MP had a six month old “love child” with Julia Stent, a Tory councillor. It was not his only such dalliance: while at Cambridge University, he had fathered a child which was later given up for adoption. Yeo resigned his Ministerial position in January 1994: his was one of many incidents that enabled Major’s opponents to tag the Tories with the term “Sleaze”, as the party’s popularity declined.

Yeo’s predicament was not helped when his comments to the local branch of Relate three years earlier were unearthed: “It is in everyone's interests to reduce broken families and the number of single parents. I have seen from my own constituency the consequences of marital breakdown”. On that occasion, his local association stuck with him. And now he has had a pretty good innings.

By the time of the next General Election, Yeo will be turned 70. He has significant interests outside Parliament to keep him occupied and remunerated. The South Suffolk seat remained in Tory hands even in 1997 and 2001, and should remain so next time round. Any fallout from the deselection is a purely Tory problem. And that is the only party likely to be damaged as a result.

Staines is on record as saying he prefersthe blue team” to be in power: making a song and dance about South Suffolk, especially as Young Dave had invested his own authority in persuading the local party to back Yeo, will harm only them. Moreover, chucking out MPs who back the consensual view on climate change and support same-sex marriage enables the Tories to be painted as extreme.

So an “ideologically sound” Conservative may be selected to fight South Suffolk, and bring views on the EU and climate change that are diametrically opposed to those advanced by Yeo? The Great Guido and his pals may, as in Lyndon Johnson’s thoughts on giving a speech on economics, get a really hot feeling, but nobody else will notice. Except it will make the Tories that bit less electable.

What was that about preferring “the blue team”? Another fine mess, once again.

4 comments:

rob said...

They seem to have a less than tolerat attitude to CORRECTIONS from other bloggers And tweeters at WikiGuido (quite ironic really given their correction rate):

"Retweeted by Peter Jukes
Alex Wickham ‏@WikiGuido 13 mins

I swear to god if there is one more CORRECTION from @peterjukes I'm going to demand that money that I didn't donate to him back."

Notice that they don't seem to be able to afford a small sum to donate to a fellow journalist so that he can keep them uptodate?

Tim Fenton said...

Peter Jukes (who is a sound bloke) certainly is a journalist.

To put the Fawkes rabble in the same category would be a little too charitable.

rob said...

And there's more!

"Peter Jukes ‏@peterjukes 39 mins

@WikiGuido Yet you're still following every tweet! #ironyklaxon Shall I block you to save you the irresistible addiction?

Retweeted by Peter Jukes
Alex Wickham ‏@WikiGuido 17 hrs

Am so over the whole Peter Jukes thing. Was fun at the start but now so error strewn and boringly partisan."

Short attention span?? Can't keep up?? Not used to "facts" being reported?? Certainly not used to errors being corrected.

Suspect result of being stuck in office whilst employers "busy" in pub?

Richard T said...

If anyone can recall, Tim Yeo was the beneficiary of a similar coup against Keith Stainton in 1983 when the constituency boundaries were revised. A camarilla of Tories wanted Keith Stainton out and intrigued and manoeuvred against him. Time does wound all heels.