Changing parties - changing names

On the eve of Gordon Brown's moving day - when he actual moves into the house next door - a very peculiar thing happened. A Tory MP who is against gay adoption, thought banning fox hunting wrong, and who voted against tuition fees, is actually crossing the floor of the House of Commons to sit with Gordon's Gang. Who is this principled guy? His name is Quentin Davies!

Actually, he's not so principled. He has often said very rude things about Gordon. After all Quentin was a merchant banker, so whilst on the Tory benches he would say nasty things about Gordon. Now he says nice things, or so he thinks.

I have met this principled man. In a previous incarnation he was the Conservative candidate in the Birmingham Ladywood by-election of 1977. I canvassed for him. Even then he came across as a pompous prat, but then I was young and willing to serve! We were in a tower block of flats, the sort with a central lift shaft and depressingly dirty stairs going down around this shaft. On either side were the grim doors to the grim flats. His election literature had him down as John Quentin Davies. I took this to be his name. I knocked on a door and enquired as to whether the voter would support John Quentin Davies. I don't remember his answer, but Davies bounced up to me in a rattled manner. "Don't say John Quentin Davies! They'll think I've got a double-barrelled name and I'm some bigwig. Just say John Davies". So John Davies it was. Didn't do him much good though, he lost.

After the election, some time later, I saw he popped up on a news bulletin from a Paris studio of the BBC giving us some bon mots about Maggie's European adventures. Then he went back into obscurity. And in 1987 he finally arrived in the Commons as an MP. Whenever I saw him, now billed as Quentin Davies, and a trainee bigwig, I rememembered that day in Ladywood. The Labour Party are welcome to him. He won't sit well with most of them. Ferral spivs and spinners, given to deception and misconception mostly.

David Cameron can sleep well tonight. He's no longer the leader of a man who's own bedrock is somewhat crumbly. Wouldn't it be interesting if Quentin Davies resigned his seat tomorrow along with that other great fan of Gordon Brown and stood as Labour candidate in the forthcoming Sedgefield by-election. He could then re-invent himself as John Davies, the candidate who is definitely not a bigwig. David Cameron could see himself campaigning in Grantham and Stamford in support of a new candidate that wasn't such a merchant banker!

Posted in: David Cameron,Gordon Brown,New Labour