Page 20 Daily Mail, Monday, August 19, 2019
Turncoat Tory
causes trouble
for Lib Dems
IS THIS A BREXIT PARTY OWN GOAL?
Watson rattles his war chest
WHILE he was denied
a speaking role at
last year’s Labour
conference, the
party’s ambitious
Deputy Leader Tom
Watson has been
promised a slot at
this year’s gathering
in Brighton.
It is no doubt a relief for
Watson, who is so concerned
about being unseated in a
snap election that he has setup an online Go Fund
Me page to raise a
£25,000 warchest.
But with his 7,700-
strong majority, why
is Watson so worried?
Well, it might have
something to do with
Brexit-supporting
former Labour MP
George Galloway deciding to
stand in his West Bromwich
East constituency. And
Galloway is raising funds, too ...H
aving already
defected from the
Tories to Change
UK, the glossy new
centrist party which
rapidly imploded, Sarah
Wollaston last week jumped
ship to the Lib Dems.
But Wollaston, who was elected
as the Tory MP for Totnes in 2010,
may prove to be more trouble
than she’s worth.
Within days, she was accused of
rank hypocrisy after it emerged
she had once called for automatic
by-elections for MPs who switch
parties, but now refuses to face
one herself. Wollaston is on the
verge of upsetting her new Lib
Dem colleagues, too.
For while she may be happy to
switch parties to her heart’s con-
tent, her arrival has left local
activists feeling a tad disgruntled
— not least Caroline voaden, who
had already been chosen by the
local Lib Dems to stand in anyforthcoming election. an under-
standably miffed voaden, who
was elected as MEP for the region
in May, gave no signs of backing
down on local radio last week: ‘at
some point a decision will be
made about whether i fight the
seat for Totnes or whether Sarah
does, and that is a decision that
the party will make, and it has not
been made yet.’
With a potential showdown in
Totnes already on the boil, might
it be easier for Wollaston to
simply switch to a fourth party
within six months?THE Brexit Party has disclosed
the names of more than 100 of
its parliamentary candidates.
But have they missed a trick?
Ralph Ward-Jackson, who has
two children with Baroness Fall,
David Cameron’s former deputy
chief of staff, was turned down
for the Hartlepool constituency.Did the selectors not realise
that his 19th-century ancestor,
Ralph Ward Jackson, founded
West Hartlepool and has a string
of pubs and a park named in his
honour? Instead, the party
has chosen Ken Hodcroft,
ex-chairman of Hartlepool FC.
An own goal, possibly?
[email protected]Andrew
Pierce
Former Labour-backing
actress Tracy Ann
oberman has identified the
most terrifying aspect of Jeremy
Corbyn’s desire to lead a ‘unity
government’: ‘If Corbyn’s own
party can’t get rid of him, what
makes anyone think that he
intends to be an “interim”
leader? He’s going nowhere.’ThE redoubtable Labour
MP Stella Creasy certainly
knows how to respond to oafish
insults. ‘i was called a “fat s**g”
by a random man on Putney
high Street,’ she said. ‘To be fair,
when i said i was pregnant he
just stuck with “s**g”. So you
know ... progress of a sort.’vETEran Brexiteer Sir
John redwood was
unimpressed by leaked Whitehall
no Deal warnings in the Sunday
Times yesterday. Dubbed
Operation Yellowhammer, the
documents apocalyptically
predict that Britain would face
shortages of food, fuel and
medicine if we crash out without
a deal. redwood was dismissive
of the leak, which many believe
was orchestrated by an
embittered remainer minister:
‘it’s Project Fear on steroids,
with the added lie that we won’t
be able to import any steroids
for Project Fear to thrive on.’LAbour mP David Lammy
has declared a short trip to
Canada to visit a university in
ontario. He flew business class
with the total value of the trip
declared at £8,724. Nice work if
you can get it.