Tories expel 'secret cuts' row MP (Tory MP admits cuts to public services)

[Anarcho-Socialist]

Michael Howard has said Howard Flight will not be a Conservative candidate at the forthcoming general election.

The Tory leader has withdrawn the whip from Mr Flight after earlier sacking him as deputy party chairman over comments he made at a party dinner.

Mr Flight told activists the Tories were hiding the true scale of planned spending cuts to win the election. Labour seized on the Arundel and South Downs MP's comments as a sign of secret Tory plans for cuts to public services.

More at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4382105.stm

It looks like the Tories have been found out for the liars they are.

[non sociopath skin]

1. Read any UK right-wing blog or discussion board ...

... and two key themes are repeated over and over again - "cut taxes" and "roll back the frontiers of the state." Flight was only saying to fellow Tories what Tories everywhere say to each other all the time.

If Howard had had any integrity or honesty at all he would have come clean and agreed with him.

The Skin

[fedsron2us]

2. It looks like Flight is not going to go quietly

If the Tories are not careful this could blow up their entire election campaign.

I suspect that Blair can hardly believe his luck.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4309536

[ben_packard]

3. I'll stop short of sympathy for a Torie but

Howard Flight has been dealt a kipper here. I wonder if his constiuency is solidly conservative or solidly Flight - if the latter i'd be tempted to run as an independent.

[non sociopath skin]

4. Flight was being honest about Howard's dishonesty.

If anyone deserves the chop it's Howard!

The Skin

[tjwmason]

7. Personal vote is unlikely to count for more than a couple of thousand

I would guess that the proverbial 'donkey with a blue rosette' would win, rather like round here.

[AP]

5. So, by firing him, they acknowledge he's telling the truth.

Why didn't they deny the story, and then punish him after the election?

Anyway, whoever heard that story at that party and passed it on to the press is a hero.

Isn't it just like a Tory to think that they're among friends at a party and that they can say "let them eat cake" and that everyone else at the party are such class loyalists that nobody will tell?

[T_i_B]

6. I suppose it's quite funny really

Howard is trying to have Flight deselected as an MP, Flight claims to have a legal case to the effect that only the constituency party and not Howard can deselect their candidates, and the Conservative party as much of an unelectable mess as ever.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4391759.stm

And I can't help but wonder if a Labour deselection would garner as much publicity or if something as negative as that would be kept behind closed doors by the Millbank tendency. I'm hardly Tony Benn's greatest fan but I think this very good article from today's Guardian is very pertinent.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1447869,00.html

[tjwmason]

8. I doubt there is a real legal case

Until William Hague the deal was that local parties could do pretty much whatever they wanted to, but had no power over the centre (leader elected only by Tory M.P.s); then in return for a vote on the leader, the centre gained power over the local associations.

This deal has shown itself to be a total failure on both sides now. The party nationally elected I.D.S. simply because he wasn't Kenneth Clarke; and now local parties are kicking up a fuss about the power held over them.

[LeftishBrit]

9. I totally agree with Benn here!

My first thought about Flight was that he's no doubt a total idiot who deserves what he gets BUT that it's a very bad precedent for a party leader to be able to put pressure on a constituency party to deselect an MP. It could easily be misused to deal with 'rebels' and increase a leader's power. I am sure that Blair would love to have Clare Short, Robin Cook, Ken Livingstone, Dennis Skinner and many others deselected. Maggie Thatcher would have felt similarly about Francis Pym, Ian Gilmour, her beloved predecessor Ted Heath, and many more. Prime Ministers are quite inclined enough to act as elected dictators without that sort of thing becoming part of their weaponry.