Reflections on the leadership hustings

Yesterday, despite considerable difficulties with the train journeys to London and back (caused by a trespasser on the railway) I listened to all six candidates for the Conservative leadership speak and answer questions about why they should be leader at a meeting of the National Conservative Convention (which consists mostly of the chairmen of all the local constituency Conservative parties plus Regional and Area chairmen and deputy chairmen,)

Today I watched five of the six candidates appear on a Channel Four debate.

I thought all six candidates performed well yesterday and all five who took part did well today.

It was a great pity that it was not possible to broadcast the speeches and Q&A session with all six candidates yesterday: this would have been of value to candidates and voters - including those who are not members of the Conservative party and participants in this election but will have a vote on whoever wins when the next general election comes.

The presenter from Channel four was a bit silly at times.

For example, when the presenter made the ridiculous suggestion that Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who holds one of the four great offices of state was not important enough to have been invited to meet Donald Trump it was very noticeable that the other four candidates instantly reacted with outrage at this slur on a rival candidate - indeed, if anything the other candidates rejected the idea more strongly than the Saj himself did.

Nevertheless I thought the programme was valuable and informative and it would have been even better if all six candidates had taken part.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the...
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more