Policing Minister and Police and Crime Commissioner Candidate Have Positive Meeting

Nick Herbert MP (Left) and Cllr. Richard Davies (right).

Nick Herbert MP, Minister for Policing has met with the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner candidate Cllr. Richard Davies on a recent visit to Lincolnshire. Richard Davies and the Minister talked over how to achieve real savings in Lincolnshire’s policing budget while at the same time protecting frontline policing.

Nick Herbert MP congratulated Cllr. Davies on securing the Conservative nomination for Lincolnshire and said that he was a strong candidate who was the natural choice for the voters of Lincolnshire.

Richard Davies priorities are to:

• Deliver visible policing for Lincolnshire 
• To prevent crime across Lincolnshire 
• To spend taxpayers money wisely 

Prospective Conservative Police & Crime Commissioner Candidate for Lincolnshire, Cllr. Richard Davies, said:

"If elected as the first Police and Crime Commissioner Lincolnshire I will take a no-nonsense approach to policing, for example making sure that the policing structure in place allow there to be more police at work on a Friday night than there are on a Monday morning."

Cllr. Davies was born and raised in Lincolnshire, is a local businessman and a County Councillor representing Grantham North West. If you want to learn more about what policies Richard would like to see implemented in Lincolnshire visit his website www.votedavies.co.uk.

'Outrageously Rude' Liberal Democrat Condemned

On Conservative Home my friend Jonathan Isaby is reporting that a Liberal Democrat candidate has been condemned for 'sexually gratuitous' and 'outrageously rude' attacks on political opponents.

The Liberal Democrats' often claim to be all sweetness and light when it comes to electioneering have long been in doubt (My post on this from August here.). The party's own campaign manual states that positive campaigning is not enough to win elections and that candidates should "

be wicked, act shamelessly, stir endlessly."

And over the Christmas period, the antics of Greg Stone, the Lib Dem candidate for Newcastle East, have been brought to national prominence.

Mr. Isaby talks of the report in the Telegraph, about Mr. Stone who has been using a pseudonym to post disparaging comments of an extremely personal nature about a series of Conservative and Labour MPs on the Guido Fawkes blog.

The Conservative candidate for Newcastle East, Dominic Llewellyn, condemned Stone in an open letter on his blog:

"I am standing for Parliament because I care deeply about the city and the
nation we both live in. Far from engaging people in a positive vision of how you
want to change this country for the better, your comments were sexually
gratuitous at times and outrageously rude at others. They are precisely the type
of comments which turn people off politics and they do not represent the values
which I stand for: personal freedom, a commitment to the environment and a
desire to protect the most vulnerable at home and abroad."

Mr. Stone has since been forced to apologise for his remarks and his comments have also been condemned by the Lib Dem leader of Newcastle Council as:

"entirely inappropriate".

Local County Councillor Appears on BBC's Newsnight

Lincolnshire County Councillor, former Parliamentary Candidate for the Lincoln Constituency in 2001, Cllr. Mrs. Christine Talbot, Conservative (Bracebridge Heath and Waddngton Division) appeared on last night's Newsnight programme on the BBC 2 television channel commenting upon the South West Norfolk Constituency's meeting to deselect Liz Truss who a few weeks ago was selected as their parliamentary candidate.

Introducing the item, iconic Newsnight presenter, Jeremy Paxman, said:

"If someone told you a year ago the greatest challenge to David Cameron's Tory leadership would come from a bunch nick-named the 'turnip taliban' in rural Norfolk, you'd have had trouble being believed.

"Tonight's meeting about whether to de-select Elizabeth Truss as candidate because they didn't know she had an affair with a married Tory MP, Mark Field, a few years ago was surely the most exciting thing to happen in Swaffham since a cardboard box was seen blowing down the High Street.

"In the event a majority backed her, and back down from a confrontation with Mr. Cameron."

After a video package by political correspondent Michael Crick, including footage of Sir Jeremy Bagge - named as leader of the turnip taliban - and the suggestion that if Mrs. Truss was not de-selected he may stand for parliament for a newly created party - Christine Talbot emerged with Sue Catling, a management consultant, Conservative candidate for Calder Valley in 2005 who was de-selected and replaced by Mrs. Truss. Cllr. talbot was asked about the disconnect between the membership of the party and the wider electorate. She responded:

"The problem we face within the party is this centralised control that's going on. And when the rule changed in July that only six candidates could go forward to the selection process it narrowed it down. In the good old days at least twenty went to the first interview and the Association picked those themselves."

Later Cllr. Talbot, responding to criticism of the narrownes of the membership of the Conservative Party says:

"At the end of the day their is a cross section of members in this country which are now in associations they are the people who have got to work with people."

More than two hundred members of South West Norfolk Conservative Association turned-out to participate in the meeting. The final result was 132 for and 37 against keeping Mrs. Truss as the candidate. Speaking following the confirmation of her selection Mrs. Truss said:

"I am absolutely delighted to have been confirmed as the Parliamentary Candidate for South West Norfolk and very much look forward to working with everybody with in the Conservative Association to kick the Labour party out at the election."

Watch the BBC Newsnight's Report on Liz Truss here.