STANLEY JOHNSON, CONSERVATIVE, TEIGNBRIDGE
Stanley Johnson is the Conservative candidate for Teignbridge in Devon. He has lived on a family farm on Exmoor since 1951. A former MEP, he has worked for the World Bank and the European Commission.
Full biography
Friday, May 6
I have just returned from handing back the battle-bus, and saying good bye to many friends who gathered this morning in the Teignbridge Conservative's Assocations headquarters.
We lost to the Liberal Democrats last night by a margin of over six thousand votes. Even if all the UKIP votes (almost 4000) had come our way, we would not have been "first past the post".
That said, there was a discernible swing to the Lib-Dems in the West Country, augmented by the collapse of the Labour vote, so I did not feel totally humilated. 21,593 people voted for me which was better than a slap in the face with a wet fish.
The below photo shows me making a brief speech at the count, thanking all those who had supported me including any who may have mistaken me for Boris! (Boris himself posted an increased majority in Henley on a more than 7% swing)
Thanking all those who had supported me including any who may have mistaken me for Boris
There was a valedictory tone to this morning's occasion at Teignbridge HQ. I quoted Emperor Hirohito remarks on 14 August 1945, as he accepted the Potsdam Declaration:
"Despite the best that has been done by everyone - the gallant fighting of our military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of our servants of the State and the devoted service of our 100,000,000 people - the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest."
I have much enjoyed writing this blog and am grateful for having had the opportunity to do so.
Thursday, May 5
In front of Teign Valley
At Kingsteignton Street Market, Picture: Olivier Kugler
Laudie and Elizabeth Constantine, Serena Balfour and Audrey Warren.
The Green Shaldon.
(From left) Janet Parrot, Jenny Johnson and Christine Drew,
Teignmouth seen from Shaldon.
With shadow agriculture minister Jim Paice.
Mike Dolley and Jack Lopresti at the Rugglestone Inn, Widecombe.
One of the advantages of having a flat on the coast at Shell Cove, Dawlish, is that it is only a stone’s throw from the Smugglers Inn, so I am never tempted to drink and drive. In any case I enjoy the walk. Soon after I was selected as the candidate for Teignbridge, I walked around 70 miles along the Two Moors Way from Exmoor to Dartmoor.
“Why on earth do you want to do that?” the Teignbridge Conservative Association agent Audrey Warren(of whom much more later) asked me when I told her of my plan.
“To prove I live within easy walking distance of the constituency” I replied.
I found John Clatworthy, our Dawlish County Council candidate, already at the bar when I arrived, with two members of Conservative Future, the organization which took over from the Young Conservatives. People are always asking us older candidates how we propose to relate to youth. Working with Conservative Future is part of the answer.
In this particular instance both the young men were called Paul. Paul Langan had a Master’s degree in astro-physics and was clearly a genius. Paul O’Leary was no less impressive. Last autumn he invited me to give a talk about the Brazilian rain-forest to the sixth-form at Torquay Boy’s Grammar School which, I believe, went off rather well. Now he told us the good news that he had been accepted by the London School of Economics to read politics.
John Clatworthy, a Chartered Surveyor by profession, began to reminisce about his early life in London.
“The firm I worked for was based in Kingsway, near the LSE. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office was also in Kingsway at the time. I remember queuing to buy the Denning Report about Profumo and so forth in September 1973. It was a very juicy document. What did Christine Keeler say? Life is better under the Conservatives? That’s a slogan we could use!””
John was still in fine form when, less than twelve hours later, we stood in the Strand in Dawlish handing out leaflets to passers-by. I would say that on the whole we were warmly received. At one point the Liberal Democrat candidate, Mr Richard Younger-Ross came by and I wanted to take a picture of him for this blog, but by the time I had got the camera ready, he had whistled on saying his meter was running out.
Is Mr Younger-Ross’s meter running out? Frankly, there is no way of telling at this stage. People are very polite when you greet them and mostly they take the proferred literature. Some of them greet me enthusiastically and say “hello, Boris.” A photographer from a local newsagency came by a took a picture at precisely the moment when an old lady was shaking my hand and saying: “Is it true that Boris Johnson is your father?”
On Sunday I went to a Conservative lunch in a private house in Bovey Tracey. I’ve had a home in the West Country all my life and what appeals to me most is the rhythm of the region. Even with an election approaching, there’s no need to rush around in an undignified scramble. That’s not how they do things in Devon.
The candidate always has to speak on these occasions, somewhere between the pudding and the coffee. I found myself talking about Pope John Paul II. He was not just a spiritual leader, he was a political giant as well.
I have just returned from handing back the battle-bus, and saying good bye to many friends who gathered this morning in the Teignbridge Conservative's Assocations headquarters.
We lost to the Liberal Democrats last night by a margin of over six thousand votes. Even if all the UKIP votes (almost 4000) had come our way, we would not have been "first past the post".
That said, there was a discernible swing to the Lib-Dems in the West Country, augmented by the collapse of the Labour vote, so I did not feel totally humilated. 21,593 people voted for me which was better than a slap in the face with a wet fish.
The below photo shows me making a brief speech at the count, thanking all those who had supported me including any who may have mistaken me for Boris! (Boris himself posted an increased majority in Henley on a more than 7% swing)
Thanking all those who had supported me including any who may have mistaken me for Boris
There was a valedictory tone to this morning's occasion at Teignbridge HQ. I quoted Emperor Hirohito remarks on 14 August 1945, as he accepted the Potsdam Declaration:
"Despite the best that has been done by everyone - the gallant fighting of our military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of our servants of the State and the devoted service of our 100,000,000 people - the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest."
I have much enjoyed writing this blog and am grateful for having had the opportunity to do so.
Thursday, May 5
I am writing this at 5 am on the morning of the big day, Thursday May 5th. Dawn is breaking over the Devon coast.
Today's blog consists of a few photographs from our last day's campaigning in Newton Abbot, Teignmouth and surrounding areas.
I begin with a photograph of Shell Cove House, Dawlish where I have rented a flat over the last several months and which has served as a base during this campaign. The photo shows the front of the house which faces the sea.
Shell Cove House
My next photo shows John Midgeley and James Paxman outside the Conservative office in Newton Abbot. John and James have done a tremendous job in putting up posters around the constituency. Whatever the result tonight, I think we can say we won the poster war.
John Midgeley and James Paxman outside Conservative office in Newton Abbot
The third photo shows two farmers from the Newton Abbot Cattle Market, held on Wednesdays. The market is a shadow of its former self, a fact which reflects changes in the pattern of farming, but yesterday was a good day to visit with the auctioneers in full cry and a decent attendance.
Newton Abbot cattle market
After a walk-around in Newton Abbot, we drove to Teignmouth, for more public appearances and then on to Shaldon across the bridge, James and John following our battle-bus in James' Land -Rover. The fourth photo shows James by the vehicles.
James Paxman again
My fifth and last photo was taken just before the road from Shaldon to Newton Abbot joins the Totnes Road. The Teign Valley is directly behind us and in the distance you can see Dartmoor.
In front of Teign Valley
Tuesday, May 3
Simon Hoggart was here. Our team was doing some half-hearted canvassing in Chudleigh Knighton when I saw the familiar face of the Spectator’s wine correspondent and Guardian’s star columnist.
He was scurrying along the street with a clear sense of purpose.
“Hello, Simon” I shouted. “Where are you going?”
“To the Claycutters Arms.”
Oddly enough, we were heading there too. It turned out we were all planning to meet Tory Policy Supremo David Cameron at 12.45pm in the pub.
Moments later, two or three photographers arrived and we ordered lunch and drinks.
I explained to the gathering that David had been down to Teignbridge a couple of times in the past and had been immensely well received.
“What my campaign needs now” I explained “is one final push over the edge and David’s the man to give it.”
Just at that moment David Cameron arrived. “Over the finishing line, surely? Not over the edge..!”
I was glad to see that Simon Hoggart recorded this exchange faithfully in his Guardian sketch this morning. My experience of Simon is that he is usually pretty accurate. He once related in his column a brief conversation I had with David Davis, then Chairman of the Conservative Party. This was a couple of years ago when I was thinking of applying to be put on the list of official Conservative parliamentary candidates and asked DD whether he thought it would be a good idea. (Actually, I wanted to be put back on the list, since I had been on the list in 1973, unfortunately the archive had gone missing under the 30-year rule)
“Do you want the long answer or the short answer?” DD asked.
“The long answer if you’ve got time” I said coyly.
“The long answer is “no”.
Well, we’ve all passed a lot of water under the bridge since then. I was put on the list of approved candidates just in time to be rejected by Thanet South, Jonathan Aitken’s old seat. The first question the Chairman of the selection committee asked me was to name a single thing I knew about Ramsgate, Thanet South’s main town.
“You’ve got me stumped there” I was forced to reply.
Happily, Teignbridge came up a couple of months later and I was lucky enough to catch the selectors’ eye. If by any chance I am elected here, I shall expect David Davis (assuming he wins in Haltemprice) to buy me a drink in the House of Commons.
David Cameron’s visit went extremely well. After lunch in the pub, we had time for 20 minutes canvassing, whisking up and down the main street in Bovey Tracey, an excursion well captured by Simon Hoggart in his piece today who likens David to “one of those American tornadoes that wreck trailer parks.”
We returned to Bovey in the evening for another of the “Churches Together” events all the candidates on stage. The meeting was actually held in the local church and influenced no doubt by the setting, we were all terribly nice to each other. I was surprised we didn’t make the Sign of Peace.
The evening was chaired by the Rev Hamilton, a classicist and former naval officer. When I was asked why I had written in my Channel 4 blog that, if elected, I didn’t intend to do much at Westminster, I pointed out that, conscious of the need to fight the tide of legislation that threatens to swamp us, I had actually said I didn’t intend to do “too much” in the sense of “meden agan”...or “nothing excessive..”as the ancient Greeks put it.
The photograph shows the five candidates for the seat of Teignbridge in the following order from left to right: Trevor Coleman, UKIP; Richard Younger-Ross, Liberal-Democrat; Stanley Johnson, Conservative; Chris Sherwood, Labour; Reg Wills, Liberal.
May the right man win!
The five hopefuls in Teignbridge.
Monday, May 2
Around noon on the Bank Holiday Monday (May 2) I collected a journalist from the Guardian - Olivier Kugler - from the station at Exeter.
Olivier is German. He trained in the US, met his girl-friend when she was an au pair in Germany and followed her to England where she now works as a criminal lawyer while he landed a job on the Guardian. Apparently the Guardian want to do a two-page spread in their G2 section on Wednesday, featuring three of the current parliamentary candidates, one of them being me.
As we drove up Haldon Hill, I told Olivier we were going to Luton for lunch. The name was familiar. “I have been to the airport at Luton” he says.
I told him this was a different Luton, a pretty little village off the A380 with a pub called the Elizabethan. Twenty minutes later, as we sat over a plate of plaice and chips in the bar while sheep grazed in the church-yard just beyond the window, I could not help reflecting that a political campaign provides an unreliable prism for viewing the world. Here was the nicest young man you could possibly imagine. Show him a UKIP poster (there aren’t many down here, though they may be keeping there powder dry) and he seems genuinely puzzled. What is it with these Brits, I can hear him thinking.
After lunch, we drive on to Kingsteignton for the annual street market. Olivier snaps away with his mini-digital camera, taking a photographic record which will no doubt help him when he comes to do the drawings. On the way we pick up Mike Walters, who is standing for the Devon County Council in the Conservative interest. We park the battle-bus some way from the market. It is after all a Bank Holiday and you have to judge these things. I tell Mike to put his rosette on and he agrees someone reluctantly.
Mike may not be a pushy chap, but judging by the reception we get he is well-liked in Kingsteignton where he has lived 15 years.
“You should come back on May 30 for the Ram Roast” he tells us.
“What’s that?” Olivier asks.
Mike explains that in the 14th century a stream ran through the village and each year on a certain date the village children would be baptized. Then one year the stream ran dry, so they sacrificed a ram and baptized the children in the blood.
“After that” Mike says, “the stream burst into life again. So know each year we celebrate with a Ram Roast.”
Later we meet Catherine Harris who has been secretary of the Kingsteignton Ram Roast Committee for the past 28 years. She explains that because of EU rules relating to BSE etc, rams nowadays have to be less than two years old before they can be roasted.
“You can’t roast an animal more than two years old unless you’ve removed its spine.”
I can see that Olivier Kugler is quite interested in these quaint English customs.
“Do you roast the ram’s testicles too?”
“Of course we do” Mike says. “In fact we have a testicle-catching contest at the Ram Roast. The villagers throw the testicles the air when they’re cooked, open their mouths and try to catch them.”
Olivier makes a note of this reply. The attached photo, taken by Olivier, is of Mike Walters demonstrating how it’s done.
At Kingsteignton Street Market, Picture: Olivier Kugler
Sunday, May 1
As the electoral campaign reaches its climax, down here in Devon the issue of dentistry looms large. I have had sight of an electoral communication which Mr Younger-Ross, the Liberal-Democrat candidate here, has written to the voters of Teignbridge. He points out that over the four years he has been MP he has secured the services of six additional dentists from Poland, a rate – if my arithmetic is correct – of 1.5 dentists per year.
Mr Y-R alluded to this achievement again last night at a meeting in Newton Abbot where all five candidates were present. I was reminded as he did so of an encounter I had on the doorstep a few days ago.
The lady of a house I was canvassing told me her name was Mrs Turpin. “Any relation to Dick?” I asked.
“Actually, he’s my husband.”
“Pull the other one” I said.
After that, we naturally started talking about dentists. Mrs Turpin complained that the prices charged by private dentists amounted to highway robbery.
“What about the Polish dentists who have been brought in to the NHS? There’s one up in Moretonhamsptead, surely, and another in Bovey Tracey?” I waved my arm first one way, then another. “Don’t you call the one up there the North Pole and the one down there the South Pole.?”
On the whole, last night’s meeting was a friendly and relaxed affair, ably chaired by Rev Greg Haynes, of Christians Together. Reg Wills who is a sprightly 82-year old is, as I have mentioned in a previous blog, the surprise of this campaign. He is standing as a Liberal on an anti-Liberal Democrat platform. Irritatingly I can no longer claim to be the oldest candidate standing in Teignbridge, though the Labour candidate, Chris Sherwood, at 26 can certainly claim to be the youngest.
Canvassing in Dawlish
On Saturday morning we returned to Dawlish in force for a session in the Strand. The photo shows our team before we fanned out among unsuspecting shoppers. The reception was as always friendly. There was a minor blip when someone was spotted removing the ‘Vote Johnson’ sign from our parked battle-wagon and driving off with it in his car. A sharp-eyed member of the team noted the registration number and in due course enquiries were made. It turned out that the culprit was one of our long-standing supporters in Dawlish who explained that he “was just looking for a souvenir of an historic campaign.”
Has it been an historic campaign? Only time will tell. It has certainly been fun so far.
Saturday, April 30
Serena Balfour came down from London to campaign for me on Thursday. I have known Serena for 25 years. Her husband, Neil, was elected a member of the European Parliament in June 1979, as I was, in the first direct elections. Sixty-one Conservative MEPs surf-boarded to Strasbourg in the wake of Mrs Thatcher’s victory in the national elections a month earlier. It would be nice to think that another such Tory surge is in the offing.
Serena is a force of nature. On her mother’s side, she is the grand-daughter of the 10th Duke of Marlborough, while father, an American, ran a publishing empire in New York. She has drawn from both branches of the family tree. She radiates the “get-up-and-go, can-do” spirit.
Audrey Warren, whom attentive readers of this blog will recall is my agent, is also standing in her own right as it were as a County Council candidate for Bovey Tracey Rural. Audrey has been giving me a lot of help of the campaign so far. It is my turn to help her, so I point the battle-bus in the direction of Dartmoor.
“What’s the programme?” Serena asks.
I explain that the normal tactic of our campaign team so far has been to move from pub to pub. “Pubs are terrifically important for village life here in Devon”.
Serena looks sceptical. She sends Audrey back upstairs to fetch the canvass cards and when we arrive in Bovey Tracey twenty minutes later, she vetoes the coffee-break which I have the temerity to suggest.
“I’m here to work” she tells me sharply.
And work she does. As I chat to Barry the Butcher in Moretonhamstead’s main street, I can see Serena with Audrey in tow striding up and down the pavement opposite, clipboard in hand.
After a while, I emerge from Barry the Butcher and tell my team that we should be moving on.
“We’re meeting John Midgely and James Paxman (brother of Jeremy) in the Cromwell Arms in Bovey Tracey at 1245, and I want to stop in at Laudie and Elizabeth Constantine’s on the way.”
If you’re looking for an affordable home (a key campaign issue), don’t look at Laudie and Elizabeth’s place. I’m not even sure that Neil and Serena could afford it. It is a marvellous 18th Century house with a spectacular view over the valley. More to the point, Laudie’s fields overlook the Bovey-Tracey to Moretonhamstead road and are ideally placed for a giant election poster or two.
Laudie and Elizabeth Constantine, Serena Balfour and Audrey Warren.
“I thought of voting UKIP” Laudie says, “but since you’ve bothered to call, I don’t mind putting your posters up in my fields.”
When we reach the Cromwell Arms, we are able to tell our poster-putting up team in the shape of Midgely and Paxman that we have secured a prime site and they can head on up to Laudie’s after lunch.
I’m pretty sure that it was Serena’s presence in our team which helped us score this coup with the Constantines and I tell her as much. It seems to me that we have done a good morning’s work.
Serena is not easily diverted from the matter in hand. While I take a swig of the lager-and-lemon shandy which I have abstemiously taken to drinking on the campaign trail, she orders a fizzy water and starts to quiz me about my website. “Do you get a lot of hits? How many? Give me a rough order of magnitude.”
“I think we are doing pretty well” I say. “We had a lot of hits last month.. Eight or nine altogether, I believe, though I think a couple of them were from my sister, Hilary in Australia.
Wednesday April 27
“Vote Conservative on May 7th” I boomed as I drove the battlebus down the coast-road from Dawlish to Starcross. I have got the hang of the loud-speaker now. The secret is (a) to switch it on before you start speaking and (b) to switch it off when you have finished.
“It will be too late by May 7” one of our canvass team corrected me, as I stowed the mike. “You should have said May 5th!”
“Ooops” I said, switching the machine back on. “I meant May 5th. VOTE CONSERVATIVE ON MAY 5th!”.
I know why I said May 7, May 7 is – or was – my mother’s birthday. Had she still been alive, she would have been 98.
Yesterday in Ideford, I talked to a woman who must have been born only a few years after my mother. We spoke through the kitchen window.
“I’d ask you in” she said, “but the curtains are in rags. I’m afraid I just don’t have enough money for new curtains. I live on potatoes now mainly. It’s all I can afford. I keep my two dogs. They’re my protection. There’s so much” – she paused as she tried to find the right word – “’bashing’ nowadays.”
There was a car in the drive and she saw me looking at it. “I still drive even though I’m over 90. I can’t afford to keep the car but I have to. The shops are in Chudleigh three miles away and there’s no public transport.”
Wasn’t there a pension credit, I asked? Yes, there was, she replied. And she had tried to apply for it only to be told she was a pound or two over the qualifying limit.
“I’d rather starve than go through that again” she said.
Apart from the daily diet of canvassing, I have had some memorable visits over the last two days.We spent a fascinating hour touring the BCT factory on the Heathfield Industrial estate outside Bovey Tracey. BCT hopes to expand its output of ceramic tiles from the equivalent of 2.5 to 5 acres per day. As the Chairman, Konrad Goess-Saurau put it: “In the time we take to reach a decision, the Chinese will have commissioned 100 factories twice as big as ours.”
I also had a most interesting time at Trinity School, Teignmouth. The headmaster, Colin Ashby, very kindly hosted a lunch in the library before my talk. Later, I addressed the sixth form and much enjoyed it. I hope they did too. These are the voters of the future. Actually, some of them are going to be voting this time round.
Trinity School sixth-form pupils
“Vote Conservative on May 7!” I urged.
Monday, April 25
My last full week of campaigning begins with an interview with the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme in the car park at Newton Abbot railway station. Ed Sturton, the presenter, has spent the last two weeks in Rome covering the funeral of Pope John-Paul and the election of Pope Benedict. He gives a passable impression of being pleased to be in Teignbridge on a wet morning.
With me, standing in the rain beside the Today Radio van with its futuristic satellite aerial, is Trevor Coleman, the UKIP candidate, a tall serious gentleman who, like me, was born in Cornwall.
Ed kicks off by playing a clip from an interview with Richard Younger Ross. I can’t hear what RYR is saying since neither Trevor or I have headphones on. It is not a long clip because, after a minute or so, Ed thrusts the microphone towards me and says: “Well, Richard Younger-Ross calls you a “minor celebrity”. A carpet-bagger, eh? What do you say to that?”
It is always difficult to answer accusations which are not disclosed (a point many made when discussing Mr Blair’s ill-conceived anti-terrorist legislation) but I do my best. I admit that I am Boris’ father - difficult to deny - and go on to point out that I have been a West countryman all my life.
I wish I had thought at the time of saying that it is better to be a minor celebrity than a major nonentity but I didn’t. Ed Sturton steers the conversation on to Europe which he calls the non-issue so far of the campaign.
Trevor and I do our best to sound interesting but on the whole I agree that Europe, so far, has not been the major topic for discussion on the doorsteps down here. That, undoubtedly, has been Council tax.
For the rest of the day, our doorstepping took place in Ideford, a village a few miles from Chudleigh, and after lunch at the Nobody Inn, Doddiscombsleigh, in the villages of the beautiful Teign Valley, notably Lower Ashton and Christow.
In Lower Ashton, we met Mrs Eileen Burge, 92, widow of Col. Patrick Burge. Though fairly immobile physically, there was nothing wrong with her mind.
“May I take your photograph for my blog?” I asked. “Do you know what a blog is?”
“Young man, “at the age of 92 I don’t need to know what a blog is!”
The other side of the river, up a long farm track, I had my second motor-bike ride of the campaign. Noel Squibb, who lives in a house which he and his wife Karen have built in the woods, has been campaigning against the restrictions now being imposed by DEFRA on motorcycle activity on farm land.. He asked if I would help.
“Not unless you first let me ride your trail-bike down your track.” I replied. So he did..
After my bike ride, I listened attentively to Noel’s grievance..
“Here's the deal,” he explained “farmers have always had grants to help subsidize their production costs and help them survive against heavily sponsored foreign food imports. To keep their subsidy, land owners have to register with DEFRA by April 16th 2005.
“So what’s the problem? Well the new contracts that all land owners have to sign to get the Single Farm Payment PROHIBITS ALL MOTORSPORT.”
With Mrs Eileen Burge
Apparently 'static' motor displays are allowed. Horse events are allowed, shooting and village fete's are allowed, but NO RACING - or you loose your money! And it’s not just the fields that are being used for racing either, apparently if a race is being held, you also loose any subsidy payments for the whole year for the land that is being used to PARK on, - but only if its a MOTORCAR or MOTORCYCLE RACE event.
I am keen on motorcycles. I once rode a BSA 500 cc twin-cylinder Shooting Star from Oxford to Calcutta. But even if I wasn’t keen on them, I would accept that Noel and his fellow-enthusiasts have a point. DEFRA is being heavy-handed here.
We ended the day at Mary and Dudley Wylie’s house in Christow. Mary, who is the treasurer of the Teignbridge Conservative Association, gave us tea and and some totally memorable brownies made by her daughter Sarah.
With Mary Wylie, daughter Sarah and grandson Finn.
Saturday, April 23
The attached photograph shows Newton Abbot on a typical Saturday morning. We spent a happy morning accosting passers-by in the street and handing out election material.
On the whole we had a good reception, several people accepted the leaflets we gave them.
Typical Saturday morning in Newton Abbot
Talking of election material, I am a little bit disappointed with the Liberal-Democrats here. Their candidate, Mr Younger-Ross, described I notice in Saturday's Daily Mail as "probably Westminster's most-ridiculed MP", has put out a leaflet in which he describes me as a "former bureaucrat of the European Parliament."
Conservatives have nothing against bureaucrats as such. We are against unnecessary bureaucrats, wasting public money and interfering with us at every turn. Crooks and nannies peering into nooks and crannies. I have been, I admit, a bureaucrat myself in the sense that I have worked for the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Commission. But I was never a "bureaucrat of the European Parliament".
I was actually elected - in the first direct elections ever held to the European Parliament - as the Member for East Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. And, yes, Richard, I had a Liberal opponent on that occasion. We clocked up a majority of 95,000 which was the second largest in the United Kingdom. My opponent then was the redoubtable Baroness Seear.
I so well remember my agent Norman Slipper sidling up to me at the count with a Blair-like smirk in his face. "I have to tell you, Stanley, that your piles are much larger than Lady Seear's piles and they're growing all the time!"
The offending Lib-Dem leaflet also accused me of having held no "surgeries" whereas RYR has held nine a month.
When I first saw the Lib-Dem leaflet, I rang Audrey. "I wasn't a former bureaucrat of the European Parliament and how could I have held surgeries if I wasn't an MP?"
"Do nothing," Audrey advised firmly. "Don't descend to their level. Leave them in the gutter where they belong."
Well, there are different ways of doing nothing. This is one of them.
I mentioned in an earlier blog my less than wholly successful efforts to get Esther Rantzen to endorse my candicacy. While I was at the bar of the Passage House Inn at Kingsteignton ordering the Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, Esther was busy talking to Andrew Gimson, the Daily Telegraph reporter whose sketch "Boris and Stanley - the double act that is laughing all the way to Westminster" appeared yesterday (Saturday).
Esther is reported by Andrew as saying: "I am in favour of fun. The Johnson family has added more to the gaiety of nations than - well, can you think of any family that has made us laugh as much?"
Thanks, Esther, you're a doll. I'll come dancing with you any time.
Friday, April 22
Friday was fairly busy. In the morning I drove the battle-bus to Plymouth for an hour's phone-in with Radio Devon on the subject of nappies. From an environmental point of view, disposable nappies present many problems. They cannot easily be recycled. I pointed out that go-ahead Teignbridge District Council had appointed a"terry-cloth coordinator" to promote the use of old-fashioned cloth nappies. Now that so many men are taking paternity leave, I know they will be pleased to be able to wash terry-cloth nappies and hang them out to dry.
I was expanding on this theme when Justin Lee, the presenter of the show, showed me the yellow card for mentioning Teignbridge. "We don't mention individual constituencies" he warned during the break for the weather report.
The weather-man was accurate. It was already pouring as I beetled back to Teignmouth for a Question and Answer session with my oldest son Boris (editor of the Spectator and Conservative candidate for Henley) in the Carlton Theatre. With the squash-match between Boris and me scheduled later in the afternoon (in Newton Abbot), the Teignmouth hors d'oeuvre served to whet the appetite of the media who were waiting outside the theatre in the rain as I arrived.
Quite a few had come down from London, including Lauren Booth, Cherie Blair's half-sister, for the Mail on Sunday, Quentin Letts for the Mail, Andrew Gimson for the Daily Telegraph, Valerie Grove for the Times and Patrick Barkham for the Guardian, with accompanying photographers.
I took the attached photo of the waiting press corps as I arrived at the Carlton Theatre.
Media interest, Teignmouth, April 22
Boris himself arrived on schedule (having visited North Devon en route where Orlando Fraser is trying to win the seat) and we had a brief walk-about, visiting various shops and cafes on the sea-front in the pouring rain.
The Q and A session went well. I introduced Boris in the following terms: "Boris, as you know, ladies and gentlemen, has a tough fight on his hands in Henley and he knows that his chances will be improved the more he stays away from his constituency"
Boris, in turn, asked the audience to vote for me. "We are" he thundered, "committed as a party to providing the best possible care for the elderly so what could be more appropriate than sending my father to a comfortable retirement home in Westminster?"
Boris, of course, as befits a senior politician knows how to rise to the occasion. He brought a tie with him and put it on before we took the stage. He also answered a tricky question about air-craft carriers, continued availability of, from a naval gentleman in the audience with immense aplomb, indicating that while he could of course check the finer details of his response with Nicholas Soames, he was pretty confident that the defence of the realm would be a high priority for a Conservative government.
From my point of view, the most awkward moment came when Tim Hall of the Teignmouth Post accused me of writing in this Channel 4 blog that I wouldn't "do much" if I was elected to Parliament. I had to point out to Tim that I had actually said that, in an age when we were absolutely smothered by unnecessary rules and regulations, I hoped to do "not too much - in the sense, as the ancient Greeks put it, of meden agan." I hope Tim found this enlightening.
After the Q and A session, we drove up the Teign to Newton Abbot. While we were as usual stuck in the traffic on the approach to the Pen Inn roundabout, my mobile telephone rang and I answered it. It was Fiona Campbell, a Newsnight producer. Newsnight had been filming Boris on his day out. Because of the weather, their helicopter had been grounded so they were in the car behind, also stuck. Poor things.
"Give them a blast on the loud-speaker," Fiona urged. "Tell them to watch Newsnight tonight."
So I did precisely that. "VOTE CONSERVATIVE. WATCH NEWSNIGHT TONIGHT."
If Tim Hall of the Teignmouth Post had been in the car, I could have told him that the Greeks would have called that anacolouthon, a phrase which doesn't follow on from what has gone before..
I told Lauren Booth instead. She wasn't very interested. "Anna who?"
Lauren is delightful. As I prepared for the needle squash match by having a quick half of shandy in the crowded noisy bar of the Newton Abbot Squash Club, I told her she was quite different from her half-sister, Cherie.
"We have different bums," she agreed.
"What kind of a bum does Cherie have?" I asked.
"I said 'mums', not'bums'." I'm glad we sorted that out.
Here is a picture of me with Lauren Booth.
...with Lauren Booth
The father and son squash match has been well-reported in the press. The Today programme even alluded to it as the "key sporting event so far in the election campaign." I will therefore content myself with saying that it was, as I anticipated, a fiercely-fought contest. I lost the first two games, won the third and lost the fourth 8-10, at which point we called it a day.
The upside was that Boris was able to catch the 5.40 train. I would like to record here my gratitude to him. Conservatives are, as we all know, the party of the family and Boris certainly came up trumps.
Boris and Stanley playing squash at Newton Abbot.
Photo-credit Richard Austin
Thursday, 21 April
William Long, the Devon County candidate for Ipplepen, and I were canvassing in Abbotskerswell this afternoon when we bumped into Ruth Davey, the Editorial Director of the ‘Mid-Devon Advertiser’.
Actually Ruth spotted us coming. “Can’t stop” she said quickly, “I’m due at my daughter’s school.”
During an election campaign the local newspapers have to be scrupulously neutral, so of course we did not try to detain her. Happily, Ruth paused long enough for me to take a photograph. I do hope this will not compromise her, and the MDA’s, objectivity during the campaign. It is tremendously important that the local press should not be seen to favour one candidate over another.
Ruth Davey, Editorial Director of the Mid-Devon Advertiser, with William
Long, County Council candidate
Esther Rantzen was another who had serious doubts about the wisdom of being seen around town with the Conservative candidate. Esther was in Newton Abbot as the President of Childline, the charity which she founded about twenty years ago to encourage children to report people who were being nasty to them including, and perhaps especially, their parents.
I have known Esther a long time so I rang her to suggest she should spare some time to drive around the Teignbridge constituency with me.
“You can use the loud-speaker to tell people to vote Conservative” I suggested. “I don’t think I’m meant to use the loud-speaker when I’m driving the battle-bus though strictly speaking it’s not a mobile phone.”
Esther refused. “As President of Childline, I have to be strictly non-political.”
“Of course, Esther. I quite understand.”
Childline’s chief executive, Carole Easton, joined us for dinner at the Passage House, as did Andrew Gimson, the ‘Daly Telegraph’ Parliamentary sketch-writer who has come down to Devon to cover the charity demonstration squash-match which I am playing with Boris tomorrow.
After a couple of bottles of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and under Carole’s strict supervision, Esther finally agreed that I could include the following statement in my blog: “I am a floating voter and have not yet made up my mind which way to vote but I always enjoy your company.”
In the circumstances, I call that a ringing endorsement.
With Esther Rantzen
A couple of day’s ago I included in my blog a quotation which Jerry, the landlord of the Wild Goose, Combeinteignhead, had put up behind the bar. Popping into the Goose at lunch today with John Kirk, a reporter for the ‘Western Morning News’, I was delighted to see that Jerry had found another Quote of the Day.
This one, by Winston Churchill, read as follows: “Political ability is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.”
John Kirk said he had been reading my blog and that he had found it quite funny at first but that latterly I had been a bit serious.
Here is a little story to cheer John up. Yesterday, when John Clatworthy and I were busy knocking on doors in Cockwood, a man watched us at work. “You’re a great pair of knockers” he said.
Wednesday, 20 April
Our campaign team was taking a well-earned break in the Ship Inn, Cockwood (pronounced Cockood) when my mobile telephone rang. It was John Balment, the ‘Mid-Devon Advertiser’ veteran reporter. I have explained in an earlier blog that the local press carries an immense amount of weight in these parts, much more than, to pick at random, ‘The Guardian’.
I went outside to take it. It was pretty noisy inside. A band of supporters had gathered at the pub earlier to greet us and had stayed on to have lunch.
“Can I ask you a question?” John asked. “How do you spell Teignbridge?”
I gave him the agreed and approved answer. T.E.I.G.N.B.R.I.D.G.E.
“Well, you’ve left out the D in one of your pieces of campaign literature which was delivered through my door yesterday.”
The good news, as far as I was concerned was that my sacks of campaign literature are being delivered and not dumped in hedgerows.
I countered: “Glad you’re reading my stuff so carefully!”
There was worse to come. Did I know, John asked, that the same document said that Conservatives believed in “more talk, less action.”?
I can be pretty stuffy if I have to. “Well, John, if you’re going to concentrate on minor typos...”
I had no sooner sat down, when my telephone rang again. It was a man from ‘The Guardian’ called Simon. I greeted him warmly. Until given reason to think otherwise, as I have indicated earlier, I hold journalists in high esteem. Some of my best children are journalists.
“Ah, the ‘Manchester Guardian’!”
“Actually, we’re not called the ‘Manchester Guardian’ any more.”
“I’m sure you were called that the last time I read it!”
As I write this blog, I am looking at the Diary column of today’s ‘Guardian’, under Simon Goodley’s byline.
Simon repeats with some relish the story of the minor typos. Coming from the newspaper famously known as the “Grauniad,” that’s a bit rich!
Helpfully, he also mentions that tomorrow (April 22) Boris and I are playing in a demonstration squash match in aid of the Newton Abbot Recreational Trust. This is true. Last night, I had a practice match with Paul Lennox who runs the Club.
“Can’t we use the red-spot ball” I asked as we went onto the court.
Paul insisted that we use the slower yellow-spot ball and I had to agree. We are after all trying to thrash the Lib-Dems down here.
On the whole it was a good day’s campaigning. Tim Collins joined us in Dawlish in the afternoon.
Tim is the Shadow Secretary of State for Education so I asked him if he wanted to visit a hospital. We are still having trouble with the closure of the Minor Injuries Unit at the Community Hospital here in Dawlish and I am worried it will be shut after our game of squash tomorrow.
But Tim said he preferred to visit a school. John Clatworthy, who sits on the Devon County Council and is currently a candidate for re-election, quickly rustled one up and we spent a most blissful hour with a class of eight-year-olds at the Cockwood Primary School, overlooking the Exe Estuary.
A most blissful hour with a class of eight-year-olds at the Cockwood Primary School
The head teacher, Sue Jezzard, explained: “This is a small school, under 80 pupils. It may seem expensive, but when the children leave here they don’t go on to Special Needs. We don’t have to buy in the Educational Psychological Service.”
When I looked at those kids, so keen and clean, so busy and cheerful, I felt slightly emotional. Those kids have all their life ahead of them. It’s hardly fair to screw things up for them before they even start.
Tuesday, April 19
There was a notice saying “Quote of the Day” behind the bar in the Wild Goose, Combeinteignhead. The text read as follows: “Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of even more trivial men” The remark was ascribed to George Jean Nathan.
Jerry, the landlord, was unapologetic. “I thought it was appropriate for the campaigning season”.
I didn’t know why George Jean Nathan had it in for politicians, so later I googled him. Nathan, I discovered, who died in 1958 was the leading American drama critic of his time. He lived in a bachelor apartment at the Royalton Hotel for 45 years and had his own table at the 21 Club. Other Nathan Quotes produced by my search included:” I know many married men, I even know a few happily married men, but I don't know one who wouldn't fall down the first open coal hole running after the first pretty girl who gave him a wink”, and “I only drink to make other people seem interesting.”
One of the great joys of campaigning is the nuggets you turn up day after day. In Kingsteignton, I met Terence Curtis. Over 80 himself, he told me that his father had been in Iraq in the 1914-18 war. “Saddam Hussein might have been a nasty sod” he mused, “but so is Mr Blair.” He had joined the army at the age of 17 and had fought both in the Second World War and Korea. He had been a mate of Private Bill Speakman, who won a VC on Hill 217. “When Speakman ran out of ammo, he strangled the Chinese and beat their heads in with rocks.”
Terence Curtis might not have been in the George Jean Nathan class as far as quotable quotes go but he was worth listening to. “There’s too much education around nowadays” he told me. “You don’t need a certificate for common sense.”
I probably spent more time with Mr Curtis than I should have done as an efficient campaigner, but that is the way I prefer it. I like knocking on doors.
In a housing estate high above Teignmouth, I rang the bell of a house called The Haven and had a good talk with the lady who answered the door. I found out that her name was Mrs Martha Finch. I don’t like actually asking people straight out whether I can “count on” their vote. It seems a bit intrusive. In this transitory life, who can “count on” anything? But she was friendly enough. After we had talked for a few minutes, I marked her down as a P (for probable Conservative).
When I had left the Haven, I walked round the corner and rang the next door-bell. The person who answered the door seemed vaguely familiar. I think she must have recognized me too, or perhaps it was just the rather large blue rosette I have been wearing.
Thank God I remembered her name. “Mrs Finch? It is Mrs Finch, isn’t it?” Having first called at the front door, I had somehow managed to call at the back door of the same house. I was covered in confusion. “Don’t worry” she said, “you can ring my bell any time. And, yes, I will be voting Conservative.”The Green Shaldon.
Monday, April 18
Sunday lunch. Two short words with immense resonance. Like: more police, lower taxes, school discipline. The Western Morning News rang up just as we were sitting down.
“This is John Kirk. I hope this is a good time.”
“Perfect”.
As Jenny put the joint back in the oven, John told me that the WMN was doing a story on postal voting.
“Are you in favour of postal voting on demand?” he asked.
“Not after 24 weeks,” I replied. “Actually, I’d prefer to see a 20-week limit.”
More seriously, I told him that I had resisted all pressures to register for a postal vote in Dawlish. I was not old or infirm and I was not planning to be in Majorca on May 5. If the Conservative party was returned, we would be rewriting the rules on postal voting.
Voter fraud. Two short words.
On the whole, Sunday was a quiet day. Saturday was much busier, Hugo Swire, who has already featured in this blog as shadow minister for the arts, led a large friendly party of canvassers into Teignbridge from his East Devon constituency. In the jargon, this is known as “mutual aid”, but I don’t expect a Teignbridge team - given the fight we have on our hands here - to be crossing the Exe in a reverse direction. Janet Parrot, Teignbridge’s indefatigable chairman, came to Exminster to greet our guests and we spent a profitable morning stuffing leaflets in letter-boxes.
(From left) Janet Parrot, Jenny Johnson and Christine Drew,
By now I am quite an expert on letterboxes. I particularly dislike the ones fitted with hedgehog-prickle draft-excluders. It’s virtually impossible to push a leaflet through without scrunching it up and scraping one’s knuckles. Hugo, who canvassed that morning with Jenny and me, believes that the worst kind of letter-box is the one that has a dog behind it.
“It’s not the barking dog you have to worry about” Hugo explained. “It’s the one you can’t hear, who’s lying there just waiting for you to push your hand through.”
Sunday, April 17
I’m walking through a shopping street in Teignmouth with Celia Brown, who is standing for one of Teignmouth’s two seats on the Devon County Council, and Ken Lewis, whom I have already introduced.
As we cross the road at the lights, a man yells encouragement. “Go for it, Stanley!” Ken says: “If they make eye contact, you should try to engage them”.
I come upon a woman sitting in her car at the side of the road. The windows are up and she is looking at her face in the car mirror. Not really eye contact, but still.
I tap gently on the window. She winds it down a crack. “I wanted to let you know I’m standing here” I say. She winds the window down some more. “I can see you’re standing there. I’m not blind”.We have lunch at the Bay Hotel on Teignmouth’s sea-front. I know the Bay Hotel. A few months several palm-trees were chopped down directly in front of the hotel. The proprietors of the hotel summoned the authorities.
Teignmouth seen from Shaldon.
The authorities, of course, in this case Teignbridge District Council, were precisely the ones who were causing the destruction. In due course we discovered that Teignmouth Town’s armorial bearings actually feature palm trees rampant. I put out a Press Release about “mindless vandalism” and for the time being the remaining palm trees are safe.
It seems to be my week for being interviewed by the BBC. A charming young reporter working for BBC Devon named Sarah Swadling came to the hotel to ask me some searching questions about how well I knew Teignbridge etc and how long it took me to drive to Exmoor.
“They asked me that at the selection meeting” I told her. “I told them it took me about an hour an a quarter if you allowed time to stop at the pub for a pint...”
When Sarah had gone, we were joined by Tim Hall, chief and indeed only reporter for both the Teignmouth Post and the Teignmouth News.
I don’t know whether I am influenced by the fact three of my six children are journalists, but on the whole I like journalists. I find that most of them tend to be lively, funny and pretty-well informed.
At election time it is not, paradoxically, the big journalistic cheeses- like Simon Jenkins and Polly Toynbee - who at the level of individual constituencies count the most.. For every 1000 people who read the Daily Telegraph in Newton Abbot, there are probably ten or twenty times that number who follow the local press.
This is a man, I thought, as I fetched Tim Hall a coffee, who has my political career in the palm of his hand. I better put up a good show.
Fortunately Tim lobbed me an easy one. “How do you find Teignbridge?” he asked. “Well, I usually take the M5 to Exeter, then the A38 and the A380 before turning off on the A3192 to Teignmouth.”
Saturday, April 16A perfect morning. At 10 am I handed in my nomination papers, duly signed and witnessed to Teignbridge’s acting returning officer, so now I am the official candidate. The count will take place at Newton Abbot race-course with 70 tellers and the result expected around 3.30 a.m on May 6.
After that, Ken Lewis drove me in the battle-bus to Blackslade Farm, above Widecombe. Blackslade Farm is owned by Reg and Kim Paley. At about 11.30am, Kim and I rode across the moor to a rendez-vous with the press and public and, just as important, the Conservatives’ shadow agriculture minister, James Paice.
I explained in an earlier blog that I had met Rod and Elizabeth Newbolt-Young, also of Widecombe, who had founded the Dartmoor Pony Heritage Trust with the aim of helping to prevent the extinction of the Dartmoor pony in the wild. The Newbolt-Youngs themselves have a herd of around 20 ponies on the moor and agreed to make sure that more than a handful reached the RV at the appointed time.
“There are fewer wild Dartmoor ponies than there are giant pandas in China” Rod had told me when I first met him. It is always satisfying when arrangements work out. As I came over the hill on my native-bred mare Cracker, I could see in the distance the cars and Land Rovers already gathered at the side of the road beside a huge VOTE JOHNSON poster.
If we could see them, they could see us. There was a distinctly Lone Ranger feel to the thing as we rode down off the crest. The press had turned up in force. Maybe I should ride a horse more often. “Take of your hat and wave it!” One of the photographers called.
With shadow agriculture minister Jim Paice.
I was wearing an Australian bush-hat which my daughter Julia gave me for my last birthday, so I duly obliged. When James Paice arrived at the RV, in the company of Conservative area campaign director Michael Dolley and a colleague, Jack Lopresti, there was some serious business to attend to.
The previous day the Labour Party had published its manifesto contained just 320 words on the countryside. Thursday’s (April 14) Western Morning News, a newspaper which has campaigned hard on rural issues, carried a front-page story by Jason Groves, reporting me as saying that the failure to address issues such as bovine TB represented a “dreadful dereliction of duty by the Labour party”. I had apparently gone on to say that the government “has a scandalous attitude to rural affairs and the sooner people rise up against them and boot them out the better.” Thanks, Jason. I couldn’t have put it better myself!
If you wanted to hear things from the horse’s mouth, there were plenty of horses around. The Newbolt-Youngs herd trotted up precisely on schedule. Kim Paley and I sat firm in the saddle. Kim has a very good seat, much better than mine. On the other hand, if you have a high horse you may as well sit on it.
The shadow minister did a great job. His constituency is (or was until parliament was dissolved) South-East Cambridgeshire, which is about as flat as country can get, but he didn’t seem at all daunted by Dartmoor’s granite peaks. I have not yet seen today’s papers since I am writing this blog at 4.30 a.m, but I suspect there will be a paragraph or two.
Apart from the Dartmoor pony issue, Mr Paice had his ear bent by local farmers on the subject of bovine TB and in my hearing gave a firm commitment that a Conservative government would authorize a cull of infected badgers. Given the extent of the bovine TB crisis in the region, this should have been very welcome news to all and sundry, including the badgers. If you’re a badger, I suspect that there is nothing worse than dying a lingering death from TB.
We dispersed just as a storm was about to break and enjoyed a well-earned lunch at the Rugglestone Inn, Widecombe.
Mike Dolley and Jack Lopresti at the Rugglestone Inn, Widecombe.
Friday, April 15
I have finally written my election address. Here it is. No photo, because computer has crashed
"The reason I have gone back into politics is my conviction that the
Labour Government, under Tony Blair, is not fit to run this country.
The Labour Government has torn up the British Constitution, with its lies and evasions over Iraq, its scandalous readiness to jettison our hard-won constitutional safeguards, such as Habeas Corpus and the right to trial by jury, and with its vindictive attack on hunting.
It has raised the burden of taxation by an amazing £5000 per household. It has imposed a crippling array of unnecessary rules and regulations on business and on individuals and, to make matters worse, intends to sign up to the Single Currency and the European Constitution. The Liberal Democrats would go even further. They want a fully-fledged "Euro-State"!
If you want to get rid of Mr Blair, vote Conservative. It simply doesn't make sense to vote any other way. But there are any number of positive reasons as well for voting Conservative in the coming election. A Conservative Government offers lower taxes, including a
reduction of up to £500 for pensioners paying Council tax - a vital
consideration in Teignbridge with so many retired and elderly people.
We will increase pensions in line with earnings. We want value for money in the public services, with cleaner hospitals and more police. We shall restore discipline in schools and cut teachers'
paperwork. We shall control immigration under a system that helps genuine refugees and gives priority to those who want to work hard and make a genuine contribution to our country.
As a life-long environmentalist, I applaud Conservative plans to oppose a rash of telephone masts, wind farms, and travellers' sites as well as John Prescott's insane proposals for massive housing developments in green-belt and other rural areas. And nowhere are these environmental issues more important than in a constituency like Teignbridge which must by any measure rate as one of the most beautiful in the country.
Above all, Conservatives are pledged to oppose the Single European Currency and the European Constitution which probably represent one of the most significant threats to our independence which we have seen for a thousand years.
So please vote Conservative on May 5th - LET'S GET OUR COUNTRY BACK
Thursday, April 14
For the record, your honour, the attached photograph is of Ken Lewis and Audrey Warren.
Ken has very kindly been acting as my driver. He is currently the Deputy Mayor of Newton Abbot (the Mayor being Reg Wills who, as I have already mentioned, has created quite a stir by standing as a Liberal against the Liberal Democrat candidate, Mr Younger-Ross).
Ken Lewis and Audrey Warren.
Ken is also Mayor-Presumptive of Newton Abbot and will succeed Cllr Wills at Newton Abbot’s “Night of the Mayor-Making” almost immediately after the election on May 5th.
I first met Ken during the battle (not yet won) to keep Newton Abbot’s main Post Office from being relocated in Crosscutters, 500 yards away from its current site. (As a Conservative on the Town Council, he was leading the fight against the proposal). Now I have time to get to know him better as we drive through the streets of Newton Abbot.
We used the loud-speaker once or twice on the first full day of campaigning but latterly we have lapsed into silence as a lead seems to have come off the amplifier.
Ken who has lived here a long time is a mine of information. As we drive, he tells me things that even an active, totally dedicated candidate could not be expected to know. For example, as we are going from Newton Abbot to Chudleigh via Teigngrace the other morning, we pass a little-used railway line.
“This is the siding they keep for the Royal Train in case the Queen has to spend the night in Newton Abbot,” he tells me.
The other person in the photograph is Audrey Warren. Audrey is the Teignbridge Conservative Association’s agent. She used to be Chairman of the Association before she was promoted to Agent. Audrey knows everything and everyone. She is a legendary workaholic. I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that I did an early recorded interview with the BBC’s World at One. This involved going to the Palace Hotel, Torquay at 7.45 a.m.
I had by mistake mislaid the names of the BBC team I was meant to be meeting in the office at Newton Abbot. I rang Audrey (at around 7.30 a.m.) on the off-chance she might be in the office. She was.
Audrey has taken to saying “Stanley Johnson’s Campaign Headquarters” when she answers the phone which gives me a bit of a kick. I feel like Monty before the battle of El Alamein.
“You’re in early,” I say.
“I’ve been here all night..”
This is by no means unusual. Audrey will work as many hours as it takes and then double it. She was Conservative Agent of the Year more than ten years ago. I’d create a new category: Agent of the Decade!
Recently, Audrey has been going on at me about my election address.
“What’s wrong with my election address, Audrey?” I say playing for time. “Shell Cove, Dawlish is a perfect location.”
She wagged her finger at me. “Don’t wriggle. I mean the election address you’re meant to be writing for the electors of Teignbridge. Your MESSAGE to the VOTERS. We have to get on with it. Even if the Post Office is going to deliver them free, the address still has to be printed and folded and addressed. 88,000 of them.”
This is another operation Audrey will master-mind amid all the other things she has to do such as finding some-one to fix the loud-speaker on the battle-bus.
I surrendered gracefully. “Oh, you mean that election address… I’ll get on with it”
“Good boy”
Audrey smiles and bustles off to get me a cup of tea. She belongs to the old school. She doesn’t see anything wrong with fetching a chap a cup of tea from time to time.
Wednesday, April 13
The South West Conservatives meet the Conservatories of
the South West
At 7.45 this morning, I was interviewed by World at One who were doing a profile on Teignbridge for the lunch-time slot. Having failed to listen to the programme at the time (I was in the Castle Inn at Holcombe with my Dawlish O-Group), I thought I would try the Listen Again facility on the BBC website.
I spoke to my wife on the telephone. She had heard the item.
“How did I come across?” I asked.
“A bit breathless”.
Jenny said the Teignbridge segment (which included interviews with the main candidates, as well as the newly-declared Liberal candidate, Newton Abbot Mayor Reg Mills) came about half-way through the hour-long programme, so after I had cleared up the fish-fingers, I sat down in front of the computer. Breathless, huh! I thought.
The Listen Again controls only permit you to move the tape in segments of either one or fifteen minutes. You either overshoot or you undershoot. Forward, not back, I muttered furiously to myself when for the third or fourth time I found myself at square one.
For sheer emptiness, for absolute total vacuity, the slogan “forward not back” really takes the biscuit. As I was driving across Devon last Saturday morning after my stint in the Strand in Dawlish with John Clatworthy, I listened to the broadcast nuptials of Charles and Camilla. The press did a lot of harumphing when they discovered, apparently for the first time, the words of the General Confession. “Charles to confess to adultery” they chorused, headlining their own interpretation of the wonderful rolling phrases of the Book of Common Prayer.. “We do earnestly repent and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings..”
Well, I’ve decided that I’m also heartily sorry for the way so many ritually assume going forward is better than going back. The liturgy of the recent nuptials was a wondrous exception. On the whole nowadays the Church of England rushes to discard ancient forms. If it hadn’t, for example, been so obsessed with “going forward”, we wouldn’t all be making the sign of peace and Prince Charles would never have had to shake hands with Mugabe.
Talking of fish-fingers, I remember the time I was first selected as a Parliamentary candidate. It was in Spring 1979 and I was being interviewed in Gosport as a prospective MEP for East Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. The EEC (as the EU was then called) was not altogether popular even then. People already sensed the potential for bossiness, for needless interference.
But I was looking ahead to the asparagus festival in Strasbourg and did my best to defend the institution. When a lady on the selection committee asked me: “Why on earth does the EEC worry about how much cream there is in ice-cream”, I replied: “I am sure you, Madam, would be worried if there were fingers in fish-fingers.”
Tuesday, April 12
Some thoughts about campaigning
1. It’s easy to get the wrong end of the stick.
“There’s a 78 year old man at 66 Aplegarth Road wants to see you” Jane Stovin, former Mayor of Newton Abbot and Chairman of the Teignbridge Conservative Association told me. In the event I called on a 66 year-old man at 78 Appelgarth Avenue and had to try again.
Another example. Over lunch in the Bishop Lacey at Chudleigh, Jerry Brook, our candidate for the Devon County Council, was talking to me with a rapturous expression on his face. “She’s so well designed, perfect ligaments, fantastic converter.”
“What are you talking about, Jerry? Your wife? Your new car?”
No, Jerry who was brought up on a farm and works with the Devon dairy industry is talking about Buttercup, his prize cow, who yields 13,000 litres a year of milk. If you can run 300 cows like Buttercup, Jerrry says, you can make money even with milk 18 p a litre at the farm gate. “Don’t tell the NFU, mind!”
2. You learn things and get angry.
For example, did you know that under new rules window-cleaners (a) have to keep both hands on the ladder and (b) have to have someone hold the ladder all the time they are on it?
Lots of window-cleaners have been put out of business. Those that survive have had to invest heavily. One of the remaining window-cleaners, standing beside his van in Chudleigh’s main street, explained it to me. “Basically, you can’t get insurance. If I’m up a ladder and fall on you as you’re walking past, you can sue me.”
“So you only clean the ground-floor widows?”
“No, I’ve got these high pressure hoses with extendable brushes, hooked up to a 1000 litre tank. Cost £1000 for the hose-system and another £14,000 for a van strong enough to cart all that water around..”
I can’t help thinking the world has gone mad.
“Do you blame the EU?” I asked.
“And the insurance companies. They should fight this kind of thing.”
I blame the judges too, I think, for allowing the compensation culture to take root and flourish like the bay tree.
3. You learn more and get angrier.
Another example. In addition to the main towns, such as Newton Abbot, Dawlish, Teignmouth, Chudleigh, Teignbridge has scores of villages. In many of these villages, the continued existence of the village hall is under threat as a result of the crippling expenditures which have to be occurred if these establishments are to meet health and safety standards. The costs can sometimes run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. I know of one village which has so far spent £30,000 (as much as it actually cost to build the village hall in the 1950s) preparing a feasibility study to enable it to come into line with new requirements.
An inspector came to look at the new plans and threw them out because the village puts on amateur dramatics from time to time and there was no provision for wheel-chair access to the stage!
Another one of the things you notice is the huge increase in the number of wheelie-bins. Attracted by substantial rewards offered by government, Teignbridge is taking the recycling business very seriously. Even in relatively low density housing developments, the bins seem to take up most of the available space. I shudder to think what it must be like for old ladies in small flats to have to sort the paper, plastic, tins and food waste into as many as four or five different bulky containers.
Which brings me to CENTRAX, one of Newton Abbot’s main employers. At the end of the day, at the invitation of CENTRAX bosses, I toured the plant in the company of Oliver Letwin, the Conservative Shadow Chancellor who very kindly made a flying visit to the constituency..
Oliver Letwin, SPJ and CENTRAX key staff
CENTRAX makes turbines for use in aeroplanes and combined heat and power systems. CHP is tremendously important because it uses methane gas from landfill. It would be ironic, I think, if all this recycling led to a shortage of methane.
I put the problem to Jerry Brook. He ruminated. “Cows give out a lot of methane. Maybe they could tap into that.”
Sunday, April 10One of the advantages of having a flat on the coast at Shell Cove, Dawlish, is that it is only a stone’s throw from the Smugglers Inn, so I am never tempted to drink and drive. In any case I enjoy the walk. Soon after I was selected as the candidate for Teignbridge, I walked around 70 miles along the Two Moors Way from Exmoor to Dartmoor.
“Why on earth do you want to do that?” the Teignbridge Conservative Association agent Audrey Warren(of whom much more later) asked me when I told her of my plan.
“To prove I live within easy walking distance of the constituency” I replied.
I found John Clatworthy, our Dawlish County Council candidate, already at the bar when I arrived, with two members of Conservative Future, the organization which took over from the Young Conservatives. People are always asking us older candidates how we propose to relate to youth. Working with Conservative Future is part of the answer.
In this particular instance both the young men were called Paul. Paul Langan had a Master’s degree in astro-physics and was clearly a genius. Paul O’Leary was no less impressive. Last autumn he invited me to give a talk about the Brazilian rain-forest to the sixth-form at Torquay Boy’s Grammar School which, I believe, went off rather well. Now he told us the good news that he had been accepted by the London School of Economics to read politics.
John Clatworthy, a Chartered Surveyor by profession, began to reminisce about his early life in London.
“The firm I worked for was based in Kingsway, near the LSE. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office was also in Kingsway at the time. I remember queuing to buy the Denning Report about Profumo and so forth in September 1973. It was a very juicy document. What did Christine Keeler say? Life is better under the Conservatives? That’s a slogan we could use!””
John was still in fine form when, less than twelve hours later, we stood in the Strand in Dawlish handing out leaflets to passers-by. I would say that on the whole we were warmly received. At one point the Liberal Democrat candidate, Mr Richard Younger-Ross came by and I wanted to take a picture of him for this blog, but by the time I had got the camera ready, he had whistled on saying his meter was running out.
Is Mr Younger-Ross’s meter running out? Frankly, there is no way of telling at this stage. People are very polite when you greet them and mostly they take the proferred literature. Some of them greet me enthusiastically and say “hello, Boris.” A photographer from a local newsagency came by a took a picture at precisely the moment when an old lady was shaking my hand and saying: “Is it true that Boris Johnson is your father?”
On the campaign trail - credit Marc Hill Apex.
Well, at least I am being recognized along the campaign trail.
I have to admit there were a couple of blips during the morning’s canvassing. One man, when I handed him a leaflet, pushed it back at me saying “We spent 17 years getting rid of you lot.”.
On another occasion, John Clatworthy spotted a middle aged-couple coming towards us.
“May I give you one?” he asked the woman.
“That’s no way to address a lady!” her husband snapped, moving her along.
Saturday, April 9
I am writing this at 8 a.m on the balcony of my place on the coast between Dawlish and Teignmouth. My flat is in a beautiful Georgian house whose lawns sweep down to the edge of those dramatic red sandstone cliffs. The sea is calm and the sun is shining. Prince Charles has picked a good day to get married.
An hour or two from now I am going to be out in the Strand with Devon County Councillor John Clatworthy handing out leaflets. Whether the RoyalWedding will keep the punters indoors remains to be seen. I went to canvass for the Conservative candidate in the Leicester by-election one Saturday afternoon last June only to find that my efforts exactly coincided with the final of the Wimbledon Ladies Singles where the stunning Maria Sharapova was mesmerizing millions.
“I’m calling on behalf of the Conservative candidate” I would say.
“Why don’t you xxxx off?”
Sometimes the person who answered the door was good enough to tell me how the match was progressing, but on the whole it was not a productive afternoon.
Talking of campaigning, a few days ago I sent an email to Anne Robinson inviting her to join me on the Teignbridge battle-bus. Because we all nowadays know that we should not say in private something we are not prepared to say in public, Anne has very kindly sent me a reply courtesy of her Diary in today’s (Saturday April 9th) Daily Telegraph.
For those who have not yet read had a chance to read the Telegraph, the item reads as follows. Anne writes:
I most certainly was not conveying an air of effortless chic when I allowed myself to be photographed after a long sweaty walk on Exmoor with my friend Stanley Johnson last summer.
Stanley Johnson & Anne Robinson
But Stanley now e-mails to suggest that the sight of us together would do wonders for his chances as the Tory candidate in Teignmouth and may he use the picture on his election address?
I'm not so sure, but Stanley, never one to miss a trick, adds: "Any chance of you joining me for an hour or two on the battlebus as we sweep through Devon with our loud-speaker blaring? I could offer you a slap-up dinner at the Nobody Inn, Doddiscombeleigh, which I won in a raffle."
The invitation is almost irresistible. Stanley, father of Boris, is, as far as I know, the only new candidate for any of the main parties who is 60-plus and who the last time we met was still delightfully unsure of the correct way to pronounce the name of the constituency that he was hoping to represent.
All ways round, it was extremely imaginative of Teignmouth to choose him. The Tories of Thanet South - previously represented by Jonathan Aitken - whom earlier last year Stanley had tried to seduce, were less impressed. Perhaps because, when asked at his interview to tell the panel what he knew about Ramsgate, Stanley, unable to forgo the chance of a good joke, replied: "You've stumped me there."
Now of course I am thrilled and delighted that Anne has found some material for her column in my email and am only to happy to return the compliment. She is a wonderful, funny person and I have no idea why some of the contestants on her show The Weakest Link seem to have found it a daunting experience. I do, however, have a couple of quibbles.
I’m sure I never said the name of the constituency I am fighting is Teignmouth. I know perfectly well it is Teignbridge. Also, the dinner for two at the Nobody Inn, Doddiscombeleigh was not a raffle-prize. I paid £75 for it at auction at the Teignbridge Conservative Association’s Bump Supper where the star guest speaker was David Cameron, MP, the Conservative Party policy supremo.
As for my being the oldest new candidate for any of the main parties, have I got news for you, Anne? My record is about to be broken, yes, right here in Teignbridge. The current Mayor of Newton Abbot, Cllr Reg Wills, an immensely sprightly 80+ year-old, has thrown his hat into the ring as a Liberal, yes, Liberal, making it a five-horse race (we have a UKIP candidate too).
The report goes on: “Mayor Wills, who in the past has served on Teignbridge District Council and for a short while at County Hall, is putting up against the sitting Liberal Democrat MP Richard Younger- Ross. A Newtonian born and bred, he was Chairman of the old Newton Abbot Urban Council in 1969……His aim, he says, is to put forward real Liberal policies, not what he terms as ill-considered Lib Dem proposals of local income tax. He describes that as a pie in the sky dream which would turn into a nightmare.”
The article goes on to point out that Mayor Wills maintains that the Liberals “do not want to go further into the mire in Europe. Equally worrying is their record when they do obtain power as witnessed in Torbay, where the Liberals gave themselves a massive pay rise and cut services.”
With enemies like these, who needs friends?
Friday, April 8
I was speaking to a hard-of-hearing taxi driver on the way to Paddington about the dissolution of Parliament. “I’m pretty disillusioned too” he said. “Dissolution” I persisted. He took the point at last. “They’re a dissolute lot, guv, aren’t they?”
I’m sure MPs learn to live with this kind of thing but if you’re a novice it can put you off your stroke.
We passed one of those giant yellow Labour posters telling of Conservative plans to cut £35 billion from the public services. The Conservatives have protested that these posters are an outright lie. I have personally heard Oliver Letwin painstakingly explain the point to a group of candidates at the Conservative Party’s recent Spring Conference in Brighton. We are not cutting spending on public services. We are merely cutting the rate at which such spending will grow as compared to Labour’s plans. Geddit?
I pointed this out to my friendly taxi-driver. “I’d get up there with a paint-brush and write ‘NOT NEARLY ENOUGH’ on the bloody thing” he said. “You may think that. I couldn’t possibly comment” I answered. Whatever our views, we candidates should never say in private what we’re not ready to say in public. I very much agree with Michael Howard on this point.
Michael Howard with Stanley Johnson
And of course, with the recent ‘disillusion’ of Parliament, we are all candidates now. As the late great Lord Denning might have put it, however mighty we are in terms of the office we hold, however safe, or marginal the seat we are fighting, the starting-gun has in the eyes of the law, made us all equal. As from today, there are no Members of Parliament. Not a single solitary MP. Westminster is shut for business.
I suspect there are quite a few people up and down the country who would like to see MPs take a much more permanent break. They would like to have some respite from the tsunami of laws, rules and petty-fogging regulations that our elected representatives inflict on us, day after day, year after year. My own view is that they have a good point.
Over the next few weeks of campaigning in Teignbridge, I am sure I will have the opportunity to say a word or two here and there. If anyone asks me what I am planning to do in Westminster if I am lucky enough to be elected, I shall reply: “Not too much, I hope.”
Thursday, April 7
It was too late to get back to Devon after the launch of the Conservative party’s policy on the arts, so Jenny and I joined Lynton Crosby and his wife at Quentin’s for dinner. Quentin stands for Quentin Crewe, a brilliant eclectic man who overcame severe disability (when I knew him he was confined to a wheel-chair) to shine in many fields: writer, tireless traveller and in this case restaurant owner. There is a photograph outside the loo downstairs which shows him sitting in his wheelchair, surrounded by two of his wives, six of his children and, for extra viewing pleasure, Bamber Gascoigne.
Talking of loos, the other day I had to go to Oxford to pick up my youngest son, Max, and his assorted luggage at the end of term. Availing myself of the facilities in the basement of Christ Church’s Staircase II, I was surprised to see a notice: Please flush the toilets! Is this the sort of thing students are taught at Oxford nowadays? I am sure there is a punchy political point here, though for the moment I am not sure what it is.
Talking of Oxford, as I turned on my computer to write this blog, I saw an email- message from Laura Poots enclosing some photos. I should explain that Laura was last term’s President of the Oxford Union. She invited me to give a speech in the Union opposing animal testing for medical research. Our side lost heavily!
The result was much closer in May 1986, the last time I spoke at the Union. My oldest son, Boris, was president of the Union at the time. The Chernobyl disaster had just occurred. Boris rang me in Brussels two days before the debate was due to take place. “I’m running into trouble finding a speaker” he said “What’s the topic?” I asked. “ ’This House believes that nuclear power is both safe and essential’ I’d like you to propose the motion!”
Well, I helped out then and Boris is helping me out now, down in Devon. He has already spoken brilliantly for me in Dawlish (how many other languages can he speak? a Polish friend of mine asked) and on Friday April 22, he and I are playing a demonstration squash match in Newton Abbot in aid of a local charity. Watch this space!
Back to nuclear power. As a life-long environmentalist, I remain convinced that nuclear power will soon have to be revisited as an energy option. If we don’t we shall have wind-turbines twice as high as St Paul’s cathedral sprouting in our back-yards, not to speak of the desecration caused to this country’s remaining open spaces. Down on Dartmoor (one-third of which lies within the Teignbridge constituency), this is a burning issue and one which will certainly feature in the election campaign in the South-West.
Reverting, finally, to that dinner with Lynton and Dawn Crosby. Lynton, as I mentioned in a previous blog, is the Conservative party’s election guru, the man who helped John Howard win four successive victories in Australia. Shortly after we sat down at our table we were joined by Rachel Whetstone, Michael Howard’s principal lieutenant.
Rachel’s energy and talents include a way with words, some of which doubtless feature in Michael Howard’s speeches. I have no idea whether or not Rachel was responsible for Michael’s characterisation of Mr Blair as “smirking” but the choice of that particular adjective set up a lively debate.
I found myself coming to Mr Blair’s defence, saying that a chap couldn’t help the way he looked, and smirking came naturally to him. My wife, Jenny, expressed the hope that the election would not sink to the level of nasty, personal attacks. As Jenny warmed to her theme, Lynton Crosby excused himself to take a call on his mobile.
Wednesday, April 6
Tuesday morning. April 5. Another visit to a retirement home in Newton Abbot. (Readers with long memories may recall I mentioned my first visit to such a home in my first blog.)
In D’Arcy Court, one old lady told me that she could no longer drive because they had forced her to take a driving test when she turned 82 (or was it 83?). Thank God no-one has asked me to sit the driving test again and I’m only 64.
Talking of which, another of the residents pointed out that if I was elected for Teignbridge on May 5 and wanted a place to live in the constituency, I could have the one-bedroom flat next to hers for a mere £150,000. I can see the headlines now in the Mid-Devon Advertiser: “Newly-elected MP moves into retirement” home!”
After that, I left the car at Tiverton Parkway (£3.50 for every 24 hours or part thereof) and caught the train to London for the launch of the Conservative Policy on the Arts in a private house in Thurloe Square. My oldest son, Boris, used to be the Shadow Minister for the Arts and Hugo Squire, his successor in title, sportingly credited him with having – with Maurice Saatchi - come up with the idea of having a party to launch the new policy. "The Boris and Morris Show", Hugo called it. Michael Howard was detained in Manchester but Sandra attended the event, as did a host of other luminaries including Shirley Bassey and Tim Rice. Frankly, our luvvies are just as good as their luvvies.
Stanley Johnson with Tim Rice and Shirley Bassey in London
Lynton Crosby, the Conservative party’s election supremo-cum-guru, fixed me a beady eye and exploded: "Why the xxxx aren’t you in your constituency campaigning?!"
Tuesday, April 5
On Easter Monday I was at the South Devon Hunt point-to-point at Black Forest Lodge, near Powderham in the Teignbridge constituency, when someone very kindly asked me to speak over the loud-speaker in the manner of a racing commentator. So I had great fun telling the crowd that the riders were under starter’s orders and soon they would be off and so on, taking care of course to keep strictly away from politics ("Ask yourselves," I urged "in a strictly objective way, which party is going to look after the interests of the countryside best, including bringing back hunting")
Well, the horses and riders are very definitely off now, a day later than planned, and it’s probably fair to say that they are fairly closely bunched as they come up to the first fence.
James Mates, ITN News’ star reporter, has been staying with my daughter Rachel and her husband, Ivo, and children in their neighbouring farmhouse on Exmoor. I once rode a motorcycle from Oxford across Asia on Marco Polo’s route, so – to bring back old memories - James very kindly lent me his 1200 cc Harley-Davidson motorcycle to drive down our track (two bumpy miles) to pick up the mail. There was just one letter for me, from David McLean, Conservative Chief Whip, urging candidates, if they were elected, not to bother the Whips’ Office with telephone calls after May 5. “Anything you need to know is contained in this letter”, David advised sternly. I am guarding the letter carefully just in case I need it.
I spent Monday afternoon on Dartmoor investigating the plight of the Dartmoor pony. Unbelievably, this once plentiful breed is down to a mere 300 in the wild. The Western Morning News has been running a splendid campaign to highlight the plight of these animals. There are probably more wild giant pandas than there are wild Dartmoor ponies.
Happily there are people in Devon, like Rod and Elizabeth Newbolt-Young of Widecombe, who are determined to claw the breed back from the brink. I’m game for any excuse to go up onto Dartmoor. Stopping the projected wind farms and phone-masts seem to me to be wholly desirable objectives. Saving the Dartmoor pony is more than a good cause; it’s a vocation.
In the evening, I went to the Brunswick Arms in Dawlish to meet Brian Heath the Chairman of the Dawlish Carnival. Each year, on a mid-August Saturday, around 60,000 people will converge on Dawlish to witness, amongst other things, a fly-past by the famous Red Arrows. Brian is having a long battle with the head of the local police who wants his men to be paid £45 an hour for policing the Carnival. Brian argues that we already pay for the police through the rates, so why should we pay twice?
Monday, April 4On Sunday I went to a Conservative lunch in a private house in Bovey Tracey. I’ve had a home in the West Country all my life and what appeals to me most is the rhythm of the region. Even with an election approaching, there’s no need to rush around in an undignified scramble. That’s not how they do things in Devon.
The candidate always has to speak on these occasions, somewhere between the pudding and the coffee. I found myself talking about Pope John Paul II. He was not just a spiritual leader, he was a political giant as well.
As a matter of fact, I had a very personal reason for paying tribute to the late Pope. In November 1980, together with several other Conservative Members of the European Parliament, I had the honour of being presented to the Pope in his apartment in the Vatican.
I was accompanied by my wife, Jenny, though we were not married at the time. Sir James Scott-Hopkins, who was the leader of the Conservative MEPs, introduced me, saying “Your Holiness, this is Mr Johnson” and we shook hands.
But Sir James was rather at a loss as to how to introduce Jenny and he stammered out..”And this is ..er..er. In point of fact…” At which point the Pope intervened. “Well, this is Mrs Johnson, I presume?” After that, when we were visiting the Sistine Chapel, I said to Jenny that I thought we probably ought to take the hint.
One of the things about being, how shall I put it?, a relatively mature candidate is that people want to be sure you can stand the pace. On Friday I visited a retirement home in Newton Abbot and was pleased when one of the residents confided that she had been impressed by my running in the famous Newton Abbot pancake race on Shrove Tuesday.
“You were very good,” the old lady said. “Are you a practiced tosser”?
I think the next few weeks along the campaign trail should be a load of fun.