12 May 2009

Norman Tebbit

Norman Tebbit has been the voice of the right of the Consrvative Party for some time. As David Cameron has done the sensible thing and moved the agenda to the centre ground and reinvigorated the party's commitment to localism and social justice he has sounded more and more remote.

Today he has suggested that people should vote for anyone other than the three major parties in the Euro elections and obviously a number of people in the party are a little peeved, with some, including Conservative Home suggesting he should have the whip removed.

Tactically this might be a sensible thing to do. It would provide a significant signal that the Conservatives have moved on. But, we are also a party that has accomodated a range of views and opinions and it is healthy to have a voice that offers challenge and debate from within. Norman Tebbit has done that successfully for a long time and I think it would be wrong to ditch him as a result.


However, the Conservatives do need to make sure that the message about leaving the EPP gets out to the electorate though as a way of countering the threat from UKIP and showing that we are taking a solid, practical Eurosceptic stance. It may also be sensible to look at the facts behind these allegations about UKIP's accounts.

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