Published: Thursday, 29th May, 2008 13:00
Rob Wilson's Westminster Diary
By Rob Wilson, MP for Reading East
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Reading East MP Rob Wilson
THE big talking point at Westminster for the past fortnight has been the Crewe and Nantwich by-election.
It had been a traditional working class Labour stronghold under its formidable MP of 25 years Gwyneth Dunwoody.
Initially the talk was of who would come second to Labour, then perhaps the Conservatives could sneak a result and finally that we would win by a mile.
I have to be honest here, normally I am a pretty good at predicting election results, but I got this one wrong.
I went up to Crewe on several occasions and I just didn’t see the landslide coming.
This may have been because I was based in Crewe itself rather than Nantwich, which is more traditionally Conservative, or it may have been that I couldn’t bring myself to believe what was happening!
I knew that Brown was loathed by the public, but I still didn’t expect what happened.
I suppose it merely confirmed the local election results, the London Mayoral result and our results in Reading which confirmed that people have had enough, and are crossing directly from Labour to Conservative in large numbers, forgetting to stop with the Lib Dems as a protest vote.
According to pollsters it would mean that Labour is down to about 100 seats, but I don’t believe this either, as there is still a long way to go before a General Election and a lot for us Conservatives to prove.
Conservatives are not triumphalist, we’ll leave that to Neil Kinnock, who sneered last autumn (when he thought Labour could win another election) that Conservatives should be “ground into the dust”.
I do however think that there will be large differentials in regional votes at the General Election.
For example, I believe Labour seats in the South East with under 8,000 plus majorities are vulnerable regardless of what happens, but this won’t be necessarily true elsewhere in the country.
Where Labour’s policy of high taxation and wasteful spending has hit middle income families hardest (ie the south east) there will be the biggest rebellion.
The result will be made worse if Labour continues its retreat into class warfare.
Sneering at people who have done well in life is not what people want from a Government.
The idea that if you went to a good school it somehow disqualifies you from being a person of good character is idiotic.
Most families aspire for their children to go to good schools and improve their prospects in life, and they want a government to recognise that and get on with delivering it.
But after 11 years of declining social mobility, people now know and understand it can’t and won’t be delivered by Labour.
Even the idea that Labour truly cares about the poor has disappeared with its abolition of the 10p tax rate.
It is difficult to extrapolate much from one by-election, but the Crewe and Nantwich result does genuinely look like a signpost to a Conservative victory at the next General Election.
Will Labour boot Brown out?
If there is no improvement then I think it will, but I don’t think the result at the next general election will be much affected now, whoever they have at the top.
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