Defection Elections; what will Mr Cameron say?

I think it's about time I started blogging more again. I recently found a quote from Lord Acton that was very apposite - "Learn more by writing than by reading". So since he was a bit of a hero of mine I think I should put his exhortation to the test.

Later this week we will be treated to the denouement of the worst kept secret in Oxford politics, likely to break this coming Thursday we are told. Two of last year's defectors from the Lib Dem group on the City Council are apparently about to take another step away from their constituents' wishes and sign up to become the first Conservative Group on Oxford City Council since 1996. The story goes that they are to be joined by a third, possibly a Green councillor, though that remains to be seen. It would make life difficult for the ex-Lib Dems, for from what I can see the only way Cllrs Sargent and MacGregor are ever going to have fancy titles like "Group Leader" and "Deputy Group Leader" is if they are part of a group of precisely two.

Obviously the political headlines at the moment are dominated by the "battle" (though one suspects it might be a "rout" when the votes are counted) for who succeeds Blair as caretaker-manager of Air Strip One. Apparently Sargent and MacGregor may have delayed their announcement by a week to avoid clashing with Tony Blair's announcement last week - though I hardly think their little local defection was ever going to compete for column inches - though that is probably how self-important they are! No doubt they will spin it that "a former chair of the Lib Dems in Oxford" and "the wife of the former constituency vice-chair" have seen the light and joined the Cameroonies. No doubt if it was the other way round, we would do the same. Defectors are always, and without exception in my experience, self-seeking, smug, narcissistic types and will do anything to give themselves a heightened sense of their own importance and the significance of their political disloyalty, usually to cover for the real reasons they defected (such as, in this case, lack of sufficient ability to get onto the Lib Dem led executive of the City Council).

But let's not forget, present occupiers of these positions obviously excepted, that chair of the city group and vice-chair of the constituency, are, in Lib Dem circles, not too dissimilar to David Horton and Frank Pickles in the "Vicar of Dibley." Cllr Sargent's own nick-name when chair of the group - "Fluffy" - kind of demonstrates the seriousness with which the post is viewed. Most recently, and including Sargent's own period of office, is has been occupied by relatively junior members of the group willing to do the thankless task of herding cats and keeping order in meetings because they generally don't have other onerous council tasks to do.

Elsewhere there are stories floating around that Cameron's Tories might join the Lib Dems in calling for Gordon Brown to hold a snap General Election to secure a mandate for his rule. Now, don't get me wrong, I do agree with these calls, as, it would seem, do 72% of people who expressed a preference so far on the Oxford Mail's current online poll (and, according to the BBC, so does most of the country). Cameron should give pause to such urges, populist though it may appear to be. In his own back yard, Oxford, it would be unfortunate for him to be crying over what was a majority at that last election, just two summers ago now, for a Labour Government and Labour Prime Minister (whoever they decide to put in that position, such is our broken and unaccountable democracy) when his only local councillors arrived by breaking their contract with their constituents and voters.

I called, in vain as usual, for them to submit themselves to their electorates in a bye-election when they first left the Lib Dems under whose banner they were elected. But at least they maintained for a while the pretense of political neutrality (some of us call it indecision). But, should they now join a party that stood candidates against them when they were elected and whom they defeated, overwhelmingly in both cases, I do hope Mr Cameron will this time join my call for them to submit now to a bye-election to prove the city wants "back door Tories". For if I were a Tory in Oxford, I hope I would be appalled now to be represented by those two in any case, and I hope I would have the conviction to stand against them in a selection contest in any such bye-election.