Crossing the Floor

Quentin Davies has left the Tory party to join the Labour. No doubt there will be a whole raft of posts along the lines of "turncoat bastard" but I have some sympathy with the man - at least until you hear what he actually has to say.

This brings a wry smile to my lips:

"Although you have many positive qualities you have three, superficiality, unreliability and an apparent lack of any clear convictions, which in my view ought to exclude you from the position of national leadership to which you aspire and which it is the presumed purpose of the Conservative Party to achieve."

I kind of agree with this, although I would point out that Davies is a supporter of Ken Clarke, who also seems to embody "superficiality, unreliability and an apparent lack of any clear convictions". To me, Cameron is the heir apparent to the pro-European, One Nation spineless conservatism of Ken Clarke and Ted Heath. Davies should be embracing Cameron as "Ken Clarke: The Next Generation" rather than fleeing into the suffocating embrace of Gordon Brown.
And I lose any agreement when I read this -

"...a leader I have always greatly admired, who I believe is entirely straightforward, and who has a towering record, and a clear vision for the future of our country which I fully share".

Believe it or not, he is talking about Gordon Brown. That's right, Gordon Brown. Anyone who is frankly delusional enough to call Brown entirely straightforward and believe the money grabbing, charismaless, mis-shapen ape of a man has a"towering record" and "a clear vision for the future" needs a sound beating with a baseball bat.

On a superficial level at least, the Tory party is now the most left-wing it has been since the dreaded days of Ted Heath. So any Tory MP who leaves the Conservative Party at the moment is either doesn't (to quote Mr Davies) "believe in anything, or to stand for anything" or was in the wrong party in the first place.

And neither represents a particularly strong argument for the morals, political acumen or general intelligence of Quentin Davies. I hope that the constituents of whichever safe seat Brown drops Davies into realise this, and soundly kick him out of Parliament at the next election.