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I imagine many will be asking `Who?` Walter Sweeney stood against David Davis in the recent by-election.
David Davis was a Tory whip on the Maastricht Bill in 1992 that I`ve heard (allegedly) ended with Sweeney (a staunch opponent of to anything to do with the EU) being locked in a House of Commons toilet in order to prevent him voting. Sweeney now also disagreed with David Davis over his stand on `civil liberties`, seeing the EU as a greater threat to British liberties than CCTV etc. (Sweeney also sees CCTV as useful in the fight against terror etc.)
Haltemprice and Howden is Sweeney`s local constituency where he practices as a solicitor, so it must have seemed an easy option to stand against Davis.

As for having left the Tories since Major`s premiership; the Major years ended with the election of Blair and eleven years in opposition. Hardly surprising that several MPs thought of better things to do with their time; some probably saw little point in joining fringe parties, but I believe Sweeney is also still active as a leading member of the Freedom Association.

Is it too much to expect some relevant, topical, political comment from Newsnight's political editor?

This is a complete waste of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ resources.

It has no relevance to contemporary politics. It gives us no real insight into the past.

Why did anybody sanction ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ money being spent on something like this?

There are many more pressing issues that need to be examined and yet we get pointless flim flam like this.

I like how this blog gets a puff in the Evenign Standard good to have friends and family in "the meeja" even if it is "just" the Standard Diary page it all adds up eh ?

Re #2 britom
"Is it too much to expect some relevant, topical, political comment from Newsnight's political editor?"

It would appear so, maybe because it's too near the bone.

Michael's Rumours of his death are greatly exaggerated thread is definitely more relevant to current happenings in Scotland but was strangely removed from the summary "MAIN" page late yesterday.

The text and my comments are still there, though, at /blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2008/07/rumours_of_his_death_are_great.html

michael crick:

great blog about how many major deserters that have left the conservative party.

Err Michael - What is the point of publishing this information? John Major was the worst Prime Minister to have ever lived so little wonder he had a bunch of no hopers around him?

I can't abide the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ censors coming back to life in the form of internet moderators. Down with censorship!!!

Re my #5

I see that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ have now spiked the "Rumours of his death are greatly exaggerated" and deleted /blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2008/07/rumours_of_his_death_are_great.html

There's still evidence of its existence in the Google caches, but it would be better to formally withdraw and correct or update the story appropriately than to simply unwrite it.

It dealt with the extended sick leave of a particular MP and prompted me to wonder why the previous member for Glasgow East had not simply emulated this activity rather than formally resign.

It also begs the question of whether anyone has been analysing Hansard's voting information to get a handle on how many "inactive" MPs we have.

Brownedov

Have you looked at

?

The voting record of each MP is available, and I think you could get a file from them to analyse exactly that.

Re #10 oldnat

Hello again, and thanks for the URL, which I've bookmarked and will follow up anon.

Right now, I'm still very intrigued to hear why Marshall resigned. The missing story amply demonstrated that he could have gone 'on the sick' without sanction until the next election.

So why did he give up the gravy train when it would have continued to arrive without any need for him to clock in at Westminster?

If we knew the answer, we'd probably have a clue why Labour called the by-election so quickly and maybe why some leading "runners" left the field before reaching the starting gate.

Enough for today - the few little grey cells I have left need some TLC.

Michael Crick

Why not do a blog on the ex Tory MP self servers who look as though they ditched their beliefs to join the Labour Party in order to further their political careers, starting with Alan Howarth who was parachuted into a safe Labour seat?

A bit of balance is in order, don't you think?

The remaining ex Tory MPs seemed to have followed their conscience and joined parties more akin to their political views eg Hugh Dykes and Theresa Gorman.