And another thing…

KNUCKLE draggers who actually believe that candidates should be rejected because of their parentage should pay attention to this comment, left in response to my latest posting on Erith and Thamesmead:

Many years ago there was a constituency called Nantwich, which was pure Tory. Next to it was a constituency called Crewe, which was pure Labour.

After the boundary changes of 1983 the constituency of Crewe and Nantwich came into being. Labours candidate was Gwyneth Dunwoody who managed to win the 1983 election by with a majority of less than 300. (290?).

Over the following years until her untimely death Gwyneth built that majority up to ~7000. She did this mainly by convincing the Tory majority in Nantwich that even as a Labour MP she could and would defend their interests. Although a life long member of the Labour party her principal was always to fight for what was best for her constituency regardless of party policies.

She was one of the few people who survived being attacked by the central party when the party tried to oust her from the chairmanship of the Transport committee. Mostly because of her honest and not merely compliant running of the committee even if that involved saying the party was wrong.

And the point of this post ?.

Her mother, Norah Phillips, was a life peer.

The people of Crewe and Nantwich will be lucky to have another MP who represents and fights for them as much as that daughter of a peer.

I don’t know her or her politics but I would urge Georgia Gould to campaign for and fight to represent the people of Erith and Thamesmead. The constituency (like every constituency) deserves somebody who will get involved at a local level, who will listen to the people and will fight for you and your votes.

I am not a natural party voter, no single party represents my views, but Gwyneth would always get my vote because even if I disagreed with a particular point I always knew she was trying to do the best for the people she represented and not just kowtow to dogmatic party lines. She wasn’t my Labour member of parliament, she was MY member of parliament and that means a lot more to floating voters like myself than if she was the daughter of a peer.

So the Crewe and Nantwich by-election writ will be moved tomorrow, more than a week before the funeral of Gwyneth Dunwoody. And you can tell that Iain Dale’s outrage at this move is entirely genuine. It must be, because he says so.

Gwyneth’s family support the by-election being held on 22 May, but that’s not good enough for Iain. Why is he so upset? I mean, what’s the real reason he’s upset? Could he be worried that, once again, for the umpteenth time, the Tories will fail to gain a seat from Labour in a by-election? No, that would be just too cynical for Iain…

It won’t have been the only news outlet to have done this, but The Herald is carrying a piece on their website speculating on the outcome of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. Is it just my imagination or wasn’t there a time when the media actually showed some respect for late politicians by avoiding this kind of thing until after the funeral? Gwyneth Dunwoody will, I hope, be written about in the next few days as rather more than the cause of a by-election.

I haven’t read a lot about Gwyneth on the web yet, but I think it’s a fairly safe bet to assume that the word “formidable” will be used more than any other to describe her. “Indomitable” might be another. From my personal point of view, how about “terrifying”?

Because that’s how I felt the very first time I was called before her select committee to give evidence. Gwyneth had a reputation for chewing up ministers and spitting them back out, and I was not relishing the experience. As it turned out, I survived. A bit bruised, perhaps, but that was as good an outcome as I could have hoped for. Yes, she was a formidable and, at times, intimidating individual. But she was also extremely good humoured and generous at times. So long as she didn’t suspect that witnesses appearing in front of her committee were trying to pull a fast one, she was willing to treat them fairly. Just God help the ones who thought they could outsmart her…

I was very sad when I heard the news this morning. I couldn’t say we were particularly close, but we were on very friendly terms, and it’s always sad to lose a parliamentary colleague. Importantly, the railways have lost one of their highest profile and most energetic supporters. I didn’t agree with some of her strongly held opinions about the industry, but no-one can deny the breadth and depth of her knowledge and experience. And also her genuine affection for it.

Gwyneth Dunwoody will be missed by many, many people.