The Worcestershire ward where the Lib Dem and Reform candidates are both former Tory MPs

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I was right about Alan Amos.

Over the years, Amos has gone from Conservative to Labour to Independent to Conservative to Independent. What comes next? Will he perhaps rediscover his enthusiasm for reactionary social policies and join Reform?

And that's just what Amos, who Conservative MP for Hexham between 1987 and 1997, has done. He is fighting the Bredwardine ward of Worcestershire County Council for Reform.

What makes this particularly interesting is the the identity of his Liberal Democrat opponent there.

It's another former Conservative MP - in fact a former Conservative cabinet minister. Step forward Stephen Dorrell, who joined the Lib Dems back in 2019 and stood in Buckingham in that year's general election. 

That's his photo above. According to Worcester News, he now calls himself a "Liberal Conservative".

h/t Mark Pack.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: An amusing limerick told to me by Herbert Gladstone

Textual critics - perhaps those from the Department of Long Books at the University of Rutland at Belvoir - who pore over these diaries will discover that this entry is headed 'Friday' in the current issue of Liberator, but Thursday here.

My thinking was that having two consecutive entries headed 'Thursday' would emphasise that time had passed between them, but the production staff at Liberator HQ found it too confusing. And who is to say they were wrong?

Besides, there is a deeper mystery here. The issue of Liberator containing this diary arrived on my doormat less than a week after I sent the copy off, yet in the course of it a whole week elapses.

This does lend support to theory that Lord Bonkers is a Time Lord and suggests this and the subsequent entries in this week's diary are dispatches from the future.

Thursday

Back to the Hall at last after my tour – this electioneering business is hard work and this time is proving deeply confusing.

First I went to Buckingham – a place that always reminds me of an amusing limerick told to me by Herbert Gladstone – and found Stephen Dorrell knocking on doors. He was for many years Conservative MP for Loughborough and our paths crossed from time to time, so naturally I engaged in some good-natured chivvying about the shortcomings of the Tory view of the world. Blow me down if he didn’t turn out to be the Liberal Democrat candidate!

Then I visited Finchley and ran into Luciana Berger. I demanded to know why she wasn’t In Liverpool and added some salty comments on the leadership of the Labour Party… It all proved rather embarrassing. I shall draw a veil over my encounter with Sam Gyimah in Kensington.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary:

• The Well-Behaved Orphans have been carefully measured
• Buckled inside the large wicker hamper
• From Whissendine to Essendine
• He had fashioned a rope from the bedclothes

Stephen Dorrell has joined the Liberal Democrats

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Stephen Dorrell, who was health secretary in John Major's government and a Change UK candidate in this years's European elections, writes behind the Sunday Times paywall:

The slow-motion disintegration of the Conservative and Labour parties is the key political fact of 2019. Brexit is the immediate detonator, but the underlying causes run deeper and create the opportunity to reshape politics.

He goes on to say that this reshapaing

requires liberal Conservatives and social democrats to break cover from their respective parties and join the Liberal Democrats in a big liberal tent. 

It isn’t just a question of “joining the Liberal Democrats”; by joining, their objective is to expand the Liberal Democrats to include fellow liberals from different backgrounds, all of whom are committed to delivering the reform of our politics that is so urgently needed.

And he concludes:

It is time for them to break their shackles and join with the Liberal Democrats to build an effective voice for a modern, liberal Britain. That is what I have done.

Dorrell was Conservative MP for Loughborough and then Charnwood between 1979 and 2015.

Pointless offers a warning to Change UK

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Change UK - or the Tiggers, as I still think of them - announced their Euro candidates today.

There are some names I recognise, notably the former Conservative cabinet minister Stephen Dorrell.

I note, however, that he is standing in the West Midlands rather than the East Midlands, where he was an MP for 36 years.

With Dorrell and a few other people we politicos have heard of - Rachel Johnson, Gavin Esler - the Tiggers must be feeling pleased with themselves.

But they should not feel too pleased.

Last year I pointed out how little most people know about politics:

Pointless is almost a mirror image of Family Fortunes, which rewarded contestants for being average not for being clever. 

Yet there are two subjects where Pointless contestants generally know little and find the thought they might know something to be so unreasonable as to be amusing. 

One is British politics and the other is geography.

After I had posted that, "the admirable Alwyn Turner" sent me the link to a post he had written in 2013.

It was about a round in Pointless that year where 100 people had been asked to name as many politicians as they could remember who had served in the Labour cabinets of either Tony Blair or Gordon Brown. That is, any cabinet member between 1997 and 2010:

Top of the list was John Prescott, named by just 15 out of the 100 people. 

Then came: Ed Miliband - 13 out of 100 

Ed Balls -13 out of 100 

David Miliband - 12 out of 100 

Jack Straw - 7 out of 100 

Alistair Darling - 7 out of 100 

Peter Mandelson - 4 out of 100 

David Blunkett - 4 out of 100 

Clare Short - 2 out of 100 

Mo Mowlam - 1 out of 100 

Margaret Beckett - 1 out of 100 

We never found out whether my nominee, Ivor Richard, made it into the pointless category, because there were simply too many names to go through. But amongst those who rated not a single mention were: Andrew Adonis, Andy Burnham, Jack Cunningham, Charlie Falconer, Patricia Hewitt, Derry Irvine, Donald Dewar, Frank Dobson, Geoff Hoon, Margaret Jay, Alan Milburn and James Purnell.

So, as I say, the Tiggers should not feel to pleased with themselves tonight.

Incidentally, this second post was quoted without attribution on the Today programme by a Leading Political Commentator, who unfollowed me on Twitter when I pointed this out.

But I'm not bitter.

Breaking the Code by Gyles Brandreth

Writing about political diaries, Michael White praises Gyles Brandreth's diaries Breaking the Code:

Brandreth spent time as a whip during the 1992-97 parliament and his diary about that period, Breaking the Code, is a gem. Clark is normally credited with having written the best political diary of modern times, but – for my money – Brandreth is better by a mile.
Brandreth never seemed to receive as much recognition as he should have done for the book, perhaps because his pre-parliament career as a daytime TV presenter with a fondness for silly jumpers meant that he never had the political kudos of Clark. But, if you haven't read Breaking the Code, do. I've been looking for it on our shelves so that I can give you a flavour of it. Sadly, the office copy has gone missing. Someone must have pinched it. It's that good.

Indeed it is. And I find that I have been writing House Points in Liberal Democrat News for so long that I reviewed the book on 7 April 2000.

Here is that review...

Benet, Saethryd and Aphra

It is a while since I read Alan Clark's Diaries, but I am sure they did not begin with him starring opposite Bonnie Langford in Cinderalla. Gyles Brandreth's do.

To enjoy Breaking the Code: Wesminster Diaries (Phoenix, £7.99) you have to get past Brandreth's public image - the jokey sweaters, the affected voice, his children's names. Anyone who christens his offspring Benet, Saethryd and Aphra deserves to be reported to the NSPCC.

Set all that aside, and you have a readable account of the last Conservative administration. Elected in 1992, Brandreth began as a government backbencher. He makes it clear what an awful job that is. It's not, as young idealists fear, that you may be forced to vote against your principles. It's more that you vote in the small hours when you have no idea what is at stake and would much rather be in bed.

Brandreth did well, becoming a PPS within a year and later joining the whips' office. By then, however, it was clear that he could not defend Chester's 1000 majority. Even so, scheming on behalf of a nebulous Stephen Dorrell leadership campaign was an odd way to pass the remaining time.

The government in which Brandreth served lacked any policy direction. His diaries mirror this. He pokes fun at the Citizen's Charter, yet the only ideas which enthuse him are some guff from the Duke of Edinburgh about the importance of team sports.

The catastrophe the Tories suffered as a result is shown most clearly in the footnotes. Each time Brandreth mentions a new colleague, that person's dates in Parliament are given. Nearly every note ends "-1997".