The wider picture

As a candidate based in the Midlands I am not often in London and so don’t usually get to many policy group meetings and briefings. However yesterday I had arranged to meet a customer in West London and so afterwards went along to a meeting of TRG in Portcullis House billed as a “Journalists Panel”.

Speakers were Iain Dale and Polly Toynbee and I was hoping to hear Peter Oborne since I am close to finishing his book “Rise of the Political Class” but he did not attend. The style of meeting was rather along the lines of a fringe meeting at conference with a fairly wide ranging discussion chaired by Damian Green. It’s always interesting to learn how others see you and so Polly Toynbee’s contribution was interesting, suggesting that given where Labour are now, we Conservatives should be much further ahead. Iain’s response was that this is because we have moved to an era of three party politics, although that’s not particularly evident somewhere like Rugby.

A further discussion revolved around the fight for the middle ground. If you accept that the policies of the main parties are closer than previously, it seems to me that, even more than having distinctive and different ideas, the most important attribute that any party intending to take office needs to display is that of competence in managing the business of Government.

I met a friendly face in Wendy Morton who is candidate for Tynemouth and was on the same training course as me a couple of years ago and we were able to compare notes.

It’s easy for a candidate to get immersed in the issues affecting just their own constituency and their local association, sometimes missing the wider picture, and so it was useful to attend. I hope to have the time and opportunity to go along to similar events in the future.