Whilst Wales’ only Sunday paper indulges in sexism by bitching about what clothes female politicians wear the real political gossip can be found here on Freedom Central.
This is the blog that broke the news about Mohammed ‘Oscar’ Ashgar’s defection from Plaid Cymru to the Tories, a full 25 minutes before any other news outlet reported it. That crossing of the floor has provoked a real storm about whether Oscar should give up his seat, which by rights under the top-up list system belongs to Plaid Cymru, the party, rather than him personally.
However, I learnt last night from reliable sources that this might not be the last regional top-up list controversy that the Tories may become embroiled in. I was told that if Alun Cairns wins the Vale of Glamorgan and becomes its MP then, rather than resigning his regional top-up seat and handing it to the next Tory on the list, he intends to serve out his time as an AM, effectively holding a dual mandate up to May 2011.
As both AM and MP are full time jobs 175 miles apart and as he would be representing two entirely different geographical areas, it is difficult to see how he can do this effectively, if indeed it is true. If his standing down as an AM would cause a by-election and if he were representing the same constituency as was the case for Monmouthshire’s David ‘Top Cat’ Davies then such a decision might be defensible, but it doesn’t and it isn’t.
I am told that the reason for Alun sticking to both jobs is that the Tory top brass do not want the number two on the South Wales West regional list, Chris Smart to succeed him. Mr. Smart is the former leader of Porthcawl Town Council, ex-radio talkshow jock and a freelance sports journalist. He had the misfortune to suffer from a dirty tricks campaign shortly before the 2007 Assembly elections.
The Western Mail at the time reported on the details. I am told that allegedly a calculation has been made that Tories would rather have the embarrassment of a row over ‘two-jobs Cairns’ than welcome Mr. Smart to the Assembly.
Quite how this will go down with Sir Christopher Kelly is another matter. He has recommended that no MP should hold a dual mandate covering more than one Parliamentary institution. Nobody knows whether this will be enforced or not.
No doubt Tories will dismiss this story as trouble-making gossip and they would be right. But if they really want to kill it then perhaps Alun Cairns himself can confirm that it is not true and that he will give up his Assembly seat as soon as he becomes an MP, if indeed he does. I promise to report that denial here in the interests of balance.
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So, it has come to this…Lib Dems reduced to having to claim they’re breaking stories from the bubble first.