PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
CONDUCT OF THE HONOURABLE MEMBER FOR DEVON WEST AND TORRIDGE AND THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS (17 January 1996)

That this House notes that in their determination to avoid a by-election in Torridge and West Devon, with the current honourable Member as Liberal Democrat candidate, Liberal Democrat organisers, according to the Western Morning News 'interfered' with that newspaper's telephone poll, provoking from its editor the condemnation 'the last thing we expected was that a reputable (sic) political party would try to manipulate the poll'; notes the resulting contrast between that poll and two polls carried out by Westcountry TV and the Observer/ICM, which both showed 70 per cent. of those with an opinion desiring a by-election which the Liberal Democrats and the honourable lady have now refused; questions how the honourable lady explains to her new colleagues the fact that she voted without public complaint for every contentious Government measure since her election in 1987; in particular invites her to explain her letter to her Conservative constituents which as recently as June 1995 stated, 'our task is to stick together', referred to 'our Government's many fine achievements', adding 'those old Conservative virtues of loyalty, thrift, hard work and vision must be our priorities, when ever we are under fire', and concluded, 'for myself, I have an instinctive loyalty to the Prime Minister'; and therefore notes that it was probably no accident that copies entitled, 'First Speech by Emma Nicholson as a Liberal Democrat' in the debate on 16th January were leaked to the Government side shortly before she spoke.

Sponsored by:
David Nicholson (Conservative)