The Daily Mail has a story that Esther Rantzen has been inspired by Martin Bell and is considering standing against the expense-abusing Labour MP Margaret Moran in Luton South. Tim Montgomerie has written elsewhere on ConHome this morning that unless we clean up our worst MPs, we face a barrage of independents standing against sitting MPs. Tim is right about that, but thought should be given to where it happens.
Let's start with the case at hand: Luton South and why it is not the same as Tatton.
Martin Bell beat Neil Hamilton because his independent status allowed other parties to get behind him to unseat a sitting MP with a huge majority.
In Luton South, there is an excellent local Conservative candidate in Nigel Huddleston who was on the way to beating Moran even before the scandal of her expenses broke. Nigel should now ask Esther to come out and campaign for him if she wants to clean up politics!
An independent simply is not needed in Luton South. As the Daily Mail points out, Moran already faces "a furious backlash in her constituency" and the "narrow 5,650 majority" means Nigel must be odds on favourite to win even if Moran decides to stand again, which is surely open to doubt given her dreadful behaviour.
Independents can never quite deliver the impact at Westminster that traditional MPs can but are great where mainstream politics has failed. It will not do so in Luton. Esther should let Nigel run in Luton and she should stand where she is needed. There are plenty of sitting MPs that she could target. According to the Sunday Times, yesterday, nine out of the top-ten expense claimants are Labour (and all of the top five). Maybe there is someone there to set her sights on where an independent would be needed to clear out the dead wood as was needed in Tatton.
If it was up to me, I would encourage her to consider the constituency of Speaker Martin as one good place to begin!
