Earlier in the week I groaned at the news that some discontents within the Surrey East Conservative Association were revisiting their recent decision to adopt Sam Gyimah as their candidate to succeed Peter Ainsworth.
The discontents had seized on reports in Private Eye that Sam's business record was not as glittering as it might have been. Sam issued a statement to set the record straight:
"Private Eye has inaccurately characterised my past business activity. I have been involved in two businesses as an entrepreneur. One company, Workology, was successfully restructured. The other company mentioned was Clearstone whose business difficulties began sometime after I relinquished management control. Sadly, the company had to sell off its assets and transfer staff and customers to a new company, at which point all of my links with the company were severed in full. Whilst the situation at Clearstone was unfortunate, it happened after my involvement in running it. And, Workology is an example of successful, if not difficult, restructuring."
Unfortunately Michael Crick has now blogged about the story.
Sam is going to be one of the stars of the new Parliament. He's bright, compassionate and extremely hard-working. Surrey East made a great decision and, fortunately, wise heads have over-ruled the discontents. The last thing we need so close to the General Election is a new variant of the Turnip Taliban story.
Tim Montgomerie
