Inspired by Tom Harris’ post on life as a newbie MP, Iain Dale has penned a personal and at times moving account of his stint as the Tory candidate for North Norfolk in 2005. Dale was beaten soundly by incumbent Norman Lamb and, having waited four years, doesn’t waste the opportunity to put the boot into his old election agent:
She had gone out of her way to make clear that she favoured anyone but me. Half the local association wouldn’t work with her, and I seemed to spend much of my time mending fences with people whose noses she had put out of joint. After a row on day one of the campaign, she walked out, only to repeat the exercise later in the campaign. But surely, I thought, she wouldn’t have been so incompetent as to [sabotage Dale's campaign by printing] out the wrong knocking up cards, would she? It was only six months later that I learned that she had gone round telling people she hadn’t even voted for me, that I began to wonder.
When your agent hates you then you’re already up the River Glaven without a paddle. But looking for some footage of Dale from the campaign PS stumbled across this, erm, gem. While Dale may be the media’s affable King of the Blogs, he hadn’t quite mastered the campaign video:
Weighing in at nearly three minutes and accompanied by muzak usually heard down the phone while renewing car insurance, one commenter rightly observes “this is an odd video, far too long for something without any actual audio of Iain speaking”.
Presumably it’s his agent shoving him into the children’s ball pond (2m31s)!
