Strayside Sunday is our weekly political opinion column. It is written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party. 

Gary Verity once bestrode the Yorkshire scene. Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, God’s own county’s tourism promotion body, Verity succeeded in bringing the 2014 Grand Depart of the Tour de France to Leeds. Glorious weather bathed riders in sunshine as they rode through our unmatched scenery, watched by spectators ten and twenty deep.  Such was its success that Verity was knighted for his efforts and the subsequent Tour de Yorkshire became a permanent fixture on our calendar, ensuring an annual pay day for the local economy (although Covid-19’s long shadow has caused its postponement to 2022).

All was not as it seemed.  Behind the scenes, the mercurial Mr Verity was accused of creating a culture of bullying, had to attend behavioural management counselling and eventually left Welcome to Yorkshire on health grounds under the darkest of clouds, facing, among other things, allegations of misuse of funds.  To spend more time with his sheep, no doubt.

In the aftermath, two investigations into the management of the body cost almost £500,000, a financial shock that would have been hard to bear even in good times.  On top of this came Covid-19 and a consequent £1m collapse in the business rate and membership fee income upon which it ordinarily relies.  All of this required the body to ask for a £1.4m bailout from contributing councils across the county.  Harrogate Borough Council is the latest to help, pitching in £31,000  to enable Welcome to Yorkshire to continue to “support tourism in Yorkshire and the Harrogate district at a time when it is needed the most.”

We are blessed to live in this beautiful county and it is important to bring its joys to the world.  Bailing out Welcome to Yorkshire is the right thing to do, but let’s hope that the money from Harrogate and other councils across the ridings (and South Yorkshire) comes with the oversight and governance that public money warrants and which, sadly, was so lacking during Verity’s tenure.  Yorkshire is a brilliant brand, the challenge for Welcome to Yorkshire now is to rebuild its own reputation to match.

Another mercurial bully on his way out this week is Dominic “Barnard Castle” Cummings.  Back in the day Cummings worked as Director of Strategy for Iain Duncan Smith.  His volatility was legend in Conservative Party circles and, during his five months in post he managed to offend almost every member of shadow cabinet.  During his brief tenure he introduced IDS to the plight of those in our inner city sink estates.  His “help the vulnerable” campaign exposed Duncan Smith and the Conservatives to the horrible reality of life for some in Gallowgate and elsewhere in contemporary Britain.  It made a lasting impression on IDS and informed his desire to reform the welfare state while Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.  Now lost in the mists of time we should remember that the reforms were initially welcomed and praised by civic society organisations and even the Labour opposition.

Cummings left the party having told Michael Howard to go forth and multiply during a typically foul mouthed and shouty display around the shadow cabinet table.  Dominic was then and remains a disruptor in the fullest sense of the word.  In fairness, Michael Howard didn’t much like advisors, nor did he in any way agree with those of us who felt that fairness needed to become a central pillar of party policy in the post-Thatcher era.  A point he made crystal clear when he fired me a day or two after becoming leader when IDS was ousted.

Cummings is a formidable campaigner, as his Vote Leave triumph demonstrated.  But he is simply not temperamentally suited to government.  In his time in government (can it only be a year?) he wanted to focus on three things only; getting Brexit done, the levelling up agenda and reforming the civil service.  Like the rest of us he hadn’t bargained on what Harold Macmillan called “events dear boy, events.”  Covid-19 has so consumed affairs of state that winning the Brexit peace, balancing our economy and transforming Whitehall have become secondary.  The pandemic has robbed this government of the time and space it needs to pursue its agenda and, by definition, is so unpredictable that it makes it lays waste to the relevance and longevity of government by slogan.

In my experience many MPs have a pathological need to be loved, or at the very least to feel they are needed.  Warm and cuddly our Dom is not.  Contempt and disdain are more his style.  Given that and the manoeuvring and jealousy inherent in the political game, he is no doubt responsible at least in part for the growing sense of disquiet among parliamentary Conservatives.  Backbench Conservative MP’s are delighted he is going and his scalp may well buy the Prime Minister more time with the restive.  The irony of course is that for at least one faction, Jake Berry’s Northern Research Group, Cummings was the driving intellectual force behind the levelling up agenda in which they believe, and upon which, their parliamentary futures rest.  His departure damages their cause.  Be careful, they say, what you wish for.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Read More: 

• Harrogate Borough Council gives £31,000 to Welcome to Yorkshire


• MP Yvette Cooper says there is "no spare staff for Harrogate Nightingale"