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

The wonderfully dotty Nadine Dorries is now Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, appointed in Boris Johnson’s surprisingly brutal ‘night of the long knives’ reshuffle.  When I first saw the news I had to check the calendar, sure that this must be an elaborate April fool’s – Ms. Dorries’ contribution to the arts hitherto limited to the publication of a series of novels which, although receiving horrible notices (“the worst novel I’ve read in ten years”), have sold in bulk to an undiscerning public; it transpires that Misery on the Mersey has wide popular appeal.

No shrinking violet, La Dorries; among the positions of policy for which the MP is (in)famous are; proposing amendments to a Health and Care bill that would have blocked Marie Stopes International from providing abortion counselling services; abstinence advocacy for girls in sex education; opposing the same-sex marriage bill and proposing a ban on the Burkha.  A “snowflake” she is not.  Her independent streak reached its peak when she defied the whip to travel down under and take a hefty fee to participate in that celebrity jungle show with Ant and/or Dec.

Jonny Oxford-Cambridge at the BBC will be quivering in his boots at the prospect of negotiating the license fee renewal with a new Culture Secretary whose sensibilities are distinctly Channel 5. And perhaps that, along with belated patronage – Dorries passionately supported BoJo on both his abortive and successful leadership attempts - is the point.  Reason perhaps, but not reason enough, to put a cultural philistine and avowed social conservative in charge of a liberal sector in mortal danger, post-lockdown.

Dorries and newly minted Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove have previous.  Being a diehard, the lady was seriously unimpressed when Gove pulled the rug on BoJo’s first leadership bid.  Sitting in the front row of the press conference at which Boris announced he was pulling out of the contest she wept.  That said I suspect she will be foursquare behind Gove as he attempts to make sense of the not-in-my-backyard Rubik’s Cube that is planning reform.  Dorries earned the ire of her Mid-Beds constituents when she supported and advocated the creation of a new 700 chalet Centre Parcs greenfield development, against their and the local council’s vehement wishes and, indeed, any sense of good taste.  It seems she has the same devil-may-care attitude to development as our own Harrogate Borough Council.

As locals know, Beckwithshaw is a lovely local village, population 400.  It is now the latest of our communities to be faced with the prospect of large-scale development on its doorstep -  Taylor Wimpey and Redrow Homes are hoping to build 780 houses and a primary school on the ‘Windmill Farm’ site north of Harlow Carr, off Otley Road.  If given the go-ahead it would be the latest in a hotch-potch of concrete and brick building that is fundamentally changing the character of Harrogate Borough.  We need homes, but we don’t need yet more bland and utilitarian sprawl, or yet more traffic to further fur-up our clogged arterial roads.  Harrogate Borough (Conservative) Council’s Local Plan is in grave danger of leading to the permanent paving over our green and pleasant lands with, as ever with this mob, no discernible cogent thought, let alone vision.  Whatever Gove does at DLUHC, let’s hope he gets a grip.  He has a reputation as an able departmental minister, so we live in hope.

Our own Nigel Adams, MP for Selby and Ainsty, also prospered from the reshuffle; he now attends cabinet as Minister without Portfolio – perhaps for services to the gambling industry? (See Strayside Sunday, August 21) It can’t have been for diplomacy, it was just two weeks ago that he was filmed in the street in Westminster telling Steve (Mr. “Stop Brexit”) Bray to go forth and multiply.  I admit to a sneaking sympathy for Mr. Adams in this one instance only.  Steve Bray is the loutish, shouty, blue top hat wearing, EU flag waving protester whose unprepossessing visage forced its way into the background of almost every television interview conducted with politicians during the interminable Brexit process.  As my daughter would say, people getting “all up in your grill” is never a pleasant experience.  Peaceful political protest is a democratic essential but invading anyone’s personal space and haranguing them is intimidation and beyond the pale.  Should Mr. Adam’s have told this man to “f—k off”? Clearly not.  But I suspect most people that saw the episode unfold on YouTube or Twitter thought they might have dispensed with such pleasantries and dispensed a bunch of fives.

I’ve long been of the dysphoric view that we get the politicians we deserve.  If Harrogate Borough Council, Nigel Adams and Nadine Dorries are anything to go by, we are indeed unworthy.  Notwithstanding they provide a large bullseye for these monthly meanderings, I fervently wish for a different and better state-of-affairs.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Read More: 

• Bid for 780 homes and new school on Harrogate’s Otley Road


• Harrogate district MP promoted to cabinet