If there is one cardinal sin in any political party’s rulebook, it is campaigning for a rival candidate in an election. Yet that is what Tory MP Chris Heaton-Harris, the party’s campaign manager in Corby, has done.
Undercover footage obtained by Greenpeace (reported in today’s Guardian) reveals that Heaton-Harris encouraged Telegraph blogger James Delingpole to stand as an anti-wind farm candidate in the byelection in Louise Mensch’s former constituency and provided him with a “handful of people” to run his campaign.
He told film-maker Chris Atkins, who posed as a representative of a fictional lobby group called Windefensible, “There’s a bit of strategy behind what’s going on. I’m running the Corby byelection for the Tories … And Delingpole, who is my constituent, and a very good friend [inaudible] put his head above the parapet, but won’t put his deposit down … It’s just part of the plan.”
He added: “I’ve managed to provide [Delingpole] with a handful of people who will sort him out. So my deputy chairman, political, resigned from my local party and is running his campaign as his agent. So it’s all professionally done. The whole point of that is to actually just put it on the agenda.”
It is clear that “the plan” was to use Delingpole’s candidacy to shift government policy on wind farms, primarily through the energy minister, John Hayes. Heaton-Harris said: “Next week hopefully John Hayes, James Delingpole and I will have a meeting somewhere.”
Delingpole eventually withdrew from the race after Hayes declared in an interview with the Daily Mail that “we can no longer have wind turbines imposed on communities.” The plan, it appeared, had worked. In the film, Heaton-Harris is shown saying:”Delingpole can go and endorse the Ukip candidate, don’t give a toss about that. Maybe we’ve just moved the agenda on.”
The MP has responded to the story by insisting that he is not guilty of supporting a rival candidate since, because Delingpole never paid a deposit, he never technically joined the race. But only a fool would accept such pedantry. At a time when he should have been putting all his effort into supporting the Conservative candidate, Christine Emmett, in a seat that the Tories stand to lose to Labour, Heaton-Harris arranged for Tory staffers to be seconded to Delingpole’s campaign as a part of a crusade against wind farms (thus contravening the government’s policy).
Last week, the Conservative whip was rightly suspended from Nadine Dorries after she chose to abandon her parliamentary duties in favour of appearing on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! If David Cameron retains any self-respect, similar action must now be taken against Heaton-Harris. The Prime Minister owes it to those who, whatever their misgivings over coalition policy, loyally support the Conservative candidate to punish those who do not. He must kill the Tories’ Militant Tendency at birth.
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