A Bit Of Advice To The Tories

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Former "Blair babe" Helen Clark has confirmed she is quitting Labour and applying to join the Conservatives in protest at Tony Blair's style of government.

Mrs Clark, who lost her Peterborough seat to Tory candidate Stewart Jackson on Thursday, said she believed that Conservatives, under a new leader, would be a more inclusive and effective party.


* This the frightful Helen Brinton, who once compared herself with Princess Diana . Her Local party tried to get rid of her twice but she hung on .

Good riddance - she is hopeless and trouble . I suggest the Tories turn her down . What respect can you have for someone who stands for one party on Thursday and applies to join the other on Sunday . Ghastly person .
 
The Guardian Diary, while enjoying the defection story, is going to be very sad that she is no longer in parliament. There has been a long campaign by part of the Labour party in the Peterborough constituency to deselect her. This was partly because of a disagreement on policy issues but also because she is often to be seen as what Private Eye terms tired and emotional. Indeed, though the Guardian Diary has little in common with its counterpart in the Mail On Sunday, they both felt obliged to comment when Helen Clark's office put out a press release about her being one of the first signatories on an anti- binge drinking document. I will miss the regular Helen Clark (neé Brinton) stories.
 
She was spotted by a Guardian Diary reader wearing a midriff exposing tee shirt. The reader was too afraid to get close enough to see whether there had been a piercing.

helen_brinton128.jpg
 
Helen Clark Watch - the Tories don't want her! From today's Guardian Diary ( a source of many H Clark stories):

To steal a line from Marx (Groucho not Karl) Helen Clark has principles. And if you don't like them she's got some more. As we're sure you've all heard by now, our old friend was kicked out by the voters of Peterborough on Thursday and only two days later she announced her plan to defect from Labour to the Tories after "becoming increasingly frustrated with the conduct of the government".

This monumental step could have been taken after months of wrestling with her conscience before deciding the Conservative party was her natural home. Or it might have been made after throwing what one observer described as a "full-on stroppy diva fit" as her defeat was announced, demanding a recount [BrianH: Tory majority was 2,740!] and promising that Peterborough was only on "lease-hold" to the Tories.

Still, it would be churlish now that it was Helen's android-like devotion to the New Labour cause which attracted our attentio inthe first place (before she began her personal homage to Agatha Christie with a series of crime stories set on Britain's rolling stock). [BrianH: see Guardian Diaries passim]

That's history, just as her spat must now be with Peterborough's new Tory MP Stewart Jackson, who still hasn't got round to dropping proceedings against Helen for "defamation of character and malicious falsehood". Surely these small misunderstandings won't count against her application? "We would not want her to join the Peterborough association, considering her history," says local chairman John Peach. "The people of Peterborough have had eight years of her shenanigans."

So, a request to central office, perhaps? "I'm not having anything to do with that," says a voice in the Conservative press office, "God morning."

Come on, somebody take her, please.

There's little hope of w warmer reception back with Labour, should Helen opt for the Churchillian (Marsdenian?) route and re-rat. As her defeat was announced at a Labour constituency bash in London on Thursday night, it prompted an ironic cheer. How cruel.
 
It was in mid-2003 that Helen Clark began to battle with her own constituency party when she failed to be automatically readopted as candidate for Peterborough. Her time at Westminster had been marred by escapades that strained relations with local activists. She once compared herself to Princess Diana and during the 2001 general election campaign police were called by neighbours to her Peterborough flat following a domestic incident.

Helen was a member of the MPs team that was defeated by The Times on University Challenge by 225 to 25.

She once excelled herself at one of Peterborough's hottest nightspots - the pizzeria Gaston's. After enjoying a spirited debate with husband Alan - first she told him "I fucking hate this place"; then she rewarded his attempts to placate her with a merry "fuck off"; finally she declared "I fucking love this place," - she relocated her supper and orally deposited it elsewhere.

On one occasion, the headmaster of King's School, Peterborough felt obliged to pop round to ask Helen if she wouldn't mind either wearing clothes in the house or drawing the curtains. The sight, he explained, was distracting students in the science block, which backs on to the house.
 
When Matthew Norman was the Guardian diarist he urged Helen to buy a car as she seemed to have far too frequent problems with "train crime".

A few years ago she excused some odd ranting to her constituency party by saying she was "terrified" after being robbed on the train ("left her purse on the table" as a transport policeman put it). This was the fifth serious incident. In June 1997, she was "mugged" (pickpocketed) at Euston, and that November another purse went missing in transit. In April 1998, she reported finding a woman passenger "semi-naked and crying" and claiming an attempted rape (later amended to "I lost my handbag"), and within a month she wrote of being marooned late at night inside a small Kent station that was locked and unmanned (she had to climb to freedom).

The train incidents do not include the time that Helen was seen during a Friday evening rush hour at Westminster tube station, tripping down the stairs, showering the ticket hall with the contents of her handbag and gaily yelling : "It's the shoes! It's the shoes!"
 
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