This just in on the Beeb:

Soap star joins Tory elite list

Conservative hopefuls are finding out whether they are on the party’s list of elite candidates for winnable seats.

Ex-Coronation Street actor Adam Rickitt eco-campaigner Zac Goldsmith and author Louise Bagshawe are all on the A-list", the BBC understands.

Maria Hutchings, a mother who famously confronted Tony Blair on live television, also joins the elite group.

Aside from noting that any possible combination of the words ‘Adam Ricketts’ and ‘elite’ is a blatant oxymoron, the interesting name in this article is that of Maria Hutchings, who seems to a miraculously gone from ‘former Labour canvasser’ to A-list Tory Parliamentary candidate in the space of just over twelve months, if one takes this report from the Evening Standard about her verbal altercation with the Imperious Leader on the Wright Stuff, last year…

Mother ambushes Blair during live TV questions

TONY BLAIR was ambushed by a desperate mother during a live television interview today.

Maria Hutchings, who has an autistic son, rushed up to the Prime Minister while he was discussing school discipline on Channel Five’s current affairs show, The Wright Stuff, in Birmingham.

The tearful mother-of-four - a former Labour canvasser - confronted him about lack of care for special needs children and the link between autism and the MMR jab.

During a private meeting with the Prime Minister later, she accused Labour of ignoring " Middle England" voters. The Government is particularly sensitive about autism, following the massive row over the possible link with the MMR jab. Mrs Hutching’s son John Paul, 10, is at a special needs school in Essex but local education chiefs want to move him to mainstream education.

She fears his learning difficulties are too severe for him to cope. She told the Evening Standard: "I had to speak to Mr Blair about this. We need to get these issues out into the open. I am not sure if I will vote for Labour again." She claims the Prime Minister has promised to investigate her concerns about her son’s schooling. She added: "He said he would look into the issues."

The obvious question here is just when exactly did she join the Tory Party - a question that should be careful filed away for use by whichever CLP winds up with her as an opponent come the next election.

Meanwhile the reference in the article to the ‘link between autism and MMR’ has not gone unnoticed either, particularly as this alleged ‘link’ is not only demonstrably a load of bollocks but also directly responsible for a fall in immunisation rates that has resulted in a number of unnecessary measles outbreaks, one of which resulted, only a month ago’ in the first death in the UK,  from what is an entirely avoidable illness, since 1992.

Way to go, Maria!

I’m not usually one to recommend articles by David Aaronovitch, but on this occasion you’ll find this one, from the Grauniad to be particularly good value:

Then there was Mrs Hutchings’ invocation of MMR. As all of us who have watched this stupid saga unfold know, there is no evidence whatsoever linking MMR to autism and every evidence that the scare campaign about it is leading to epidemics of mumps and the return of measles.

This, however, was not what had the Aaronovitch pachyderm quivering on top of a small stool. It was Mrs Hutchings’s sense of grievance coupled with her feeling of entitlement. ‘With an increasing number of immigrants and asylum seekers,’ she told one newspaper, ‘then the pot is reduced for the rest of us.’ This, of course, is inaccurate as far as immigrants go, but I’ve interrupted her. She went on: ‘Mr Blair has got to stop focusing on issues around the world such as Afghanistan and Aids in Africa and concentrate on the issues that affect the people of Middle England, like myself who pay the taxes which keep the country going.‘ Then came this line. ‘I don’t care about refugees. I care about my little boy and I want the treatment he deserves.‘

Yep, there’s ‘Compassionate Conservativism’ for you, straight from the mouth of an ‘elite’ Tory Candidate… or should that be straight from the BNP’s recent election campaign - I’m really not too sure, so maybe Mr Cameron would like to explain the difference.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 10th, 2006 at 4:08 pm and is filed under Tories, News & Current Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.