1001 reasons NEVER to vote TORY

[Jabberwocky]

Family Values





The case for the prosecution rests.

[mcquiggd]

Thank god for that.

[Jabberwocky]

Just picture John Major heaving over Edwina when you make your mark on the ballot paper.

[mcquiggd]

[mcquiggd]

Peter Mandelson tries Dogging.

[mcquiggd]

Our old friends the Hindujas...

[mcquiggd]

Lakshmi Mittal...

[mcquiggd]

Bernie Ecclestone...

[Numptycorner]

Sleaze has haunted the party. At the 1994 Conservative Party conference in Blackpool Mr Major announced a "back to basics" campaign. Sadly for him this caused a continual stream of press stories regarding the private lives of Conservative MPs and ministers, several of whom were forced to resign. Heritage Secretary
David Mellor was the first to go when an extra-marital affair was revealed and

Tim Yeo resigned as an environment minister when it was revealed he had fathered a secret love child.

David Ashby also resigned as a parliamentary private secretary after admitting that he had once shared a bed with a man

Hartley Booth also gave up his position as a PPS when he admitted to an infatuation with a female researcher.

Other problems concerning sleaze of a financial nature also affected the party.

Tim Smith and Neil Hamilton resigned as ministers when The Guardian published claims that they had accepted money from Harrods' owner Mohammed Al Fayed to table parliamentary questions.

Jonathan Aitken also stepped down as Chief Secretary to the Treasury following newspaper reports that he had lied to the cabinet over who paid his bill during a stay at the Paris Ritz.

David Willetts, the paymaster general, also resigned following a report by the Standards and Privileges Committee which accused him of "dissembling".


Sir George Gardiner had been deselected when he accused Major of being Chancellor Kenneth Clarke's ventriloquist's dummy in a newspaper article.

But he was not the only Tory MP to have been deselected as his constituency's candidate.

Sir Nicholas Scott was deselected in December 1996 following a vote of no confidence in his constituency. The move followed several incidents including his arrest for drink-driving and for failing to stop at a road accident. He had already been through one vote of confidence but his constituency voted for deselection when he was found in a gutter during the Conservative Party Conference.

[BoredBloke]

I don't recall anybody arguing that the Tories didn't suffer from sleaze. the common aspect of the previous post is that the people concerned were removed from (or left) office. This is not the case in Blairs 'whiter than white' new Labour. If you fight an election promising to be sleaze free, then the least you can do is clamp down on any wrong doings. Something Labour have not done.