The Conservatives will have to do better than a desperate housewife

Last night's BBC Question Time panel was a woeful sight. From left we had:

Lembit Opik, whose calls for a "mature debate" sit uncomfortably with his childish publicity-seeking behaviour.

Will Self, the self appointed guru of pessimism, who clearly (erroneously) believes himself intellectually superior to the rest of the human race. Sitting next to Lembit Opik, his face looked almost normal.

Nadine Dorries, a Conservative MP and former nurse who appeared to have no real opinions at all as she sought to say almost anything which would get her a bit of applause.

Jim Knight (who?), the Schools Minister, who sat and merrily parroted the script he'd had written for him in an affable but vacant way.

And the awful, horse-faced Esther Rantzen, whose recent time in the jungle appears to have so addled her brain that she thinks Gordon Brown has been a great steward of our economy.

Most depressing, for someone who cherishes the prospect of a new, better government in the near future, was that the Conservatives had seen fit to put forward Nadine Dorries. She was so out of her depth she really needed a snorkel, and she wasn't up against the hottest political opposition, either. It was like listening to one long vox pop from a suburban housewife who had read a Conservative press release, rather than a spokesman for Her Majesty's Opposition. Even Lembit "I'm a Cheeky Boy, look at my Segway" Opik sounded serious by comparison.

Come on, Dave, you can do better than this. At a time when proper Conservatism is more important than it has been for years, we need to hear credible Conservative voices, not token blonde women.

Welcome to Devon

This weekend I went to Budleigh Salterton, near Exmouth for a pretty hectic 48 hours. In this time I was struck be just how friendly and helpful the locals were (with the exception of the staff in the CoOp, who were deeply suspicious of us) and how relaxed the whole place seemed to be. As a Londoner, the following story more or less sums it up.

At the end of the first night, after a rehearsal with the band and a trip to the pub, I was walking back to my hotel. Unfortunately, I was walking back a different way to the way I had driven earlier, and I had taken a wrong turning, and ended up in an unidentifiable residential street - street lighting is sparse. When I realised this, I stopped to get my Sat Nav out of my rucksack, which seemed the sensible thing to do to find out where I was. As I did this, a police car approached. I thought nothing of it - in London, police cars are around all the time. But the policeman (who was alone in the patrol car) stopped and asked me if I was alright and if I knew where I was going. I told him where I was staying and said I was going to check on my Sat Nav (which I had in my hand), so I was fine. He got there first with his and offered me a lift. In fact, he insisted on giving me a lift to my hotel, sympathising with my plight - "it all looks different at night, don't it?". 

A policeman with so little to worry about that he can give a lift to someone who is perfectly capable of finding his own way? That's Budleigh for you.