Tory MP defects over Cameron's 'PR agenda'
By staff and agencies
Last Updated: 3:30pm BST 26/06/2007
Tory MP Quentin Davies has defected to Labour on the eve of Gordon Brown taking over as prime minister.
Mr Davies, MP for Grantham and Stamford, made his decision public in a letter to Conservative leader David Cameron.
He wrote: "Under your leadership the Conservative Party appears to me to have ceased collectively to believe in anything, or to stand for anything.
"It has no bedrock. It exists on shifting sands. A sense of mission has been replaced by a PR agenda."
Mr Davies, a former shadow Northern Ireland secretary, wrote to Mr Cameron: "You had come to office as leader of the party committed to break a solemn agreement we had with the European People's Party to sit with them in the EPP-ED Group during the currency of this European Parliament.
"For seven months you vacillated, and during that time we had several conversations.
"It was quite clear to me that you had no qualms in principle about tearing up this agreement, and that it was only the balance of prevailing political pressures which led you ultimately to stop short of doing so (though since then you have hardly acted in good faith in continuing with the agreement, for example you never attend the EPP-ED Summits claiming that you are "too busy" - even though half a dozen or more Prime Ministers are always present.)
Mr Davis also criticised Mr Cameron's "shambles of a foreign policy".
"You are the first leader of the Conservative Party who (for different reasons) will not be received either by the President of the United States, or by the Chancellor of Germany (up to, and very much including, Iain Duncan Smith every one of your predecessors was most welcome both in the White House and in all the chancelleries of Europe).
"It is fair to say that you have so far made a shambles of your foreign policy, and that would be a great handicap to you - and, more seriously, to the country - if you ever came to power."
Mr Cameron's carefully managed public image also came in for a stinging attack.
"The PR pressures had overridden any considerations of economic rationality or national interest, or even what would have been to others normal businesslike prudence.
"Equally it seems that your hasty rejection of nuclear energy as a 'last resort' was also driven by your PR imperatives rather than by other considerations. Many colleagues hope that that will be the subject of your next u-turn.
"You regularly (I think on a pre-arranged PR grid or timetable) make apparent policy statements which are then revealed to have no intended content at all. They appear to be made merely to strike a pose, to contribute to an image.
Mr Davies went on: "Believe it or not I have no personal animus against you. You have always been perfectly courteous in our dealings. You are intelligent and charming.
"As you know, however, I never supported you for the leadership of the Party - even when, after my preferred candidate Ken Clarke had been defeated in the first round, it was blindingly obvious that you were going to win.
"Nor, for the same reasons, have I ever sought office in your shadow administration.
"Although you have many positive qualities you have three, superficiality, unreliability and an apparent lack of any clear convictions, which in my view ought to exclude you from the position of national leadership to which you aspire and which it is the presumed purpose of the Conservative Party to achieve.
"Believing that as I do, I clearly cannot honestly remain in the Party. I do not intend to leave public life. On the contrary I am looking forward to joining another party with which I have found increasingly I am naturally in agreement and which has just acquired a leader I have always greatly admired, who I believe is entirely straightforward, and who has a towering record, and a clear vision for the future of our country which I fully share.
"Because my constituents, to whose interests of course I remain devoted, are entitled to know the full background, I am releasing this letter to the press."
Gordon Brown said he was "delighted" that Mr Davies was joining the Labour Party, saying the MP "commands respect on all sides for his dedication to public service".
Mr Davies became an MP in 1987. He was promoted to the front bench by William Hague in 1998 as spokesman on social security.
After the 2001 election he joined Iain Duncan Smith's cabinet. Under Mr Duncan Smith he worked as shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland. He has since become a member of the International Development Select Committee.
He has rebelled against Mr Cameron several times in Parliament. Most recently he voted against the Communications Allowance Bill.
UPDATE: I did query the Tory leader here, and here. Iain Dale shouldn't really be surprised...
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