Friday 29 May 2009

A little side-swipe?

Much has been made of the way in which Jonathan Morgan was implicitly attacking his leader for purchasing an iPod on Assembly expenses. But was he having a little swipe at others of his colleagues as well, with the reference to plasma tvs? The following extracts from the Assembly records of claims would seem to suggest that he might well have been.
07-Apr-08 Nick Ramsay - Second Home Electrical Goods £977.95
(Sony LCD TV £549.99 Sony Surround Sound £159.98 Product Support for Surround Sound £59.00 Product Support for LCD TV £169.00 Logik 4m Aerial Cable £9.99 Scart £29.99)

28-Jan-08 Angela Burns - Second Home Electrical Goods £986.98
(TV and DVD Player)

With only 12 Tory AMs in the Assembly, managing to publicly attack three of them in one sentence isn't exactly the best way of seeking his colleagues' support for his leadership ambitions. Just one more sentence like that, and he'll no longer be able to win a majority amongst them! Or does the fact that one television was LCD rather than plasma, and the other was of an unspecified nature, allow both these AMs to escape Mr Morgan's criticism?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure that Bourne wasn't the only one who bought an i-pod. Who was the other one?

John Dixon said...

Anon,

Of course, Alun Cairns. So - 4 fellow members in one sentence, not 3.

Anonymous said...

depends on how you look at it, Nick Ramsey owes his position to Nick Bourne and is loyal to his boss, Alun Cairns will be an MP before the next Assembly elections and Angela Burns is one those touted along with Darren Miller and Paul Davies as future leaders of the Tory Party along with Jonathan Morgan, you can make a case both ways.

John Dixon said...

CoP,

I bow to your superior insight, although deliberately setting out to attack four of them still seems a bit extreme.

I make no comment (not at this stage anyway!) on the suitability of all the potential future leadership candidates. However, in the case of one, it's not our intention down here that she'll be there long enough to have a tilt at the leadership. Others, of course, might respond that the famous quote from Mandy Rice-Davies applies to that observation.

Anonymous said...

I agree its petty and childish attacking the people that he will need in any future leaderhip bid.

im afraid its not so much insight but gossip, on the grapevine I have heard that the seat you refer to is one of the least safe for the Tories, so you never know.

John Dixon said...

"One of the least safe?"I think I can testify to that. The person most surprised at the result when the votes were counted was the successful candidate...

Anonymous said...

I think bar the ipod/trouser press comment you are all looking too much into the television comment. There were a number of Welsh examples here including Kevin Brennan.

But as you say in terms of Jon's support in the Group, neither Alun or Nick R would expect to back Jon anyway. Angela I think would back him in the right circumstances. I don't think she has the desire to be leader.