Why is Stephen Hesford standing down without a fight in Wirral West?
Stephen Hesford's decision to stand down at the general election from his highly marginal seat of Wirral West provokes a number of questions.
It comes just four months after he quit as an aide to Attorney General Baroness Scotland after she breached immigration law but was allowed to remain in post.
At the time he said it was an old fashioned "point of principle" resignation, but cynics said he was looking for an excuse to stand down so he could spend more time in Wirral.
He only beat Conservative Esther McVey by 1,097 votes at the 2005 general election, and boundary changes mean the seat is notionally already Tory.
Now he has announced he will be standing down for "family reasons".
The announcement trickled out at 8pm on Friday with a very short statement from Mr Hesford:
"I'm proud to have represented Wirral West since 1997.
"I have seen the enormous difference that Labour has made to people's lives through improvements to the NHS, the minimum wage and investment in local schools."
Everyone is entitled to privacy but cynics will say that standing down for "family reasons" conveniently gets him off the hook for having to properly explain this decision.
Virtually everyone I've spoken to about this believes he is standing down because he knew he would lose - that he's running away.
One even pondered that he could not bear the thought of having to shake Esther McVey's hand at the election count.
5 Comments
Leave a comment
Dale Street Associates
David Bartlett
City editor of the Post and Echo covering politics, regeneration, and urban affairs.
Read My Posts »
I can see Hesford's point. Most sane people would run away from Esther McVey. And quite a few Wirral West Tories won't shake her hand either.
Humilation david.
what sitting Mp wants to lose by 10k
and that is a conservative estimate (no pun intended!)
"One even pondered that he could not bear the thought of having to shake Esther McVey's at the election count."
Shake Esther McVey's what...?
If it's what I'm thinking, you can hardly blame the man - I'd run a mile.
I've now amended the blog post to include the word hand where it should have included it before. Apologies for any confusion.
Cowardice. That's why he resigned. Utterly cynical, mendacious and dishonest. He has betrayed the Party which he has lived-off for the last 12 years. Because no-one would have voted for him in 1997, under any other colours but Labour's. I hope the Party learns its lesson from being represented by people who believe in nothing but themselves.