I was sorry to hear that former government minister Paul Scully is to stand down as an MP at the forthcoming election.
Minister for London from February 2020, and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Tech and the Digital Economy from October 2022, he was surprisingly sacked from both roles in November last year.
That came a few months after he failed to be selected as the Conservative candidate for London mayor. Remarkably, given his ministerial role at the time, he didn’t even make the shortlist.
I’m biased, but on the few occasions our paths have crossed, I have found him to be extremely pleasant and approachable.
He first came to our attention at the Conservative party conference in 2011 where we hosted a comedy night at the Comedy Store in Manchester.
It prompted the former Sutton councillor to tweet:
Forest fringe at the comedy store is possibly the best ever I have attended at conference. Smokers showing antis how to do #nudge. #cpc11
Elected to Parliament in 2015 as the MP for Sutton and Cheam, he was therefore an obvious choice when we needed someone to speak at our 2016 fringe event in Birmingham.
With 500 guests squeezed in to a Birmingham night club it was very noisy and our two guest speakers - Paul and LBC broadcaster Iain Dale - struggled to be heard.
Nevertheless they handled the situation with aplomb and, by coincidence, Iain even interviewed Paul on his programme last night.
The last time I saw Paul in person, but not to speak to, was at a Conservative Muslim Forum event to mark the coronation of King Charles last year.
As I wrote at the time:
I’m not entirely sure what Paul Scully’s connection with the CMF was, but I was interested to hear him say he was running for Mayor of London.
If selected as the Tory candidate the odds will be strongly against him winning, but he would run a very good campaign, I'm sure, and I wish him well.
Sadly, that wasn’t to be, and we are now set to lose one of the relatively few liberal conservatives in the House.
What a shame.