Iain Dale lights up the General Election

I don’t know about you but I’m struggling to summon up much interest in the General Election.

Last night, however, LBC broadcaster Iain Dale announced that he was quitting his programme to seek selection as the Conservative candidate for Tunbridge Wells in Kent.

I don’t know Iain very well, but our paths have crossed once or twice, most notably in 2002 when he was managing director of Politicos Bookshop in Westminster which he founded in 1996.

The shop’s fifth anniversary in 2001 was celebrated with a dinner at The Savoy that was attended by Mrs Thatcher, who gave a bravura speech despite being advised not to by her doctors.

I was on a table with Claire Fox (now Baroness Fox), a former member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, and even she was impressed.

Anyway, I can’t remember how Iain and I first got talking but, having edited a number of magazines, I proposed a new publication that would combine political interviews with authors and MPs plus features and reviews of the new political titles on sale in Politicos.

After a little persuasion he came round to the idea and we called it The Politico, with the first issue featuring an interview with the late Mo Mowlam, who also appeared on the cover.

Unfortunately, although the quarterly magazine was well received, it didn’t make a penny and no-one was prepared to invest in it. Meanwhile, with the cost of commercial rent in central London soaring, Iain closed the bookshop and took Politicos online, so that was that.

Nevertheless we both look back on it fondly with Iain later writing:

Earlier in the summer I was tidying some files at home and a copy of a magazine fell out of a file. It was called The Politico and I published three issues of it while I was running Politico's. I started re-reading it and began to remember what a brilliant reaction it provoked at the time. It only had three issues because I then closed the shop and the people who produced it moved on to other things.

That was in 2007, the year that Iain was the main presenter on another short-lived project, the internet TV station 18 Doughty Street.

I appeared several times on the programme he presented but the one I shall always remember is when I inadvertently made him corpse by referring to the then transport minister Stephen Ladyman as Stephen Ladyboy.

(Note: I was quoting from a post by the blogger Dizzy Thinks but failed to spot the deliberate mistake.)

Sadly, the clip disappeared with the 18 Doughty Street website but I wrote about it here:

For the next minute or so we both struggled to suppress our laughter. When Iain stopped, I would set him off again, and vice versa. In terms of our reaction, the only thing I can compare it to is the famous ‘leg over’ moment on Test Match Special.

Apart from the occasional interview on LBC, the only other time our paths have crossed since then was in 2016 when I invited Iain to speak at a Forest party at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham.

Venue was a local nightclub and the event attracted almost 500 guests, way beyond the 200 we anticipated. Fortunately they were able to open a second bar on another floor to accommodate everyone, but it was very noisy and our speakers struggled to be heard.

I believe, however, that it was one of Iain’s first paid speaking ‘gigs’ so I like to think it was a useful exercise for him, even though he told his followers on Twitter that he was ‘effing petrified’.

But back to the present.

I would be very surprised if Iain did not have an arrangement with LBC whereby, should he fail to get selected (or elected), he quickly returns to his evening programme.

Nevertheless, if he does get selected/elected, it’s a genuinely interesting move for someone of his age (61) and one to be applauded.

Frankly, we need more MPs who have enjoyed long and successful careers outside politics and can bring that experience to the table.

I also like the fact that Iain has chosen to stand when, in all probability, the Conservatives will be in opposition for five, possibly ten, years with no prospect of a role in government.

Compare that to the many Tory MPs who have chosen to cut and run.

The seat he hopes to fight is also in the area in which he lives, so no-one can accuse him of being parachuted in to a constituency he has little or no knowledge of.

The retiring MP, Greg Clark, had a majority of 14,645 in 2019. Can that be maintained on July 4? Probably not, but if the Tories can’t hold Tunbridge Wells I worry for them nationally.

Either way, I wish Iain the very best of luck.

See also Politics and publishing and Life and times of The Politico.

Update: Iain Dale ‘never liked’ town where he hopes to become a Tory MP (Telegraph)

Oops.

Latest: Iain Dale abandons bid to run for Tory MP in Tunbridge Wells after saying he ‘never liked’ town (Telegraph)

What a shame - perhaps he could run for another seat …?