Man behind Tory Tartan Chicken embraces Reform

One week to election day and it can’t come quickly enough. End this torture now!

When I get a moment I may post a list of some of the candidates I'd like to see win, or lose.

In the meantime, good luck to my great friend Gary Ling (above) who is standing in Watford on behalf of Reform UK.

I’ve known Gary since we were at Aberdeen University in the late Seventies, and I could write a book about all the things we've done together, including countless holidays with our wives.

In 1986 I attended his passing out parade at Sandhurst following which he spent three years as a captain in the army, much of it in Northern Ireland.

As I explained ten years ago (Another Tory defects to Ukip and this time it’s personal), one of the reasons Gary joined the army was to improve his chances of becoming a Conservative MP.

It must have helped a bit because he got on the candidates' list and fought the 1992 General Election as the Tory candidate in the safe Labour seat of Eccles in Greater Manchester.

Thereafter he came agonisingly close several times to being selected to fight a safe Conservative seat, and I do think he would have been an asset to the party (his wife Helen even more so!).

I do however wonder whether the day to day grind of being a constituency MP would have suited him because Gary is at his best, in my view, when he’s a disruptor.

I remember, for example, when he was assigned to work for the Scottish Conservatives during the 1997 general election campaign.

Tony Blair was due to visit Edinburgh and Gary was given the task of employing what was arguably the party's only weapon in that desperate campaign.

Renamed the Tory Tartan Chicken, he described what happened next here.

Since then Gary's political career has embraced not just the Tories (for whom he was a local councillor in Watford) but Ukip, the Brexit Party, and now Reform.

We don’t agree on everything but I do know that if I lived in Watford he would get my vote, not because of his political affiliation (I remain sceptical about Reform) but because I know him well enough to know that he would put his heart and soul into the job.

He would also remain utterly committed to his long-held beliefs in sovereignty, free enterprise, and personal liberty.

Like me, Gary is still a Thatcherite at heart. The difference is, he’s found a new political home whereas I don’t like or trust any of them!

See: Class of 97 - Tony Blair and the Tory Tartan Chicken

Update: YouGov polling predicts 'likely' Labour win in Watford (Watford Observer).