Loyal voters miss out in the Owen Paterson debacle

THE VOTERS of North Shropshire face a problem. Their huge-majority Tory MP Owen Paterson (below) has gone, resigned under a cloud after taking fat fees to lobby way beyond what the rules allowed. But they have also lost a cracking good constituency MP. What to do?

All the other parties are clamouring for their votes. But to what end? To put a Labourite, Green or Lib-Dem into the Commons would serve no purpose or the people of North Shropshire. Against a

Tory majority of 80 in the House, the newcomer would simply vanish into the backbenches. It makes more sense to analyse.

If the Tory party is to reform – and it desperately needs it – that reform will have to come from inside. Common sense dictates that North Shropshire Tories would be wise to look for a scrupulously honest fellow – either gender – to go to Parliament and join the others yearning for the present shambles to end under new leadership.

Such people are still available though they tend to be self-effacing and will need some finding.

WE MAY be in the process

of being let down by just about every arm of our public sector but as usual the military do us proud. In recent exercises in the Californian desert the Royal Marines wiped the floor with the US Marines.

Half-way through the allotted time the US Marines gave up after most of their units had been captured or wiped out.

The Brits started the exercise with allocated control of 20 per cent of the territory. By the end the Royal Marines controlled 65 per cent.

Whether it is the Royal Engineers building Covid hospitals in record time or the Medical Corps vaccinating huge numbers of citizens with no fuss at all, the young men and women in uniform never let us down.

If only they could be paid the same as the bureaucrats.