Nick Boles has a love of national publicity, and if this fostered good publicity for our town it would be welcome, he manages to do the opposite.
This weekend we had coverage in the Telegraph of his latest foot in large mouth pronouncements on pornography. This follows various equally stupid comments on planning procedures. Prior to this and his promotion, we have the “Grantham is a good place to die” saga, the claiming expenses for Hebrew lessons episode and, more recently, his public non-backing of our maternity facility and more, the list is long!
He is a liability to Grantham and if the position he is in was within a private company, he would long ago been fired, without a golden handshake.
He was elected to represent the views of his constituents, he does not and if ever a deselection procedure comes into force, he should be the first to go. That, like all things political, may never happen so we will just have to wait until the next election, by which time he may well have left anyway. If that does come to pass, we will also need to remember who placed this man in this safe seat in the first place. The local Tory party in selecting this man has shown itself to be just as stupid.
I am not a Labour supporter but they must hope against hope that he does stay, which will give them a fighting chance, that is unless a good independent comes forward. We did it with the police commissioner and we could do the same again.
Stuart Allan
By email