ttglive.com
Interview Neil Basnett
Agent challenges Tory ‘ruling elite’
Prospective MP and former Elite chairman Neil Basnett is attempting to kick the Tories out of a safe seat in protest at the imposition of a Cameron favourite. He talks to Chris Gray
branch more than 20 years ago. This week, he found himself pinning on a
U
rosette as an independent candidate in the general election and setting about trying to over- turn a 12,000 Conservative majority in Stratford upon Avon, where he has lived since 1989. The Conservative candidate he is trying to
defeat, Nadhim Zahawi, has never lived in Stratford, but he does enjoy the patronage of Tory leader David Cameron. It’s Basnett’s anger at the victory of a man with friends in high places over local people’s wishes that has catapulted him from quietly running his agency, Tana Travel, into the midst of a contest that could be one of the most bitter in the general election. Zahawi was selected for the seat after the
previous Tory MP, John Maples, who was caught up in the expenses scandal last year, stood down in January.
Local support
Maples had made his decision to quit months before, but made the announcement so close to the election that the Tory party was able to impose a shortlist of potential replacements on local party activists. Local Conservatives felt the shortlist was manipulated to ensure Zahawi was the only possible winner.
And Basnett, watching from the sidelines as a
Tory voter who had never joined the party, decided enough was enough. He wrote to the local paper volunteering to stand as an independent, and then held a public
ntil six weeks ago, the closest Neil Basnett had come to being involved in politics was when he was posted to Thomas Cook’s House of Commons
meeting to gauge support – and was taken aback by the response. “The vast majority of Conservatives said I had to stand,” says Basnett. “What persuaded me was that Labour voters started stopping me and saying they couldn’t vote Labour any more and wouldn’t vote Tory, but they would vote for an independent.
“Six weeks ago I was perfectly happy selling
holidays and would never have thought I would become a political campaigner. But somebody needed to say something. “A lot of Conservatives supporting my campaign are now convinced the official party is rattled. It would be a huge loss of face if the Conservatives lost this seat, so I am bracing myself for some of their big guns coming here.”
Marginal seat
He claims the Tories are using posters in Stratford that they normally deploy only in seats they are unsure they can win. “Stratford is one of their safest seats – it seems they now think it is a marginal,” he says. Basnett adds that this election is seeing more independents standing than ever before. “I think people are fed up with being taken for
granted and are showing their disgust at the ruling elite,” he says. “We need to show them they work for us, not the other way round.” His policies are broadly in tune with the
Tories, and he backs their opposition to Labour’s planned rise in National Insurance. He also wants more government support for tourism, which he says could have stopped the closure of Stratford’s tourism office last week. And he is calling for an end to increases in Air
Passenger Duty, saying Britain now has the highest airport taxes in the world.
Neil Basnett CV
1989-present
Managing director, Tana Travel
2003-8
Chairman, Elite
2000-03
Chairman, Southern Africa Travel Organisers Association
2008-9
Chairman, Bright training organisation
1973-89
Thomas Cook, including posting to the House of Commons branch
election special news
Basnett also wants action to help town
centres, as a lot of shopkeepers feel Stratford town centre is dying after a huge shopping centre with free parking opened nearby.
A history of surprises
If he does win and has a chance to put his policies into practice, he recognises that his absence from his agency over the next four weeks will become permanent and his involvement will have to be “minimal”. Customers have been supportive, pledging
hundreds of pounds to his campaign, he says, and none have taken their business elsewhere. It will be a big surprise if Basnett is successful. But Stratford has a history of turning up surprises. Former war secretary John Profumo was its MP when his affair with escort girl Christine Keeler in the 1960s caused one of the country’s biggest political scandals. More recently, in 1995, Stratford’s then Con-
servative MP Alan Howarth defected to Labour, heralding Tony Blair’s victory two years later. The former chairman of Elite could join the ruling elite yet.
16.04.2010
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