Tuesday 4 June 2024

The curious tale of Iain Dale

Dale tale.   Pic: LBC
Declaration of interest: broadcaster, publisher, author, one-time legendary blogger and would-be MP Iain Dale once had dealings with this blog.   

Backgroundfor those who are not familiar with this chap, Dale first came to widespread attention as one of the trio of major-league early-adopter rightwing bloggers, along with Guido and Tim Montgomery.  With blogging first a real phenomenon in the mid years of the Blair/Brown regime, they (and their very many BTL commenters) had plenty of stuff to get their teeth into.  Blogs like C@W, and several more that are or were broadly on the right, grew up in their shadow.  Lefty blogs were nowhere.

All of these three titans, unsurprisingly perhaps, were approachable up to a point - but pretty sniffy (to the point of being prickly) about outright competition.  Big, big egos all round.  CU and I were on lunching terms with Guido but C@W ultimately disagreed with him about how things might move forward collaboratively (which we all thought was fair enough).  Montgomery is IMHO essentially a loner.  But to a degree, Dale initially included us within his plans for building a big tent of like-minded players.  He linked to us quite a bit[1], and when he branched into radio - for which, with his extensive current-affairs knowledge + huge network of carefully-cultivated contacts he seemed pretty well suited - he twice invited me on, as a guest voice, to the occasional shows he ran before he got a full-time slot .  But on the second occasion, he fed me a question to which I didn't give the answer he evidently expected and wanted.  He immediately threw the switch on my microphone, and signaled to a flunky to escort me gently from the studio[2].  

Dale's obsession - not even remotely hidden beneath his vain attempt at insouciance - was to be a Tory MP.  It was pretty obvious that his strategy was to become so well known via blogging and radio that he'd breeze through the selection committee in some safe seat.  Well, he certainly achieved the high profile: and he used his platform relentlessly for heavy-duty wheedling and lobbying in his own cause, even if he tried to do it all with a light touch.  Fair enough: that was his strategy[3].  But somehow, in seat after seat, it didn't quite work out: you are probably getting the picture.   The one time he found a berth (2005), it wasn't the longed-for safe seat and he was beaten by a LibDem.  Eventually, in utter despair, he accepted a full-time slot as a politics jock at LBC, a role to which, as noted above, he seemed really well suited.  He also moved very successfully into publishing and writing generally.

Fast-forward to 2024 anyhow, it turns out that, all these many years later, the obsession with being a Tory MP has never gone away.  He and his husband live in Tunbridge Wells and the seat came up for grabs.  He was shortlisted, and was thus within a whisker of his life's ambition!  All that media and publishing success, and maybe a safe seat too!  Happy ending or what?!  Characteristically, he publicly announced his revived political intentions and flamboyantly resigned from LBC.

And then ... it quickly came to grief.  A couple of years ago, he'd said of Tunbridge Wells in a podcast that he "couldn't stand the place"!   End of story - he's out on his ear.

Dale's is a very odd tale indeed.   Quite the micro-tragedy.  Some people just can't engage brain before opening mouth - however politically aware they are, and however much is at stake for them[4].  What an entertaining MP he would have made ...

ND

____________________________

[1] Ah, those were the days.  C@W used to be perma-linked by FT Alphaville, and frequently linked on Peston's BBC blog which, in those early days, was rivalled only by Michael Crick's as an MSM personality blog.   Then the Beeb blacklisted us (seriously!), and the FT dropped us too, as these MSM platforms - at first, just experimental - started to get jealous of their amateur rivals & unwilling to direct traffic elsewhere.

[2] No amount of protest on my part will convince many folks that I don't harbour a grudge against Dale accordingly.  Well, I don't: life is too short and Dale is too much a figure of fun.  The only grudge I bear is against Gordon Brown, and that's enough.

[3] On the other wing, Paul Mason is trying the same thing: he keeps reinventing himself in different parts of the country.  It's comedy gold.

[4] And not just opening the mouth.  There's a very funny film of him fighting a bloke at the seafront a few years ago.  Did I say 'figure of fun'?

15 comments:

Jeremy Poynton said...

Always thought that Dale's main aim was self promotion. Have happily ignored him for some years now, all the more so as I do not listen to Talk Radio, on any channel

Anonymous said...

Owen Jones looks to be angling to do something similar in future, but is even more UK Comedy Gold (having flounced off from every political game in town).

dearieme said...

"The only grudge I bear is against Gordon Brown"

Oh ho, what was his offence? When I knew him his only offensive characteristic was a monomaniacal devotion to Labour politics. On the other hand his girl friend of the day was a real honey.

dustybloke said...

Strangely, given the sequence of events, he’d have made an excellent Conservative Part politician. As an MP for a place he couldn’t stand he’d have fitted right in with the current ethos. I read Dales Diary as I was fascinated by blogs in their early days, but he always seemed a bit too “glad to be gay” as though that was his defining characteristic. I have no aversion to gays but I always think of it as merely a sexual preference and so find organisations such as Stonewall more of an ego trip or money making scheme albeit nowhere near as successful as BLM…

dustybloke said...

Dearieme, the only people who may not bear a grudge against Gordon the Moron are his Mum and Mr Drew…

Nick Drew said...

What? I assure you I am not debarred from this activity !

Anonymous said...

As someone who blogged in those days, I recall Harry's Place and Norman Geras as lefty bloggers with a pro-war (Iraq) bias, and Lenin's Tomb as anti.

Who's that other guy who's now exclusively Jewish media? Stephen Pollard. Never realised he was Son Of Eve.

Anonymous said...

Oh, in my blogging days I occasionally became aware of a lesbian blogger and councillor from London called Antonia Bance. I remember she was selected for some "Young Europeans" funded jolly and wondered if her card had already been marked.

And there she is as a Labour candidate (for Tipton and Wednesbury of all places, classic London lesbian country) and also head of communications at the TUC! Yet her blogging was as dull as ditchwater.

Anonymous said...

"Two days after you lose your mum suddenly, your so-called partner of the last 12 years and co-parent to your beautiful 5 year old ... then decides to tell you that they're standing for Parliament without any discussion with you, it's a stitched up Trade Union deal and her MP friends and the Deputy leader herself have intervened to make this happen and you just have to get on board with it."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13493181/tuc-director-antonia-bance-wife-decison-labour-mp.html

Diogenes said...

I'm in a constituency close by to TW. Safe Conservative seat with a retiring MP. They'd vote a donkey in here if it wore a blue rosette. They say the final choice came down to whether they were a Rishi choice or not.

Conservatives (and Labour) now looking very tribal. If you are not anointed by the top guy/gal then you're out in the wilderness - or Widnes.

Nick Drew said...

wilderness / widnes ...

poetic - keeps the tone up

Diogenes said...

The tribal nature of candidate selection has been neatly illustrated by Richard Holden's selection in Basildon and Billericay for the Conservative Party. If party management has been a problem in the past, then making sure only your team gets selected is the way to go.

Does this point though to Rishi not wishing to go and making sure there won't be a challenge to his position post-GE? Was going early and invoking the Party's emergency procedures all part of a plan, irrespective of the damage it is going (lack of funds/lack of preparation/gaps in selection)

If only there was a well connected Conservative on this blog who could give some insight or even explanation to these machinations....

Anonymous said...

I assume that we are all agreed that Rishi's doomed, and the only issue is - landslide or 1922/4-style demotion to third-party status?

The trouble with all his brilliant policies is that every one of them can be answered with "your lot were in power for nine years and didn't implement it".

James Higham said...

Very curious case, Iain was. CU and I began around the same time, Tom Paine too and the Brit blogging world was essentially Guido, Iain, Cranmer, a few others ... DK and Mr. Eugenides to one libertarian side. He then seemed to implode.

djm said...

I think we've had quite enough of "entertaining" MPs

Whatever happened to Diligent, Hardworking & Competent ?

Besides, who's going to vote for an overweight lardarse who can't even beat up a pensioner ?