Today’s Telegraph has a hard-to-miss piece by the paper’s Political Correspondent, Matthew Holehouse, that talks of Andrew Turner‘s “unusual personal life”.
It paints Andrew Turner as a very weak character, indeed uses words like “weak” about Turner and “firey” about Carole Dennett – quoting from the 2004 employment tribunal.
The third sentence is very direct, highlighting that it was Dennett that stayed at the tax-payer funded Newport house, with Andrew Turner leaving:
“Local Tories fear they will lose the seat after Mr Turner became the laughing stock of the island when his “dominant” secretary and fiancée of 17 years left him for his adviser – but kept his home.”
Open secret
Below are a number of quotes from taken from letters from former Chairs of the Isle of Wight Conservative Association:
- “We now find, just four months before the general election, that we have a Conservative candidate who is widely perceived as discredited and in danger of losing what should be a safe seat for the Party.
- “It is an open secret that without Carole to assist you in meetings and prepare statements and press releases, you would find it extremely difficult to continue as the MP.”
- “The recent revelations about your separation, and the fact that you, as the seeming ‘innocent’ party, moved out of the house to let her and her new lover be there only serves to emphasise to outsiders that you are in thrall to Carole and are totally dominated by her.”
- “None of this gives either the party or the public the impression that you are genuinely in charge of your work.”
Pro-Turner ‘source’ claims “There is nothing the Association can do”
The article says that “Mr Turner’s allies insist he has the support of Lord Feldman, the national Conservative Party Chairman.”
The Pro-Turner ‘source’ quoted in the article (who also uses the word ‘Cabal’ frequently uttered by Chris Whitehouse) told the paper, “Whatever happens, Andrew is the candidate. There is nothing the Association can do to ask him to stand down, and he will not stand down.”
The IWCA Executive plan to meet on 23 January.
Video showing placement of article
Here’s what it looked like in today’s Telegraph paper.
There’s audio on it too, which you can hear by clicking on the speaker icon in the bottom right of the video.
See also round-up article Are the calls for Andrew Turner to go, now too loud to ignore?
Source: Daily Telegraph
