Former Conservative Isle of Wight council leader, David Pugh, is the subject of the latest story on an influential political Website.
Political Scrapbook posted a trailer article last night (Wednesday) headlined “Top Tory overheard discussing ‘sensitive party matters’ on packed train”.
“I’m on a train!”
The brief teaser article goes on to allege that a phone conversation made by David Pugh – described as a party hack – was overheard by a fellow passenger on a train back to the Portsmouth on Tuesday evening.
David, a member of the Isle of Wight Conservative Association, is alleged as discussing ‘sensitive’ internal party matters on the phone.
OnTheWight contacted David Pugh this morning with two simple questions. He shared the text conversation he’d had with Political Scrapbook, but chose not to answer the questions we’d posed. If we hear back from him again, we will an update here.
Update 21:25: David came back to us (at 11:12 this morning, but we’ve been unable to update this) with the answers to our initial question and confirmed that he was on the train on the way back from London to the Island Tuesday evening. He said that the call as lightly-described by Political Scrapbook was not familiar to him. We intend to follow up with some more detail questions.
Background on DP and Andrew Turner
David Pugh was defeated in the 2013 local election by independent, Richard Priest.
Later that year, he was linked to an attempt to oust Andrew Turner as party candidate for the 2015 election.
Then earlier this year, he was one of those involved in the putting together a dossier challenging the legality of expense claims made by Mr Turner after he switched his first and second homes.
David Pugh confirmed that OnTheWight last month that he has no intention of standing as a candidate in the 2015 election.
PughTube emerges again
Political Scrapbook finished their article with a link back to the video footage caught at the end of the council Chairman’s Valentine’s Ball in 2011 (the original video has had more than 16,000 views).
David Pugh was caught on camera shouting expletives at Carole Dennett, the MP’s partner at the time.
The Valentine’s Ball story was broken by OnTheWight and led to an investigation within the Isle of Wight council, following a letter of complaint from Carole Dennett.
