As someone who has always enjoyed Matthew Parris’ journalism I was surprised by his recent piece in The Times at the centre of which was the black and white falsehood that I might be standing down as the Member of Parliament for Derbyshire Dales in order for Boris Johnson to disengage from his own constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip to then become the Conservative Party candidate in the Dales instead. Mr Parris’ claims were jarring for several reasons. First and foremost that he made them despite admitting that they were “wild rumours” and that although "on balance" he doubted that the lies at the heart of his piece were true he proceeded nevertheless to have these lies published in The Times. Dressing up a lie as “wild rumours” does not make it any less of a lie. I realise that the Christmas holiday period can be slow for journalists but surely Mr Parris can do better than seek to enmesh me in his long-running personal vendetta against – and conspiracy theories about – Boris Johnson.
Any political journalist worth his salt should also have known that the Conservative Campaign Headquarters/1922 Committee’s statutory deadline for sitting Conservative Members of Parliament to confirm their intention to stand again in their constituencies was 5 December 2022. All sitting Conservative MPs had to respond and along with most of our colleagues Mr Johnson and I have confirmed we are both contesting the next general election as sitting Members of Parliament. Political journalists would also have known that Mr Johnson had done so – something most recently confirmed this past weekend by Tim Shipman in the Sunday Times. It has been the greatest honour of my life to represent the people of Derbyshire Dales and I will continue to do so for as long as they choose to elect me to work for them in Westminster,
I must also confess to being taken aback by Mr Parris’ apparent view that I am seemingly nothing more than an infatuated female political groupie waiting to throw my constituency onto Mr Johnson’s political stage. This demeaning and misogynistic 1970s view of women in politics has no place in today’s world or the pages of The Times. I have been involved in political campaigning since my teens, was elected as a district councillor at 21 years of age and fought my first parliamentary seat, Belfast East, in 1997. I did not forgo a successful 30-year practice at the Bar to become a Member of Parliament and Government minister only to apparently give it all up to effect something which may have helped to pad out Mr Parris’ article but is baseless and transparently impossible to do under Party rules.
Mr Parris’ piece was inaccurate, misleading and distorted. As a journalist of long-standing, knowing full well that that facts need to be checked, his failure to telephone, text or email me to afford me the opportunity to comment on or challenge the “wild rumours” he wished to disseminate, falsehoods that he himself admitted were doubtful, was disingenuous and cynical. While I am clearly a layman in these matters it strikes me as self-evident that a claim that I am about to abandon my job, constituency and parliamentary and ministerial career as part of a House of Cards-esque conspiracy would qualify as appropriate and necessary grounds to seek my response. For The Times’ fact-checkers not to have contacted me before publishing this falsehood was equally unprofessional and discourteous.
If Mr Parris was a gentleman I would expect an apology.
