Self-made man

We have been taken to task by e-mail for suggesting in an earlier post that Gower Conservatives were tipped to take a council seat in a forthcoming by-election. We actually did nothing of the sort but merely repeated what had been said by senior local tories within the hearing of a reliable source.

But while we’re on the subject of overheard comment, it seems that the blue-tinged brigade are also quite taken with Anthony Ridge-Newman, their chosen man for Gower in next year’s Assembly elections, and who has been making a number of guest appearances in the constituency.

The former councillor has a decidedly impressive website. This is complemented by a professional looking blog in which he declares himself “Ready for Action”. Having looked a little into his background, we find that he is a self-made man in more ways than one.

Unsurprisingly, the tory hopeful has decided that health is the favoured ticket. Well it would have to be; when you consider that he needs to beat health minister Edwina Hart if he is going to get himself elected. As such, the leading paragraph in most of his several deeply moving CVs describes him as “ardently leading the campaign to save Fairwood hospital” – and yet there have been no reported sightings of him at public meetings or CHC events. As far as the local paper is concerned, the only recorded mention of him is his selection as candidate. Perhaps he should have a word with the CCHQ staff who write his stuff.

Ridge-Newman’s website also declares “Anthony is committed to representing Gower” although not so committed, it seems, as to actually live there. From what we understand, his given address at Brynymor Road in Gowerton is a pied-à-terre. Anthony pays his council tax considerably further away and across Offa’s Dyke.

We also discovered that his reference to being a councillor is slightly overstated. Ridge-Newman was returned in a by-election for Runnymede District Council in June last year. The achievement needs to be put into its proper context inasmuch as the political composition of Runnymede DC is 36 tories and 6 independents. He stood down less than a year later so that he could contest the capricious Ynys Mon seat in the general election.

The accomplished self-publicist is credited by some (but mostly himself) with substantially boosting the tory vote on the island. His detractors point out that he did no more than ride the inevitable bounce back in the party’s support to the levels it had enjoyed prior to an embittered Peter Rogers causing them serious grief five years earlier. They also mention that Ridge-Newman also used an accommodation address as a candidate on that occasion.

It will be interesting to note if the former businessman, researcher and communications kiddie actually manages to make any sort of breakthrough in Gower. It was supposedly a target seat for the tories in May but Labour defied the bookies and held on despite a 5% swing against them. In seven months time, Conservatives will be taking stick for hiked VAT, spending cuts and redundancies. On the face of it, the future prospects of success appear to be as defunct as the Gower Conservatives website - which could possibly explain the low-profile approach to date. We shall see.