Oh dear. Less than 48 hours after he quit LBC to stand in the election, Iain Dale has now ruled himself out of being the Tory candidate for Tunbridge Wells. In an interview with LBC this morning, Dale said he had asked for his name to not be included on the candidates’ shortlist after a clip of him disparaging his home town went viral on Twitter. The comments, recorded in 2022, were made on the For the Many podcast which he co-hosts with former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. In the clip Dale said that he ‘did not like living in Tunbridge Wells and would quite happily live somewhere else.’ Naturally this was seized upon by gleeful opponents in Kent…
Speaking to Nick Ferrari this morning, Dale said that the disclosure made it impossible for him to try to realise his ambition of becoming an MP as it would be thrown back at him in every LibDem leaflet during any election campaign. ‘I instantly recognised the problem with that’ he said. ‘There is a context to it but nobody is very interested in context or nuance in that clip and it would be on every LibDem leaflet that was put out in the election campaign’. Dale added ‘I thought I had gone all through of the pros and the cons but I didn’t take into account that kind of comment.’ The shortlist to replace Greg Clark is expected to be announced later today.
As for Dale, a quick return to LBC could now be on the cards. The station’s senior managing editor, Tom Cheal, said in a statement earlier this week that, ‘I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ve heard of Iain on LBC. We understand his decision and thank him for his massive contribution to the station.’ Perhaps we will be hearing more of him sooner than we might have thought…
