Andy Coulson ought to know a bit about the importance of a clean and well-timed resignation. After all, he did wait until his assistant editor at the News of the World was jailed for phone-tapping before standing down. And so it proved. By Sunday morning, Andy had drafted a statement for Nigel Hastilow to sign that would have enabled him to stay on as the candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis - which, according to his "About Me" biography, he still believes himself to be. "Although I did not - and do not - support Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' comments, I accept that some of the wording of my column was incredibly stupid," Andy had written. In addition, any columns Hastilow filed for the Wolverhampton Express and Star would have to be approved by Tory campaign HQ first. "It was this, even more than the 'incredibly stupid' line, that I couldn't stomach," Hastilow wrote on his blog ( http://nigelhastilow.blogspot.com/ ) yesterday. "But I felt that if I were to agree to these demands I would lose not just my honour and integrity but my credibility as both a journalist and politician." Oh, Nigel, how naive! "That's why I resigned. We agreed the licence I have as a journalist to speak freely is not compatible with a politician's responsibility to stay 'on message'." Quite right too. It takes an ex-NoW journalist to know how to phrase an anti-immigration rant properly. Leave it to the big boys, Nigel.
Notareargunner says: This article is taken from the Guardian Backbencher email list. It illustrates that political niceties supersede intelligent debate and there is no intelligent debate within political circles.
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