Elizabeth Truss 1 Tory Puritans 0

The Conservative Party candidate Elizabeth Truss was selected to represent the party, despite a last minute attempt by a loud minority of puritans who tried to block her selection. In their view, Elizabeth Truss didn't tell them she'd had an affair with Conservative MP Mark Field. Elizabeth Truss maintains it had been public knowledge so there was no need to emphasise it. They claim that someone who has deceived their husband / wife can't be trusted not to deceive the faceless voters. They have a point, but only up to a point.

Is your private life proof of how you conduct yourself publicly?

Do you have a telephone voice? Do you use different language with your friends and family than with your boss? These are all examples of two separate parts of your personality and actions as they are needed in different contexts.

Are you the same person you were ten years ago? What about twenty or thirty? Have you gone through life and learned nothing? Have you gone through life and made no mistakes? If you answered yes to any of these questions I'd say you were deluding yourself. We all make mistakes, it's how we learn. The inability to learn from our mistakes means we are doomed to repeat them over and over. Did you touch a hot radiator as a child? Did that teach you that radiators are hot and they hurt when you touch them?

Many people have enough integrity to admit their mistakes, even if it is only to themselves. Does this mean we should put our mistakes on our CVs? The point of a CV is about how we can benefit an employer, our past is only an indicator or that. Look at footballers who play like masters at one club, then can't bring that performance to their new club for whatever combination of reasons. Past performance does not guarantee future performance. In Elizabeth Truss's case I'd credit her with the integrity of having admitted the affair, and not tried to brush it away. To me, this is her saying "yes I did it, I'm not proud of it, but I've moved on from it". Compare this to other politicians of all parties who still live in a land of deception.

Unfortunately for Elizabeth Truss, she is a member of the Conservative Party, now representing the Conservative Party, where the modern world has failed to make an impact. As modern, likeable and forward looking as the leader David Cameron is, he is still at the head of a very old fashioned group of people with very old fashioned ideas and values which grind against the modern world we live in. No matter how energetic and youthful (compared to the political pensioners we usually see as MPs) the Etonian front bench are, a look at who they represent shows the disconnect.

Just like Tony Blair before him, David Cameron has built a team to create a new electable image of his party, when the party behind him has not changed. A large part of the Labour party and it's followers didn't agree with Blair or his policies, but saw him as a way to power, the same applies to David Cameron and the Tory followers. This means that any modern policies he announces, he will struggle to follow through on, from pressure from his own party as well as any opposition.

The Conservative Party have always been a group of elderly people who want to legislate peoples private lives, and judge them on their bedroom antics rather than their abilities actually relevant to the task. They have long railed against single mothers, gay people etc. So as much as having an affair is a private matter for the couple involved, unless it's a Conservative Party member, then it's public condemnation time. It's not so much the act itself, it's the hypocrisy of "thou shalt not have nookie with anyone other than thy wife" rhetoric, followed by a quickie with the secretary. Or railing against laws which give gay people protection from discrimination, while living a sham marriage and being outed as gay years later. The bottom line is that the Conservative Party seem just as obsessed with sex as the sex industry themselves, although you can argue that the sex industry are at least honest about their actions.

In addition to a group of elderly MPs, you have a dwindling but still strong army of elderly party members who are active in voting and campaigning to appease. It's accurate to say these are the minority, but they are active, where the majority are not. These are people who have seen society deteriorate over the decades and want to try and turn the clock back to reverse some decisions they see as contributing to or causing the decline. In some cases they have a point, in others they just don't understand the modern world and make no effort to try. Change means renewal, renewal is a good thing for all of us, but that does not mean that every change is a good change, nor that every change worked as it was planned, for good or ill.

These are people who mostly still believe a man has a different value to a woman, even the women share this belief. These are people who mostly believe that a marriage, even an abusive one, is a better and more honorable lifestyle than a single / divorced or separated one. These are people who will always select an elderly white wealthy male, just like themselves to be their candidate. These are people who won't accept any meaningful input from people who are not like them.

When the Conservative Party are accused of being a party of old white rich men, the party try to get a more women and ethnic minority candidates on the shortlists. This is admirable, but it shows the party faithful up for what they are. The local party members ignore people on the lists who are not elderly white wealthy and male. The result is the status quo. The next step is to introduce all female shortlists, the party faithful are outraged that a mere female will have to represent them. I'd love to see the reaction if an all ethnic minority shortlist was introduced, I suspect we'd see the party numbers drop from a combination of heart attacks and resignations.

While more women and ethnic minority candidates would make the party and Parliament more Representative of the country at large, they are not more representative of the Conservative Party followers, and this is the problem. Positive discrimination is still discrimination. Does the fact that you're female mean you represent other women?

Political parties generally look after their own after they win power. The Conservatives are past masters at that. The thing is that no politician mentions that in their campaigns, they all say they want to govern in the interests of all the people, no matter what their gender, skin colour, religion, age, sexual orientation etc

Unfortunately for the Conservative Party, their support are not all that removed from UKIP or the BNP. It's a sliding scale with the Conservative Party being at the more mainstream, peaceful end of it.

I personally think an affair is a private matter, and would judge someone on their projected ability to do the job well. Will they get stuck into the expenses account to find out how much they can scam from the tax payers? Will they open their door to lobbyists and start taking rewards for favours? From what I understand Elizabeth Truss is a worthy candidate chosen on merit for her abilities to do the job in hand. She has shown her integrity at least once, which is a more important measure of her character.

The key here will be what happens from now on. A political party chooses who they want representing them at an election, and if elected, in Parliament. The voters have the final say. After failing to derail Elizabeth Truss, will they vote for her or abstain? Does voting for someone you opposed enough to try and derail who any integrity on your part? Will they put their support of the party and the chance to influence government policy rather than opposition party policy over their puritan values? Has their attack on her damaged her among the wider voting public? You don't have to be a Tory to be a puritan, they are not mutually exclusive.