Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Dinner with Mr Hague

Just got back from a fundraising dinner in London which I organised jointly with Mark Fox, the excellent Tory Candidate in Great Yarmouth. A fantastic evening at the Commonwealth Club in Northumberland Avenue. William Hague was our Guest of Honour and he made a truly hilarious speech. I just wish I was as good at telling jokes. Be sure that the money we raised will be put to good use over the next few months. If events like this did not take place the whole political process would grind to a halt. It is a god discipline when you have to raise your own campaign funds, because you then make sure that none of the money is wasted. As you can probably guess I am no great fan of state funded political parties, although I would have to admit that the constraints imposed by the Electoral Commission and the public cynicism about political funding means we are moving in that direction.

While typing this I have just discovered a fantastic satellite TV channel...Steady on! It's Classic FM TV. I;m not a huge classical music fan but this is great - they play videos of soft classical music - stiff that even I have heard of.

It seems the Norwich Evening News has published my mobile phone number today as a contact for the Tsunami appeal. It was buzzing all night during the dinner!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have always wanted to listen to a William Hague speech. There was no one like him at making the Commons really interesting.

One aspect of your story though - you write in the first sentence that Mark Fox is the excellent Tory candidate in North Norfolk - I thought that was you?

James Malcolm, UK Future

Iain Dale said...

That's what comes of typing an entry at 2am! I have now edited it to say Great Yarmouth!