Conservative MP Greg Hands Denies His Party Are ‘The Bell Ends’ Of British Politics
Tory MP Greg Hands pushed back on commentary by his colleague, MP Paul Scully, that his party is at risk of becoming “the bell ends” of British politics and set to lose the next general election.
Scully, who announced he would stand down ahead of the next general election in a thread on X, was pressed by journalist Sophie Ridge on his choice of words and analysis of the Conservative Party’s position in an interview on Monday.
The MP said the Tories were at risk of becoming “the bell ends” – referring to a standard deviation model, the bell curve, and said it showed that the party’s “ideological shove to the right” means “just mathematically, [we] can’t win the election.”
Otherwise we risk pushing ourselves into an ideological cul-de-sac. The standard deviation model is true in politics. Most people are in the middle. We can work with the bell curve or become the bell-ends. We need to make that decision. I fear the electorate already is!… pic.twitter.com/8l3idGCtdx
— Paul Scully MP (@scullyp) March 4, 2024
On Tuesday, Hands, punished with the morning’s media rounds, refuted the comments in an interview with Times Radio.
Host Stig Abell said: “Yesterday’s polling, I’m sure you saw it, had your party on its lowest support for more than 40 years. Your colleague Paul Scully stepped down yesterday warning against the risk of losing the centre. He also said, Greg Hands, that the party are at risk of, and forgive the term, but he said it, not me, the party are at risk of becoming ‘bellends’. What do you say to that?”
Hands replied: “Well I don’t agree with that. Paul would obviously have their views, everybody is entitled to have their views.”
He added: “I see a Conservative Party united, a government united, on delivering against the people’s priorities. It’s not been an easy time with the pandemic, with Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the rise in energy prices, the rise in inflation that caused, but we are turning the corner.”
Perhaps someone should send Scully a link to the term “bell ends” in the Urban Dictionary. Kudos to Ridge, though, for keeping a straight face.
