Don’t drop the Penny, Dave, promote her

Parliament needs more MPs like Penny Mordaunt.

A battle, a people’s army, even dawn raids not the D-Day commemorations last week, but the Newark by-election.

The vote was triggered by the resignation of Tory Patrick Mercer. The former military man was caught taking cash for questions.

A couple of dodgy characters offered him payment to raise questions about Fiji in the Commons which he didn’t declare properly. He was guilty, not just of breaking the rules, but of failing to spot a fairly obvious sting.

The Westminster media are bored of sleaze these days though, and their new obsession is Ukip. So when Mercer stepped down the story was not outrage at his contempt for democracy but whether Ukip could actually get someone elected to Westminster for the first time.

They couldn’t. Not even close.

Despite the seat being in fertile Ukip territory the Conservatives held it with ease. Nigel Farage’s people’s army was defeated.

Just as on D-Day, when the German commander Rommel was absent, so was Farage during the Newark campaign. But while Rommel was celebrating his wife’s birthday in 1944, Farage was in Malta holding hands with a woman who was not his wife.

But to be clear, that’s the only parallel between Farage and Rommel. For all their anti-immigration schtick and the rhetoric of more excitable lefties, Ukip are not Nazis.

The Tories put their success down to pouring cash and manpower into the campaign.

Party chairman Grant Shapps will be hoping his visibility at the head of the campaign will keep him in post in the ministerial reshuffle expected soon.

Shapps bussed in scores of enthusiastic young Tories to flood the streets of Newark. By all accounts they then left the local pubs dry and did what drunk, young Tories do.

Expect an additional hunting season this year in the autumn red-faced Tory grandees will be roaming the country looking for the young men that ruined their darling daughters.

Shapps also launched “dawn raids” on Election Day that saw activists up early and out leafleting.

Using the term dawn raids seemed a poor choice given the proximity to the anniversary of the day when brave young men launched real raids on the German defences in Normandy at an awful cost.

The Newark by-election wasn’t a battle, the living hell that was the campaign to liberate Normandy, Europe and the world was. Today’s politicians should bear in mind that it’s the sacrifice of those D-Day heroes that allow them to carry on their trade.

One MP showed she does get it last week. Penny Mordaunt, best known as the diving belle who took part in Tom Daley’s celebrity high diving show, Splash!

She was picked to lead the Commons debate that follows the Queen’s Speech.

The honour is usually given to an up-and-coming backbencher who gives a knockabout turn in praise of their own constituency.

Mordaunt, MP for Portsmouth, struck a fine tone with a few good lines but also paying tribute to her town’s naval history and key role in D-Day.

It was from Portsmouth that much of the huge armada assembled in 1944 sailed for France, laden with thousands of scared yet brave troops.

And Mordaunt doesn’t just talk the talk, she understands military life and sacrifice as she’s a Royal Navy reservist and has captained an amphibious assault ship.

She’s even picked up some of the bawdy humour.

Part of her military training involved a “practical demonstration” of how a soldier should look after his manhood in the field. She joked that the lecturer “failed to appreciate that some of us attending had been issued with incorrect kit.”

Mordaunt’s speech and her service prove she’s worthy of high praise she’s fit to talk about those D-Day heroes as an equal.

Pity there’s not more like her in Parliament.