Day 53: Blunt

[Silent Hunter]

Crispin Blunt, Con, Reigate.

Has resigned from the Tory front bench twice over policy.

[merseysider]

He's a former army officer and special adviser to Malcolm Rifkind. I believe he's quite knowledgeable on foreign policy; perhaps the sort of person to be appointed as a middle ranking minister in a department like Defence or the Foreign Office if the Tories win next time.

He resigned in protest at Iain Duncan Smith's leadership in 2003, then resigned to campaign for Malcolm Rifkind in the leadership election in 2005.

He became an MP succeeding the Tory incumbent George Gardiner, an anti-EU backbencher who was briefly deprived of the whip during John Major's premiership for voting against the Government. Gardiner was deselected by the local Tory association but stood for re-election for Jimmy Goldsmith's Referendum Party. He was completely trounced, getting less than 3,000 votes, which is extremely poor for someone who had been a local MP for 23 years.