David Cameron’s council leader adversary who battled with him over spending cuts could take his safe Commons seat
Ian Hudspeth will face huge competition if he puts his name forward to be the Tories Witney by-election candidate
A COUNCIL leader who slated David Cameron’s austerity cuts may try and take his seat in the Commons.
Ian Hudspeth is believed to be considering putting himself forward to be the next Witney MP.
The Oxfordshire county council leader battled with the then PM last November after it emerged Cameron had complained to him about proposed local cuts.
Writing to Hudspeth, Cameron criticised plans to close children’s centres and was also disappointed with cuts to proposed elderly day centres and libraries.
He also claimed Oxfordshire’s spending had actually increased over recent years.
In response Hudspeth sent a six-page letter defending the plans to make extra savings and accused Cameron of “inaccurate” comments.
He also criticised Cameron’s claim that a £72million cut in council funding from the Government was a “slight fall”.
And Cameron’s letter was used by his political opponents as ammunition as they claimed he did not understand the impact of his Government’s policies “in his own backyard”.
The pair are now said to have a good working relationship.
According to , local party sources say there has been a lot of interest in the seat since Cameron quit yesterday afternoon.
It is a safe Tory seat – and produced a majority of more than 25,000 for Cameron last year – so Hudspeth will face huge competition if he puts his name forward.
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The Witney constituency was created in 1983 and its first MP was Douglas Hurd, who served as Home and Foreign Secretary under Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
When he retired in 1997 he was succeeded by the then Tory Shaun Woodward.
Witney was briefly Labour after Woodward defected to the party in 1999 but decided not to contest his seat in the 2001 general election.
Instead he found a safe Labour seat in St Helens South and Cameron took back Witney for the Tories.
As well as Hudspeth, another Tory believed to be considering standing is the MEP and prominent Brexiteer Daniel Hannan.
Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson has said she will not stand to replace Cameron.
No-one has officially said they want to stand as the Tory candidate in the by-election.
David Harvey, former chairman of the local Conservative association, told The Times he wants someone as good as he says Cameron was.
He said: “I understand his reasons but I’m saddened because he was a first-class constituency member.
“I don’t think he would have deliberately set out to be a distraction [to Theresa May], but he would have been a focal point.
“If we’re very lucky, we’ll get someone who is as devoted to the people of west Oxfordshire as David and his family have always been.”