Newly elected Conservative MP Kelly Tolhurst has launched a mean-spirited attack on her predecessor, UKIP defector Mark Reckless, in an interview with the Huffington Post UK.
Tolhurst, who won a 7,133 vote majority over UKIP’s Reckless at the General Election in May, despite her embarrassing loss against him in a by-election just a few months earlier, has blasted the former MP, saying that he “means nothing. She noted, “he’s history.”
But the attack, three months after the election, will no doubt appear gratuitous and mean sprited to the Tory supporters who initially voted for Reckless, but shifted back to the Conservative Party against the backdrop of national panic, caused by Tory strategists, over the Scottish National Party.
Reckless was a popular figure locally, and has since taken up the position as Director of Policy for UKIP. He is also regarded as an intellectual powerhouse compared to her. She is most well known for her anti-Israel views, and has urged a boycott against the Jewish State, despite her party’s central policy of opposing it.
In an interview with HuffPoUK, she said: “I know I’m making myself sound very angelic, and people probably don’t believe me when I say it but I was always the best person out of the two of us to represent that constituency and I knew that, and the general public realised that, and that’s what I was pleased about.”
“I haven’t seen him since the [election night] count. He means nothing. He’s history. I’m the MP for the next five years.”
She also complained about the workload of being a Member of Parliament. When asked what the worst thing about representing her constituents in the House of Commons is, she replied, “You do so much, it’s just so full on.”
Tolhurst also used her maiden speech to elicit laughs about Mr Reckless in the House of Commons chamber, stating, despite her fealty to her boss David Cameron, “I follow a line of representatives who were of an independent nature and character…”
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