It is remarkable how nice people are to you when you declare that you are off! For those constituents who have not yet heard I announced at the East Worthing & Shoreham Conservative Association AGHM last Friday that after long deliberation I had decided not to stand again as their candidate at the next General Election.
By the time of that election I will have served for more than 27 years as the first MP for the East Worthing & Shoreham constituency since it was created in the boundary change ahead of the 1997 election and the boundaries of which remain completely unchanged. It had always been my intention to notch up a silver jubilee of 25 years’ service if my constituents were good enough to allow me and now I think is an appropriate time to move on and hand over to someone new.
That does not mean I am leaving straight away, or indeed am already dead, as some of the tributes I have read seemed to suggest, and I shall continue to work as hard as ever in Parliament and in the constituency to represent the good people of East Worthing & Shoreham. Having just been rated the most active Conservative backbench speaker in the Commons so far in 2024 I am speeding up rather than taking my foot off the peddle.
It has been a real privilege to represent such a fantastic constituency, and to meet so many wonderful organisations and individuals committed to making the lives of others better, and to make many good friendships on the way. It is a particular privilege to be elected to represent a constituency in the county where I was born, went to school, grew up and have lived most of my life (true Sussexites don’t recognise the boundary between East and West!)
I dug out an old grainy photo from the count at the Lancing Leisure Centre on General Election night May 1st 1997, or rather May 2nd as Adur has traditionally never been in a hurry to count the votes! I hardly recognised myself about to embark on such a long Parliamentary career. I hope I leave having made some difference for the better to those I have represented and to the county I will be proud to continue to call home.
