Tory defector denies bitterness over job losses

Jun 11 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

A SENIOR Merseyside Tory who stunned colleagues by defecting to Labour yesterday was forced to deny he was bitter after losing two paid jobs.

Les Byrom, a former Sefton Borough Council leader and former Conservative Parliamentary candidate, announced he was quitting the Tories after 35 years because of David Cameron's opposition to detaining terror suspects for up to 42 days.

Labour hailed the move – a significant coup ahead of tonight's crunch vote on 42 days – as proof that even senior Tories were rejecting Mr Cameron's "shallow salesmanship".

But Cllr Byrom was immediately accused of hiding his real reason for switching parties – his recent removal from Merseyside's Fire and Rescue Authority. Furious Tories pointed out he had, as a result, also lost the chairmanship of the Local Government Association's fire committee. Together, the two posts pay around £17,500 in allowances.

In a further attempt to discredit the defector, the Conservatives released an email sent by Cllr Byrom during the Crewe by-election, gleefully noting that "Labour were in for a kicking".

Last night, Cllr Byrom admitted he was angry with fellow Sefton Tories, telling the Liverpool Daily Post: "My good work is undervalued by the Conservatives, who want to throw it all away.

But he insisted: "They are trying to kebab me by saying it is all about money. But that money has gone – I've moved on from that. It's that sort of pettiness that's part of the problem."

However, Cllr Byrom's letter to Mr Cameron makes no mention of his falling out, instead accusing the Tory leader of an "unprincipled approach to policy-making". Pointing to the 42-day row, he wrote: "There are some issues, such as national security, that come before party politics and on which politicians of all shades should work together.

"Yet our party appears to have played no part in this process and has seemed to put political interest before national interest."

Last night, Communities Secretary Hazel Blears congratulated Cllr Byrom on his switch, describing him as "a big player in North West politics".

"Here is another top Tory who has seen through David Cameron's shallow salesmanship and said 'enough is enough'.”

But Cllr Paula Parry, Sefton's Conservative leader, called on the defector to resign his council seat, adding: "I cannot believe the residents of Dukes Ward will want to wake up tomorrow with Les Byrom as their new Labour councillor."

Cllr Byrom, Sefton's leader between 1991 and 2005, tried four times to become a Conservative MP – as a candidate in Knowsley South (in 1991 and 1992) and in Wirral South (in a 1997 by-election and the general election later that year).