91Èȱ¬

There's less than a month to go before the party conference season - all the drama and the dross, the drunkenness and the debauchery. It starts with the Liberal Democrats in Bournemouth, followed by Labour in Brighton, and finally the Conservatives in Manchester.

It's a good excuse to pass on a wonderful story which I heard a few weeks ago, and which captures some of the atmosphere of our British annual conferences.

A very attractive young woman, who works for a campaign group, was attending last year's Conservative conference. She turned up at one of the evening parties, on her own, and quickly found herself being pestered by a half-drunk male guest.

"You must come back to my room," he kept suggesting. The more the woman said "No", the more the man insisted. At one point she thought she'd fought him off, but then he returned, this time offering his room-key.

"Come to room 325 at 3.30am, when all the parties are over," he slurred, "and I'll give you the time of your life".

Thinking it was the only way to get rid of her unwelcome admirer; the woman took his key, put it in her handbag, and quickly left.

She then went to another late-night party, only to find she was the focus of a younger man, who also wanted sex, and whom she again couldn't get rid of.

"OK," she finally agreed in exasperation. "Here's my room-key. Turn up at 3.30am, and I'll give you the time of your life."

The following day one of the men bumped into the young lady and vented his feelings. Which rather suggests that her brilliant trick had worked perfectly.

One can imagine the disappointment, sheer frustration and collective fury as both men were brought face to face in room 325, and immediately realised how they'd been duped.

When I first heard the story I thought it was just too good to be true - the kind of brilliant anecdote one doesn't like to check out in case it's all invented, or at least exaggerated.

However, I recently bumped into the woman concerned. In pursuit of journalistic accuracy I explained that I'd heard a good story about her. She looked puzzled. So I explained that it involved a room-key at one of the party conferences.

"Oh yes," she said, and then she proceeded to relate the story almost exactly as I had heard it originally, and as I relate it above.

There is not much danger of me getting an excessive bonus, simply because I do not deserve one, and anyway the 91Èȱ¬ has stopped all bonuses in the current climate.

Tonight, as the pressure group Compass calls for a high pay commission, I examine the politics of big bonuses and high pay.

And I get to drive a car I will never be able to afford, a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead worth around a quarter of a million pounds.

Mind you, stepping into the huge vehicle, then driving it straight out from the showroom onto the busy A40 and around East Acton, was the most terrifying thing I've done since appearing on Have I Got News For You?

I have known Alan Duncan for more than a third of a century - ever since April 1975 when we competed against each other in the national final of the English Speaking Union public speaking competition for schools. (My school won, though he later got revenge by beating me for the presidency of the !).

He's always been an interesting person, a highly talented individual - intelligent, charming, frank, energetic and thoughtful. Of all the student officers of the Oxford Union from my generation he was the only one I recall who took a genuine interest in the Union full-time staff. But he also has flaws.

Duncan has always been intensely ambitious. It must have been very hard for him when he went for the Conservative leadership in 2005 and hardly anyone came to his support, and he then had to pull out. Worse still, the post was taken by somebody almost ten years his junior.

It will be very hard for him to continue as Shadow Leader of the House when Commons reform is so high on the political agenda. On the other hand, Duncan might prove a formidable backbench critic. David Cameron might do well to recall Lyndon Johnson's explanation as to why he kept J. Edgar Hoover as FBI director: "Far better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in."

Alan Duncan is a colourful, articulate member of the Shadow Cabinet. But, as I explained in my 1997 Newsnight profile about the relationship between him and William Hague, always a big risk for any Conservative leader.

Yesterday's announcement by the former Conservative deputy leader Michael Ancram that he is standing down at the next election is only the latest example of a highly significant trend.

The 91Èȱ¬'s Political Research Unit now reckons there are 102 MPs now retiring at the next election.

Since 1945 the record number of MPs to retire at any election was 117 in 1997.

The Conservative Party Chairman Eric Pickles predicted last week that roughly 17 more Tories would retire because of the expenses scandal.

I would estimate the number of retirements yet to be announced on the Labour side to be between 30 and 40, partly because there are almost twice as many Labour MPs as Tories, and partly because many expect to lose their seats (so why go through the agony and humiliation). The Labour whips are said to think it could be many more.

Two MPs who have not yet announced their retirements - one Labour minister, one prominent Conservative backbencher - have already confided to me over lunch that they plan to do so in due course.

If you add a few more Liberal Democrats, Irish and other MPs then we could easily be heading for 140 to 150 retirements at the next election - maybe more. Some think the figure could reach 200.

That's almost a quarter of the whole House, and a higher figure even than in 1945, when there hadn't been a general election for ten years.

The figures below set out how many MPs have retired at each election since the war:

The different figures partly reflect the length of each Parliament, of course, so one would expect more MPs to retire after a 5-year Parliament than after a 4-year one (as in 2005).

An interesting trend is that in recent years the number of retirements has gradually increased. Since 1970, only one general election has seen fewer than 70 MPs retire - 1979 when 61 MPs stepped down (and October 1974 which was the second election in eight months). But before 1970 the highest figures were 66 in both 1950 and 1966.

Why this trend? Partly because local parties increasingly expect their MPs to retire at around the state retirement age rather than hang on into their 70s and 80s. The result is that far fewer MPs leave the Commons these days by death mid-term causing by-elections.

The increased number of retirements may also reflect the fact that MPs work a lot harder than they used to. You can no longer get away with being an MP who is semi-retired, as Winston Churchill did, for example, for his last nine years as an MP.

An added reason for MPs retiring at the next election, on top of the expenses scandal, and the prospect of defeat, may be the increasing restriction on outside employment, and the new requirements for MPs to declare such earnings publicly. Howard Stoate gave his desire to continue his outside work as a GP as a reason why he is stepping down (though he was pretty likely to lose his seat anyway).

And there are the points Alan Duncan made in the surreptitiously recorded video released today: "you have to live on rations and you are treated like shit".

So what are the political implications of all this?

Well, there will be a lot of fresh blood in Parliament, youngsters with fresh ideas and a different outlook, less stuck in the old ways of doing politics. On the other hand we may also have a House of Commons which is a lot less willing to challenge the government. New MPs tend not to rebel or ask awkward questions until they have built up experience and lost hope of achieving ministerial office. And there will also be far fewer old lags around the House who know how to cause trouble.

Which will all be good news, I suspect, for David Cameron.

A revealing comment by George Osborne at Demos this afternoon suggests what we've long suspected, that he and David Cameron don't always see eye-to-eye on foreign affairs.

Then he gave a mischievous smile.

It's the mention of Michael Gove that is the telling point, for Gove wasn't even present at the Demos event. Gove, the Shadow Education Secretary, like Osborne himself, is thought to be a "neo-con" in foreign policy - whilst both men are fully signed-up Cameroon modernisers in every other respect.

It's a division which is likely to become a lot more public if the Conservatives achieve office.

Update: I'm terribly sorry - I've just discovered that Michael Gove was at the meeting, but not on the platform. Nonetheless I think the general point is still very valid.
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On reflection, I wonder whether today, 4 August 2009, could turn out to be quite a significant moment in the history of our electoral process.

The Conservatives are saying that the process in Totnes only cost them £37,000, which seems remarkably inexpensive. If that figure is accurate then it is a process that, contrary to what I said earlier, they could well afford to repeat. It will be interesting to see whether the swing in Totnes at the next election is significantly different from elsewhere.

In a way, of course, the £37,000 is also a clever form of election spending, and one which it is hard for anybody to object to.

In the end the Conservative Party primary in Totnes achieved 25 per cent of the vote, way above what anybody hoped for, or predicted. It would seem to be a big thumbs-up for such exercises, though the big drawback is the cost. I wonder if Conservative HQ will ever give us the figure.

Until the cost issue can be resolved I doubt whether postal primaries will become a big feature of British politics. One possible solution might be for the state to host such exercises - as happens in America - with voters able to pick party candidates at polling stations on the same day, perhaps, as local elections. But that would present lots of problems, and take us further down the road of state-funding of political parties.

The easy winner in Totnes was the Dartmoor GP Sarah Woolaston who impressed me when I met her last week. A future health minister, I predict.

The Conservative Party will announce tomorrow lunchtime the winner of their open primary in Totnes, which I covered on Newsnight last week.

The ballot closed at 5pm this evening.

It was the first time that any British party has conducted a postal ballot of all voters in a Parliamentary constituency to select its Parliamentary candidate. So 69,000 Totnes voters had the chance to have a say, whether they were Conservative members or supporters, or not.

Three people were in contention - Nick Bye and Sara Randall Johnson, who are both local governemnt leaders in Devon, and a local GP Sarah Woolaston.

But the more interesting question is not who wins, but how many people voted. The exercise must have cost the Conservative Party at least £40,000, so they will be hoping for a turnout many times in excess of the several hundred members who would attend a traditional selection meeting.

The Conservative Chairman Eric Pickles has said a 15 per cent poll - just over 10,000 voters - would be a good turnout in Totnes, and this evening Conservative officials are fairly confident that they have reached that figure. If so, its by far the largest number of people ever to have participated in a British Parliamentary candidate selection.

After a campaign that has been pretty rushed, I reckon that if the 15% turnout figure is achieved then the Conservatives can indeed claim it to be a successful exercise, even if it has cost them £4 a vote, or more.

Votes will be counted by Electoral Reform Services in London tomorrow morning, in view of representatives of the three candidates (if they choose to send them). It is expected that the result will be announced in Totnes around noon.