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Deadhead MPs, An Occasional Series: the Selaine Saxby story

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Foreword

The General Election of 2019 has washed up an almost embarrassing number of new deadhead MPs onto my golden shore. I have now an even wider choice than heretofore. Out of that mass, I have now chosen Selaine Saxby [Con, North Devon].

I have to admit that I had never heard of Selaine Saxby until yesterday. The material available online about her is sparse, but I think that one can come to an outline understanding of her character and background from what can be found.

Selaine Saxby has very recently been in the news, with others, for her truly stupid and unpleasant intervention in the “free school meals” debate: https://www.northdevongazette.co.uk/news/north-devon-mp-makes-statement-after-social-media-post-1-6899273; https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/tory-mps-ben-bradley-crack-den-brothel-free-school-meal-vouchers-a4572832.html;

Twitter has had much to say about Saxby, mostly critical:

What I find extraordinary about Selaine Saxby’s original comment is not only that it shows a complete absence of any compassion for the poor and struggling, but that it also attacks the very people most likely to vote Conservative: business people, company directors etc.

Selaine Saxby’s background

I had not previously encountered the Christian name “Selaine”. My brief researches have discovered that (unlike, say, Sharon, Sarah, Selena) “Selaine” has no classical or other meaning. There is some suggestion that it might be of French origin, but I have discovered that, in the whole of the past century, and in the whole world where records are available, only 80 girls were named Selaine, almost all between the years 1970-1990, and mostly in Brazil. A mystery.

Selaine Saxby was born in November 1970 in Coventry, and will be 50 within a few weeks. Her father was a school headmaster. Her school education is not, apparently, in the public domain; she then read Mathematics and Management at Cambridge.

I saw a tweet to the effect that Selaine Saxby is “a lawyer”, but that seems to be wrong. I can find no trace of her ever having qualified as either solicitor or barrister.

Having been born in 1970, Selaine Saxby probably graduated in the early 1990s, about 1991 or 1992. The years between then and 2000 are blank, it seems. What was she doing in those ~8 years? Sitting on a beach? Surfing? Working for MI5? We do not know.

Selaine Saxby started an online sport bra company (Lessbounce Ltd) in 2000. It seems to have been modestly successful, but was liquidated in 2016, with debts.

Other activities have included raising money for charity (though she seems to have done that as a “consultant”, i.e. she was paid, so there is no need to look upon her as having been particularly altruistic…).

Her Lessbounce (Lesbounce?) company was obviously no more than modestly successful. When it collapsed in 2016, she had already been working for a year as salaried Chief of Staff (big title for smallish job?) for gay Conservative Party MP, Ben Howlett [Con, Bath, 2015-2017]. As to Ms. Saxby’s own private life, Wikipedia, the several profiles of her online, and the MP’s own website, are silent.

After Ben Howlett lost his seat at Bath in 2017, Ms. Saxby’s job disappeared, so she became a schoolteacher (mathematics) at a state secondary in Bideford (North Devon) for what seems to have been only a few months, until a date in 2019. She had previously fought a doomed campaign at Llanelli (Wales), in 2015, in which contest she finished last out of four candidates.

Ideology

Nothing much is known of Ms. Saxby’s ideological stances except that she voted Leave in 2016, and was elected on the “get Brexit done” basis. Her recent comments seem to reflect unthinking “Daily Mail” views on social welfare. She seems to have said nothing publicly on questions of race and culture.

Attitude to money

I note that, since her election, Selaine Saxby has claimed expenses which have been not huge, and I find it odd that her “staffing costs” seem to have been only £885 in the past year (the maximum claimable is something like £165,000). She claims to take “a packed lunch” to Westminster! If true, rather silly and almost vulgar in view of MPs’ pay and expenses, especially when MPs get excellent restaurant food at Westminster for a few pounds, i.e. heavily subsidized, like the old Soviet “Kremlyovsky payok” (Kremlin ration).

I wonder whether she is not basically a bit of a skinflint. That would seem to explain her comments about both hungry children and struggling businesses.

Ms. Saxby is, incredibly, a member of the Work and Pensions Select Committee in the Commons (she gets extra pay for that).

Conclusion

Selaine Saxby’s recent comments well qualify her as a deadhead MP. I have read her own website and what has been written about her online by Wikipedia, in the Press, on Conservative Home, the House of Commons online resource etc. Phrasing this in the colloquial, I do not detect a lot going on there…

Having said that, she is not going anywhere. North Devon has alternated between Conservative and LibDem for decades, and before that, Liberal, in toto for over a century. Nick Harvey held the seat for the LibDems for 23 years (1992-2015), and Selaine Saxby took over the seat from another Conservative Party MP in 2019.

The collapse of LibDemmery nationwide has meant that a number of their former strongholds are now safe Conservative seats. North Devon is one. It seems, therefore, that Ms. Saxby will be around for some time.

Update, 28 November 2023

15 thoughts on “Deadhead MPs, An Occasional Series: the Selaine Saxby story”

  1. Labour Shadow Minister for Mental Health (??? WHY a Ministerial role for this in the first place?) Rosena Allin-Khan droning away today on Sky news like a ham actor half forgetting her lines about the need for another full UK lockdown. Is this because the Labour Councillors have been leaking confidential information to Labour HQ of UK Gov’s secret contingency planning around a lockdown to coincide with the school term this week? Are Labour trying to be seen as setting the agenda when they know full well Boris and his clown show are going for the full lock down around this time? Also the Sun newspaper is reporting leaked NHS memos around a vaccination roll out for December starting with NHS staff and then the elderly and how EU regulatory consent to such an untried and tested roll out will be circumvented. No mention of the legal indemnity afforded to the vaccine makers should their concoction prove to contain future side effects or the methods of indirect coercion to force its uptake on a suspicious public. Its becoming obvious by the day; another full lockdown for half term and then the vaccination roll out as the great “solution”, voluntarily at first and then with the all too familiar by now draconian enforcement?

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    1. DJF:
      and in the end, no doubt a “final solution”, which will be akin to the “Great Reset”…

      I am sure that you are right. The “vaccine” will be made almost mandatory, by insisting that persons getting hospital treatment, or travelling, have to have it.

      Other “police state” measures will be there too, while the population lies drugged not by religion, —as Marx said— but by the Rugby World Cup, football, cricket (etc), the X Factor and the like.

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      1. It is a shame there can’t be a ‘final solution’ to the Peter Hitchens ‘let me encourage people to willingly break the Covid-19 regulations and therefore help to prolong the situation I’m constantly whinging about’ problem.

        Now, let me think about this predicament for a moment!😂😂😂😂

        Yes, Peter Hitchens, YOUR ‘final solution’ is awaiting! Step this way as you have an appointment with that nice man Albert Pierrepoint:

        😎😂😂😂👌👌👌🙄🙄🙄

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      2. With the half-hearted quasi-‘lockdown’ we had and the not followed sufficiently well mandated social distancing regulations prolonging the crisis in Britain compared to other lands with real lockdowns and obeyed regulations then some of the football clubs may get into financial difficulties and close!

        That would be a good outcome for nationalists since the Premiership clubs in particular and the so-called ‘English’ national football team have been relentlessly targeted by the PC globalist mob to brainwash the English/British into giving away their own and only homeland.😡😡😡🤬🤬🤬

        Viva Covid-19 if this happens!😀😀😀😎😎

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    2. Yet another lockdown wouldn’t be needed if we had an obedient population such as the good peoples of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Vietnam are. All those countries are well on the way to eventual economic and social recovery but not Britain since we have an abundance of very ill-disciplined yobs who have no wish to follow the rules and these selfish arseholes are encouraged by loony libertarian idiots like the simply excretable Peter Hitchens.😡🤬

      There is nothing wrong with a government being authoritarian and using draconian measures when that is appropriate though this government hasn’t been compared to the brilliant and lovely land of Singapore where they are fining people in the thousands and even incarcerating Covid idiots in austere Singaporean prison dungeons when they don’t comply. 🍷😀😂👌🤣😎It is high time the British government done likewise.😷😎😀

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    3. Want to be a selfish arsehole and purposefully ignore and treat with utter contempt the regulations that have been put into place to protect the health of the community?

      Fine, but in sensible ‘law and order’ Singapore you, unlike in daft liberal-left ‘Britain’ with no effective law and order, should expect there to be some REAL and genuinely draconian consequences for not doing so!:

      https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/2-brits-fined-for-breaching-circuit-breaker-measures-in-robertson-quay

      https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime

      😂😂😂😂👌👌👌😎😎😎🍷🍷🍷

      Good for Singapore! ‘British’ yobs don’t get far in that country if they break the law!😂😂😂😎😎

      Ha, ha, they even had their work passes revoked! Nice one, Singapore!😂😂😂😎😎😎👌👌👌

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    6. There is nothing wrong with having a minister or shadow minister for mental health. It IS a serious issue in this country as it is in quite a few others and becoming, sadly, a bigger one by the day here even without this pandemic to deal with.

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  2. Pingback: Diary Blog, 25-26 October 2020 | ianrmillard

  3. https://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/contents.html

    Yes, it is true to say the governing People’s Action Party (PAP) of Singapore takes law and order there very seriously indeed:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapore

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misuse_of_Drugs_Act_(Singapore)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_law_of_Singapore

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_Code_(Singapore)

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  5. https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/the-difference-between-murder-and-culpable-homicide-in-singapore/

    It is no wonder why Singapore has such a low crime rate even when you disregard the factor of very harsh punishments for the gravest offences since even littering is treated as a misdemeanour that is treated seriously, Evidently, the Singaporean government wants the people it governs to get used to discipline from an early age thereby making them less likely to commit the worst crimes such as drug dealing, violent assaults, rape and murder:

    https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/littering-killer-litter-offences-penalties-singapore/

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  6. Ha, ha, even illegal immigrants can receive a prison term of up to six months AND a possible caning via the rattan cane!

    How about introducing that over here, Priti Damm Useless, instead of what you do ie facilitating floods of illegal immigrants to come over here without their suffering any real consequences since you hardly ever deport them or take any other action apart from putting them up in four star hotels with our taxpayers’ money!🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

    https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/penalties-illegal-immigration-overstaying-singapore/

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