Michelle Donelan Out of the Chicken Run for New Devizes-Melksham Constituency, But What Difference Will These Changes Mean?

So, the Boundary Commission for England’s final recommendations for new Parliamentary constituencies, which carves the Devizes constituency into three unequal parts, was submitted to the House of Commons for their perusal in June, and it’s time for MPs to scramble for the safest seats, which Westminster dubs “the chicken run.” But what, at great taxpayer’s cost, will these changes really mean for us? 

Not much to be honest, other than confusion as to who your MP is. And as a majority in the Devizes area will come under the newly formed Devizes-Melksham constituency, which Chippenham MP Michelle Donelan wants her claws in, less chauvinistic attitudes and using parliamentary persuasion to indoctrinate antiquated evangelist beliefs, perhaps. Though looking into Donelan’s backstory, she’s hardly an advocate for equality, not the personification of Amnesty International, unfortunately.

But if ol’ Danny K signed his own death warrant by segregating and offending half the population of his constituency according to gender, time is a healer. Here comes the Tory girls; it stands that our existing constituency is the safest Conservative seat in the area, and they’ll fight tooth and nail for the shards of it.

It makes sense with depleting support for the Tories nationally, that constituencies like Devizes will split to shoulder neighbouring constituencies which might possibly be lost to the opposition otherwise. Donelan’s Chippenham constituency would lose Bradford-on-Avon and Melksham, gaining the thinner ice of Royal Wootton Bassett and Calne, so it makes sense to jump ship.

Hence why Michelle is keen to abandon Chippenham and defect to Devizes-Melksham. This Westminster parlance, or  “chicken run” is no new thing. The phrase was coined in the years leading up to New Labour’s 1997 landslide, when several Conservative MPs, fearing a tricky contest on home soil fled for greener pastures.

Question is, what’s Michelle Donelan like as an MP? Well, although a Christian too, her online persona doesn’t preach like our Danny K, rather is filled with feelgood shares of constituents raising funds for worthy charities; as if the corruption of the current government she supports hasn’t been kingpin as to why we need such charities and now is the time for us all to dig deeper and fundraise, because we’re all so affluent, aren’t we?!

Online Donelan comes across as hard working and responsive to pleas from her constituents, but against her hardlined Conservative voting record this feels like a facade, and with a previous career in media marketing she would be of a professional standard to sell ice to Eskimos.

Currently serving as Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, she’s also had her mitts in the Johnson government as Minister of State for Higher and Further Education, but under Truss bunked off after less than 36 hours in her new role, resigning, writing Johnson had, “put us in an impossible position.” No shit, Sherlock, you certainly took the long route around to unearth this revelation of subterfuge!

Michelle is no stranger to debunking after a devastating loss. In her first, the 2010 general election, the safe Labour seat of Wentworth and Dearne in South Yorkshire, she took only 17.6%, to Labour MP John Healey’s 50.6%, shoved her tail between her legs and headed for the gold-paved streets of Chippenham!

Hardly Amazonian demigoddess Princess Diana of Themyscira here to save us from, erm, though Wonder Woman had no arch-nemesis, Cheetah was a popular supervillain, so let’s call Danny K it, for the purpose of this analogy! Donelan’s voting record (TheyWorkForYou) doesn’t convey the people-person connoted passionately on her Facebook page, sadly. 

This shows a militant xenophobic, homophobic Brexiteer, always voting against a right to remain for EU nationals already living in the UK, against more EU integration, against UK membership of the EU, and consistently voting for military action against ISIL, and against investigations into the Iraq war. 

It shows Michelle as utterly reprehensible on asylum seekers, and mistrusts the more general population, consistently voting for requiring the mass retention of information about communications.

A general running theme through her voting record reveals the common Conservative thread of giving large corporations a leg-up and down-treading the working class, voting for increasing the rate of VAT, reducing capital gains tax, and for restricting regulation of trade union activity. She voted for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits, and against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability.

Selling off the NHS to the highest bidder is something she also appears passionate about, and voted against allowing the terminally ill to be given assistance to end their life; Michelle likes to see you squirm in pain from beginning till the very end.

Hardly the people-person she makes out locally, voting against equal gay rights, and against laws to promote equality and human rights. You try to find me media coverage of Chippenham’s first openly gay mayor Declan Baseley’s MP observing the etiquette of welcoming a new mayor to the position, I challenge you!

And, fracking hell, don’t even get me started on her appalling stance on environmental issues, we may as well abandon the planet now, as she will with Chippenham!

But, why, why all this hostile ethos to the important matters, besides making sure businesses profit? Okay, what if I told you Michelle Donelan’s partner is Tom Turner, Commercial Head of Stronghold Global, exposed by the Good Law Project for involvement in the PPE procurement scandal? Does it ring any alarms? Or, his father Benjamin Turner, who has also landed lucrative Government PPE deals, as director at Toffeln Ltd, a shoe-making firm which landed a £1.1m contract from the DHSC in April 2020 to suddenly supply visors despite no previous experience. Ah, no conflict of interest there, nothing to see here, move along and accept your hopeful new MP, Devizes.

What the hell, Devizine, she’s wearing a blue rosette?! Sigh; it’s like talking to a brick wall. You’d vote for a 4×4 plinth of plywood scrawled with Satanic worshipping slogans if it was wearing one of those; the very reason she’s coming our way. What would it take to change the minds of a majority, to think away from their traditional blind voting agenda? Because a government whose incompetence drastically increased deaths during a pandemic and partied while you watched granny snuff it on video call doesn’t seem to have had any impact at all.

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