Lowry defends national record on the campaign beat

ASK Michael Lowry if he resents being regarded by some in the “commentariat” as a parish-pump politician, a guy to whom you’d go to fix a pot-hole rather than fix the economy, and he bristles.

“It annoys me,” he says. “I don’t know how anyone could say I haven’t acted in the national interest, when I have.”

To back up his argument, he contends that he proved his mettle on the national stage by voting for the recent Finance Bill at a time when the government desperately needed bodies in the “yes” lobby. If anyone has a problem with a reputation as a man who “gets things done”, as he puts it, that’s their problem and not his.