Just who is Simon Clarke?

Simon Clarke is the Conservative MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. In other words, he's my MP. He was elected in 2017 and is the current Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities having previously served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Minister of State for Regional Growth and Local Government in Boris Johnson's administration.

Over the past few years, he's aligned himself with the more radical and nasty elements of the Conservative Party. He's a staunch Brexiteer, parrotted most of the Brexit rhetoric since 2017, and was one of the MPs who called for a vote of no confidence in Theresa May's leadership. In recent months, he's been a go-to guy for the media round and did his utmost to defend Boris Johnson in the aftermath of Partygate.

At the age of just 38, he's something of an overachiever, being a member of the Privy Council and a seat at the Cabinet. But who is Simon Clarke, and what makes him tick?

Ordinarily, his rise to the top is the kind of story I could get behind. Born and raised in his constituency, he wasn't a Tory prospect parachuted in from elsewhere (see Jill Mortimer, MP for Hartlepool but who lives in Yorkshire and has yet to fulfill a campaign promise to buy a property in Hartlepool should she be elected). In theory, Simon Clarke should understand the local issues.

His family too are local people. His grandfather worked as a neurosurgeon at Middlesbrough General Hospital, and his father was a local solicitor. He claims to be a "lifelong supporter" of "the Boro".  On his website, he frames his place at Oxford University as being due to "winning a scholarship" yet does not refer to his private education at Red House School in Norton. A brave local lad raised in poverty, no doubt. If anyone doubted the school's virtue, it came 1st in the 'Independent Secondary School with No Sixth Form' category in The Sunday Times Parent League Tables in 2010.

Simon Clarke first attracted my ire when I e-mailed him following the revelations about Dominic Cummings breaking lockdown rules with his trip to Barnard Castle. He didn't respond, even just to say "sod off". There was no acknowledgment of correspondence. For the avoidance of doubt, my e-mail wasn't some insipid rant. To the contrary, I expressed disappointment in what had happened and asked my local member of Parliament if he would stand up for what was right and criticise the actions of Mr. Cummings. As I said, I received no response.

Clarke's voting history makes for interesting reading. He has consistently voted against the following:

• Action to prevent domestic violence and abuse
• Green energy and climate change
• Homosexuality - equal rights
• Human rights and equality
• Minimum wage
• More emergency service workers
• More funds for social care
• MPs to decide whether to approve the Brexit withdrawal agreement
• Openness and transparency
• Protesting near Parliament
• Regulation of letting agent fees

At the same time, he has consistently voted for the following:

• Reduction of benefits
• Increasing VAT
• Cap on public sector redundancy payments
• Stricter immigration laws
• University tuition fees
• Reduced central funding for local government

While Clarke's constituency boundaries do not include communities like Redcar, the western ward does include run-down communities in Hemlington. In 2011, this western ward had the highest unemployed claimant count in the North East as a result of the decline in local industry. Yet his voting record appears to be designed to strip away the few protections that are left for communities in his constituency.

In normal times, it would be reasonable to assume that such a voting record would ensure his swift removal from Parliament. In fact, he won re-election in 2019 with an increased majority of 11,626 (24.3%). It's not difficult to explain why: the constituency voted 65.27% in favour of Brexit: one of the highest Leave votes in the country. Clarke's image as an ardent Brexiteer plays well, even if his voting record does not.

Dig a little deeper and his donations history raises more cause for concern. In April 2021 he accepted £5,000 from a man named Alexander Temerko. Temerko has donated over £1.3 million to the Conservative Party, and is a member of the advisory council of the Institute of Economic Affairs (the right-wing think tank whose funding sources are undisclosed). Temerko also held senior posts in the Russian Defence Ministry in the 1990s and was a senior executive and director at the Russian fossil fuel company Yukos. Clarke has previous with Temerko and defended accepting donations from the Ukrainian businessman in 2020.

He also accepted £8,000 last year from Gary Lydiate, a Brexit-backing British CEO of a de-icing company called Kilfrost Group PLC. He too has a long history of lucrative donations to the Conservative Party In 2017, Lydiate blamed poor company performance on mild European weather.

Furthermore, he has received donations from the Stalbury Trustees. This shadowy group has been donating to Conservative MPs for years, and predominantly appears to be supporting MPs who have openly backed Brexit. Other recipients include Hartlepool MP Jill Mortimer and Stockton South MP Matt Vickers. They disproportionately supported MPs who rebelled against government Covid legislation in December 2021. There's a really interesting piece on that here in the Tees Valley Monitor.

There is also speculation that the Stalbury Trustees – who donated heavily against Scottish independence – are linked to the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland via the Marquess of Salisbury. Once you start getting connected to groups like this, there's little doubt that you're involved in some shady things.

The fantastic Byline Times did a little further digging on this and found that this "seemingly vague network of aristocrats" had given over £30,000 to Red Wall Conservative MPs since 2019. They also found that other "clubs" had made similar donations, including:

• The Portcullis Club, an exclusive events society seemingly open to higher-paying members
• The Leamington Fund, formerly chaired by Michael Price, the provincial grandmaster of Warwickshire freemasons
• Staffordshire Westminster Club, a high-prestige club that hosts exclusive events open to higher-paying members.

Simon Clarke likes to portray himself as a man of the people. He describes it as a "huge honour" to represent Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland in Parliament. His "plan" on his website is to do the following:

• Deliver jobs and growth
• Raise standards in our local schools
• Put more police on the streets of Middlesbrough
• Improve road and rail connections
• Protect our local environment

Let's compare that plan to his voting record.

On delivering jobs and growth: he has voted consistently against higher pay for public sector workers.

On raising standards in our local schools: he has abstained from any votes on greater autonomy for schools and voted consistently in favour of tuition fees.

On policing, he has voted against having more police, fire, and ambulance workers.

On road and rail connections, he has voted against lower taxes on petrol and diesel. His main commitment to public transport appears to have been in favour of HS2, benefiting the South.

And finally, in terms of protecting the local environment, generally votes against measures to reduce climate change.

So who is Simon Clarke? Is he the plucky lad from Middlesbrough fighting the good fight for aspiration and a low-tax economy? No, he's not.

He's fully bought into the modern Conservative Party: the lobbyist-funded, Brexit-cheering Tory dream. Politics, it seems, is the vehicle through which he can live the life to which he's been raised to aspire. It is not a calling, not a conviction; it is a tool. The speed at which he has soared through the ranks of the Conservative Party is second only to his ability to connect himself to every shady think tank and policy group in London.

Upon election, Clarke pledged to "secure investment to tackle the Marton Crawl". For those unfamiliar with the area, the Marton Crawl is an infamous daily traffic backlog through Marton-in-Cleveland heading in and out of Middlesbrough towards Stokesley and past the James Cook Primary School. In the five years since his election, the grand total of his "investment" has been to rejig the traffic lights slightly at one junction, to no discernible effect, and to carry out a nice little survey.

There has been no "news" on this topic on his website for over three years. In that time, Clarke held four separate Government posts.

I wonder if, when he wakes up in the morning, Simon asks himself a simple question: Marton or me, today?

It appears, more often than not, the answer is "me".