PAUL Routledge

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William Hague may laugh a lot, but he has scant sense of the absurd. He's banned the chicken-run, that hallowed Tory tradition permitting Tory MPs or ex-MPs to regard a safe seat as an inalienable human right. Previous beneficiaries include Michael Ancram, Sir Brian Mawhinney and Peter Lilley. But at the next election, only half a dozen MPs -- mostly former ministers -- are being given priority in "safe" Conservative constituencies.

They include the gruesome David Shaw, who will return at Kingston and Surbiton (temporarily on loan to the Lib Dems), and Greg Knight, the former whip, who has been given Yorkshire East. Alistair Burt, the diminutive former DSS minister, is also on …