If Monica Harding decides to run again for the Lib Dems in Dominic Raab’s Esher and Walton constituency – she lost last time by a mere 2,700 votes – there is little if any doubt she will defeat him.
Raab is now reviled even among many Tory voters after he lay on a sun lounger last summer as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, and it’s telling he has not received a single donation since then even from his old pal Dmitry Leus.
The former Russian banker made the headlines for making donations in excess of £500,000 to Prince Charles’s Prince’s Foundation, which he hoped would help him acquire UK residency and enable him to have one-to-one hospitality from the heir to the throne.
Leus was found guilty of money laundering and jailed in Russia in 2004. The conviction was later overturned and he insists the prosecution was politically motivated. He made three payments totalling £25,000 to Raab’s constituency funds last July, just before Kabul – and Raab’s stock – fell.
Could Monica Harding defeat Dominic Raab?
Raab has not received a single donation since last summer, even from his old pal Dmitry Leus. So, if Harding ran again, there is little doubt she win the former foreign secretary's seat
