19 more seats start selection process

1. Amber Valley
2. Barrow and Furness
3. Dewsbury
4. Crewe and Nantwich
5. Derby North
6. Dover
7. Gillingham and Rainham
8. Halifax
9. Harrow West
10. Hyndburn
11. Ipswich
12. North Cornwall
13. Nottingham South
14. Rochester and Strood
15. Sunderland Central
16. Wakefield
17. Waveney
18. Weaver Vale
19. West Lancashire

Dover, Gillingham and Rainham and North Cornwall are three seats that 'got away' from previous tranches.

The closing date for these applications is 2.00 pm on Monday Wednesday 23rd May.

1.30pm: CCHQ has just reissued the list as Derby North had already selected!  Must have given Stephen Mold a fright!  They also took the opportunity to correct the deadline for applications and to move Sunderland to the north east.  The original email had this seat in the south west.  Poor CCHQ.  I have days like that sometimes, too!

Comments

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Still no Eastleigh - WTF is going on? Is Sunderland Central a target seat?

[Steve]

Good timing for many of these seats after the elections

Weaver Vale and West Lancs now look very interesting!

[wakeHantsup]

Justin I agree, Hants and the South East are throwing away the seat through their inactivity.

Can someone check for a pulse!

[Graham Checker]

Re Eastleigh:

I've been wondering about this too.

Given the awful result there last week (again) it wouldn't surprise me if the association were too incompetent to organise candidate selection as well.

Maybe it will be put into "supported" status?

[Andrew Woodman]

Derby North have just selected. What's that doing on the list?

[Martin Callanan MEP]

For Justin's information, Sunderland Central is a reasonable seat. We actually won it on the basis of last week's local election results. The Advert sent to Candidates has it down as being in South West region, so maybe thay aren't sure about it either!!

[James]

5. Derby North

Is that the same Derby North that selected Stephen Mold a few weeks back?
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/goldlist/derby_north/index.html

[Jonathan Sheppard]

Probably James - CCHQ have reissued the seats minus Derby North.

[David Strauss]

Hope Barrow gets it's act together.

About two months ago when they tried to select, only two candidates turned up for first interview. These two were then sent home.

Unfortunately, home for one candidate was London. It meant they had to drive all the way back to London from Barrow, losing out on the cost of their hotel room the night before as well. All for nothing.

[Caroline Best]

I wonder if Adam Rickett will be selected for Weaver Vale now that they are selecting before Chester.

Local press have him as a shoe in for Chester, which doesn't do him any favours and which would probably be a mistake anyway.

[ChaunceyGardener]

Rehman Chishti (having done a chicken run and been re-elected to Medway Council for a different ward) has already announced in the local press that he intends to seek the nomination for Gillingham & Rainham.

[Medway Observer]

No Medway?

Tim Butcher who fought Gillingham in 2005 and 2001 was a candidate for Medway Council in last week's elections. Mark Reckless who fought Medway in 2001 and 2005 was elected to Medway Council last Thursday.

[Al Gunn]

Well if Sunderland Central is on there then I want Leeds Central on there too!

Given the good council results in Newark and Sherwood, I wonder if Sherwood will get more of a look in?

[elrafa]

Jonathan Mackie should be reselected for Weaver Vale. Good swing in 2005 deserves another crack.

[Reg]

Medway Observer: Medway is listed uner it's new name of Rochester and Strood. Tim Butcher was given an impossible seat whilst Mark Reckless was given a strong Conservative seat.

Chauncey: Reh and about 200 other people, no doubt! Difference is that "chicken run" raised money for charity and he achieved the largest majority in Kent - 1123 votes ahead of Liberal Collinson.

[Ben]

Rochester & Strood is the renamed Medway constituency

[Preston]

The West Lancashire wards which elected last week turned a lot of Labour seats blue...but don't expect a Tory win at the next election. For all the comfy affluent Conservative wards - Aughton Green, Burscough, even parts of Ormskirk itself - Labour outvotes and outweighs at every turn with Skelmersdale.

Win this New Town over - and that's not easy - and you'll win West Lancashire. The Boundary Changes barely touched this seat - Rufford stays outside the seat, as do the Lancashire Marsh Towns - so a win here would be of the hard graft variety.

As for Hyndburn, I expect this will fall into the Conservative column in 2009. The local election results seem to be turning Accrington and its environs the Tory way. This looks a better shout that Rossendale and Darwen which is not leaning with quite so much an angle.

And a last note on Sunderland Central. Either by accident or design, this new seat has all the Tory leaning wards together. As a bet it's not even a long-shot, but as a teeth-cutter it could be a very interesting fight.

[Colin Wade]

Presumably Eastleigh is still being kept hanging in order to allow Conor Burns to make his mind up? For what it's worth everywhere else in Hampshire wants Eastleigh to get on and select, Eastleigh itself is keen to get on and select, it appears the delay comes from CCHQ.

[Reg]

Another thing Chauncey, as you read our local papers, what do you think of the half-page photograph of Reh holding the shoes he wore out canvassing (according to his leaflet) over 4000 homes, with rumours that he visited most twice or more?

As a Conservative A-lister, I think he was brave to go fight Rainham Central, given the circumstances: one Conservative Councillor moving away and receiving flak from the Liberals for not resigning, one Conservative Councillor resigning during a police investigation and one Conservative turning independent then standing against him.

I think that he had one of the best achievements of the election, increasing the Conservative majority from less than 200 votes to nearly 1200. The media coverage you mentioned elsewhere, attacking Labour MP Paul Clark, probably helped his case, along with his campaign to cut train fares, running for charity, and most importantly, getting things done.

It is a feat he managed in 2003 as well, as I have just discovered. He may have been batting for the wrong side back then, but he managed to campaign and overturn a strong Liberal hold on Gillingham North, something that they managed to achieve again now he has moved wards!

[Paul D]

Is Eastleigh waiting as CCHQ are trying to talk Huhne into defecting?

[ChaunceyGardener]

A few points in respect of matters Medway.

Firstly in Tim Butcher's defence I suspect he was only put up as a paper candidacy to fly the flag. Gillingham North is not likely to be Tory friendly territory so I wouldn't read to much into that result.

Saw picture of Reh's shoes and my first reaction was good media stunt. Makes a good picture but I have my doubts whether he actually wore those shoes out. Call me cynical but I've been around this game long enough to spot a stunt when I see one.

Re his majority in Rainham Central. Yes he may have achieved that big majority. But given all his efforts he still came third in the ward behind two new Tory candidates. These two had a much less high profile but they still managed to poll more votes than Reh. Barry Kemp was 149 votes ahead of Reh. So much for his star quality.

The runs for charity. I do recall one of those never actually happened and Reh was found out. Like the experience of the Sunlight Centre cheque Reh is very good atorganising media stunts but you have to look at these bit more carefully at the substance. Hence my cynicism about the shoes.

As for Gillingham North previously being LibDem stronghold which he overturned for Labour. Get your facts right on this one. In 2003 it was new ward made up of North which was a strong Labour ward and Medway which was a strong LD ward. If you added the combined votes of the two wards from 2000 it made the ward a Labour held marginal. Not the LibDem stronghold you claim it was.

[Chris]

Paul D, As simple as it sounds I could certainly believe that it could be the case. Ming isn't showing any sign of improving, his policies are like poison to the orange bookers, I could certainly imagine some defections happening...

[M A Patel]

DEWSBURY/Mirfield …

Cllr Robert Light of Birstall is the current hot favourite according to 'inside sources' aka 1 party member!

On the serious side, the PPC's, biggest issue is that the 11,000+ has not been breached for over a decade and with the BNP taking the rest of the 'Not happy' with Labour and a 'resurgence' of support for Gordon Brown (Old Labour) aka typical Northern town & with /Iraq issue gone with TBlair'.

I will boldly predict an increase in the Tory vote due to changes in constituency boundaries, though a similar increase in the Labour vote and BNP 'static'. Therefore

Labour 18,000
Conservative 13,000
Lib-dems 4000
BNP 5000

agree/disagree ?

[Mandy Fearnley]

I think Robert Light would be superb for Dewsbury and it would also would make a change to have a hard working candidate. I have to disagree with your prediction of a 5k Labour majority - I see it more likely to be c2k even given the boundary changes. The local Association members don't really hold much hope for causing an upset by taking the seat but good to see that they're at least prepared to take the fight to them.

[Andy Turvey]

Well nominations close tomorrow [23rd] it would be interesting to see who's on there with him.

[M A Patel]

So who are the nominations & why doesn't Dewsbury... have link to the left yet?

[TheObserver]

Dewsbury nominations according to DCCA.

M Bolt
A Bolt
K Iqbal
R Light
C Shawcroft

Shuurely no relation????

[Shaf P]

M A Patel - get in touch - I have interesting news about the selection!!!!!