Overnight ConservativeHome has updated its rolling record of selected candidates. The list hadn't been updated since 2nd November - since when sixteen candidates have been selected:
- Five of the sixteen selected were women - slightly reducing the overall percentage of women selected so far from 36.1% to 35.1%.
- The number of ethnic minority candidates dropped again to 2.6% (from 3.3%). Priti Patel's involvement in tonight's Witham selection offers the most immediate hope of improving that statistic and easing the controversy following Ali Miraj's recent intervention.
- Nine of the sixteen candidates are identified as non-A-listers (although some may not have been correctly identified as A-list members) - increasing the proportion of non-A-listers selected from 41.0% to 45.6%.
Saturday 9th December will see many candidates gather together at Westminster Central Hall. John Maples MP - the new head of candidates at CCHQ - will be there all day. He, Shireen Ritchie and Gareth Fox will run 'career surgeries' throughout the day for individual candidates. Head of party policy Oliver Letwin, Chairman Francis Maude, Theresa May, CCHQ campaigns director George Bridges and Friends of the Earth's Tony Juniper will all give policy/ strategy presentations. It is the first serious attempt since the introduction of the A-list for all candidates to receive a full briefing on party and candidate issues. Credit must go to David Senior and Mary Macleod of the Candidates' Association for organising it. A pdf leaflet for the conference can be downloaded here.
