Three of our candidates - Shaun Bailey, Charlotte Leslie and David Bull - featured in yesterday's Telegraph magazine as candidates you wouldn't (it was said) have expected to be Tories in the past.
It was a good feature.
Other candidates also deserve credit for getting the Conservative Party in the national news.
A report on falling wages from Charlie Elphicke, for example, - our candidate in Dover and CentreRight contributor - features in today's News of the World (not online). Click on the graphic below to enlarge our scan of the 'Outwage' story that the NotW's Ian Kirby wrote on the back of Charlie's work:
Three candidates stand out as 'super media operators':
- Shaun Bailey, our Hammersmith candidate, who has great authority on all questions of social justice. He was on Radio 4 last night taking part in an extended discussion on parenting.
- Zac Goldsmith - the handsome face of conservative environmentalism and a leading media opponent of a third runway for Heathrow; a major issue in lots of must-win London seats (as Boris has recognised) including Zac's own seat of Richmond.*
- Louise Bagshawe - not just a prominent blogger and panelist on programmes like Any Questions? and Question Time but Louise also won significant coverage for exposing how her Corby constituency had been deemed 'too white' for public sector jobs.
Other candidates who have made the headlines since being elected include Tooting's Mark Clarke and South Ribble's Lorraine Fullbrook. Mark Clarke exposed a infection scandal at St George's Hospital in Tooting and as well as prominent coverage in The Sun, there was also headline attention from the London Evening Standard, Channel 4 News, BBC London and London Tonight. Lorraine Fullbrook's campaign against police mergers in Lancashire was hugely successful. It won a great deal of coverage and made a significant contribution to scuppering the Clarke-Reid plans for police regionalisation.
Which other candidates have been making national waves? Please email us and we'll update this post later in the week.
* ConservativeHome supports airport expansion but that's a subject for another day and we're glad that Cameron and Osborne have declined to back the anti-Heathrow stance.
