Tim Montgomerie responds to Louise Bagshawe's claim that opposition to the A-list is his "one blind spot".
Dear Louise,
I'm sorry it's taken me a little while to reply to your responses (here, here, here and here) to my post on Wednesday about the Conservative leadership's tendency to distrust the party's grassroots. Because that is what the post was about. I was reflecting on Team Cameron's failure to trust grassroots party members in the context of Oliver Letwin's promise to trust the British people once in government. You made it clear that you thought that party members had forfeited the right to be fully trusted with the selection of the next generation of Conservative MPs. You wrote:
"In the past, Conservative associations did indeed prove themselves less trustworthy than voters at large by selecting 91% white men in our best seats. that is what David Cameron called a scandal. He was right to do so and right to act."
David Cameron has presided over a significant centralisation of power as party leader. There are many evidences of this but interventions in candidate selection - particularly in the MEP process - stand out. John Maples even suggested he quite liked the idea of being 'selection dictator'! There may have been good reasons for David Cameron to choose control over trust. Centralisers can always find reasons to increase their control (eg local governments aren't responsible with money/ schools aren't teaching the right subjects/ NIMBYs are blocking urgent infrastructure projects/ Tory members are prejudiced). The point of Wednesday's post wasn't so much an analysis of David Cameron's reasons for limiting Association freedoms. It was a simple statement that Britain's Prime Minister-in-waiting may be promising to decentralise but he has centralised as party leader. That may not be relevant. I think it is.
The ensuing discussion, of course, became less about that argument and more about the A-list and its merits. Let me use the rest of this post to say why I still regard the A-list as an insult to party members and our party's meritocratic traditions.
WHY I WAS AGAINST THE A-LIST AND STILL AM
Let me begin by agreeing that the lack of female Tory MPs is undesirable. The graphic below illustrates the problem:
[Sorry again for the poor quality of the photographs!]
A narrow definition of diversity: We need more women MPs. We need them on grounds of fairness but also because a debate involving women is richer than one without. We also need more people from public sector backgrounds and people with experience of the voluntary and poverty-fighting sectors. I do not think it is helpful that quite so many Tory MPs are from the City, law, the south and from private schools. True diversity is about more than more women. If diversity was a key aim its criteria were too superficial. ConservativeHome's own campaign to help lower income candidates has been consistently overlooked by CCHQ.
Quota-based systems are rarely meritocratic: Was the A-list (or Priority List to give it its official title) a list of the best possible Tory candidates? There were always going to be suspicions attached to a list of fifty men and fifty women. Those suspicions grew when it was discovered that of the 68 first wave A-listers who had fought seats at previous elections, 22 had achieved swings above the national average swing but many more (46) had achieved below-average swings.
Badly implemented: The A-list would also have had more credibility if the process for getting on to it had been seen to have been more trustworthy. The interview experiences of A-list applicants varied hugely. The process was not consistent and was not seen as just. One person who reportedly failed his PAB still managed to be A-listed. Implementation problems continued once the A-list was up-and-running. Many Associations - particularly harder-to-win seats - received an inadequate number of applications. This poor choice for local Associations forced a big increase in the number of A-listers and also relaxation of the rules to allow more local candidates to apply.
The A-list didn't address the real problem; A shortage of females wanting to be Tory candidates: When, Louise, you attack party members for choosing so many male candidates it is also important to remember that members haven't been selecting a preponderance of men from a candidates list of 50% men and 50% women. Even after many men were 'delisted' in 2005 there were still 73% men and 27% women on the overall candidates list. Before the culling you probably had many more men for Associations to choose from. This puts activists' choice of selections in a different context. When Associations get good candidates before them they often choose regardless of gender, sexuality and ethnicity. Windsor chose Adam Afriyie, Cambridgeshire NW chose Shailesh Vara and Witham chose Priti Patel. Nick Boles won the selection for Grantham. Nick Herbert for Arundel and South Downs. I could go on! These are all safe seats and a refutation of the nasty argument that Tory Associations are stuffed with untrustworthy and prejudiced people.
The overall low proportion of female and ethnic candidates on the list in the first place is for me the most important fact. Let me say it again: When Associations get good candidates before them they choose them, regardless of gender, sexuality and ethnicity. When CCHQ rushes women or ethnic candidates into selection battles before they are ready, the cause of greater diversity is harmed as well as the reputation of the individual candidates themselves. Think Tony Lit. Think Adam Rickitt.
I don't doubt that there have been occasions when some members of some Associations have exhibited prejudice but that's not the main challenge. The biggest challenge for the party is to encourage more women, more
ethnic minorities and more people from other backgrounds to actually join the candidates' list. That challenge is made harder when rank-and-file members are presented as neanderthal in their views. They are not. The Tory grassroots loved Britain's first woman Prime Minister. They voted overwhelmingly for David Cameron's change message in the leadership election that party high-ups sought to exclude them from. The safest seats are choosing ethnic minority candidates, women and gay candidates. Without expectation of office or reward, tens of volunteer activists work hard for a change of government but they are increasingly denied a full and fair say in the selection of candidates. The vast majority of Conservative activists are good, reasonable people and the A-list was an insult to them.
Best wishes,
Tim
PS You kept complaining about the lack of women in ConHome's search for 100 peers. Looking at the nominations still to be posted I think we'll end up with about 25% women nominations and more than 10% ethnic minority nominations. I don't think that's bad given the dominance of men in the public square today. I certainly don't think that it's evidence of prejudice. These are nominations. If members were actually asked to vote on the nominations who knows what proportion of women they'd actually choose.
PPS Happy for you to have a full right of reply in a post of your own if you'd prefer that to the comments thread."
Antony Calvert was today selected in a an open primary to contest the newly created Morley and Outwood constituency in West Yorkshire at the next general election. He already has a website up and running.
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