Responding to today's thread on Woking an impeccable source at CCHQ called me to pass on two things:
- All of the seats selecting in the autumn will be free to choose from the whole candidates list. Members of the 'A-list' (or Priority List to give it its official title) will not have any special advantage. Associations were once required to pick from the List but there have been a series of dilutions of it - ending in today's news.
- The delay to selections will allow local people in Woking, Bracknell, Wycombe etc to apply to join the candidates list, pass a Parliamentary Assessment Board and so on. It will also give CCHQ the space to process the reported 3,000 people who have expressed interest in becoming a Conservative candidate since David Cameron re-opened the list.
In response to (1) I asked if this meant that the "A list' had been "retired"? It will still exist in a filing cabinet somewhere in CCHQ, I was told, but that filing cabinet isn't going to be accessed.
Tim Montgomerie
