The Guardian's Andrew Sparrow is reporting that Eric Pickles has said that "in total we might be looking at 30-ish Conservative-held seats [becoming vacant] before the general election". Thirteen plum Tory-held seats are currently looking for candidates and so that makes 17 more retirements. The first of the thirteen - Totnes - announces its choice to succeed Anthony Steen tomorrow.
In today's Independent on Sunday the Conservative Party Chairman defended the constituency-wide ballot to choose the Totnes candidate and hoped to repeat the open primary method in future selections. Last week Jonathan Isaby revealed Mr Pickles' controversial attempt to centralise shortlisting of candidates.
Thirty is beyond the top end of ConHome's estimate. This is what I wrote last week within a post about Julie Kirkbride (who, I understand, will almost certainly NOT be seeking re-election):
"Some MPs have made the decision to go but want to put some months between their announcement and expenses-gate so that they can enjoy a "clean resignation". Others are undecided and, almost inevitably, some MPs won't make a final decision until the very last moment. We'll probably get to 20 to 25 resignations by General Election time."
That's 20 to 25 in total - ie about a dozen more at most.
Tim Montgomerie