One of the most innovative reforms that Team Cameron introduced in opposition was all postal primaries. In these primaries ALL local voters were able to choose which person should become their Tory candidate.
They were only used in two seats - Totnes and Gosport - but they were judged a success. CCHQ believe that they meant candidates were endorsed by thousands of local people rather than a few hundred.
One of the reasons why they were only used twice was the expense. Both all postal ballots are thought to have cost approximately £40,000.
In yesterday's Coalition Agreement there is a commitment for the taxpayer to fund 200 all-postal primary ballots:
"We will fund 200 all-postal primaries over this Parliament, targeted at seats which have not changed hands for many years. These funds will be allocated to all political parties with seats in Parliament that they take up, in proportion to their share of the total vote in the last general election."
While I welcome the basic idea I have a few related concerns.
The idea won't be cheap from a Conservative Party that, when writing its own agenda, promised to cut the cost of politics. If primaries each cost about £40,000 the total bill for the taxpayer will be £8m.
Douglas Carswell MP has put forward an alternative idea. He has said that any group of local people* wanting to put up an alternative Tory candidate in a traditionally safe Tory seat (or a Labour candidate in a safe Labour seat etc) should be able to do so at the time of annual local elections. In other words, when voters go to the polling booths on the first Thursday in May to choose their local councillors (or MSPs, AMs, MEPs etc) they might also be given a ballot paper that allows them to choose between the two, three or however many people wanting to be their Conservative, for example, candidate.
There are problems with this idea. Postal primaries under the Carswell scheme could only happen at election times and many constituencies don't vote every year. Constituencies may not be contiguous with local authority boundaries raising the prospect that part of a 'safe seat' might be voting and another part would not be voting.
Despite these problems the Carswell idea has one big advantage (as well as being cheaper). It puts the power to unseat MPs into the hands of local people rather than party HQs. Under the Coalition plan - if I understand it correctly - it will be the party high-ups that will decide which seats get the opportunity to have all postal primaries. Under the Carswell plan any group of local people can run an alternative primary candidate against their local MP if they suspect he or she has passed their sell by date.
It may be that a combination of the two ideas is the best way forward.
Tim Montgomerie
* A certain threshold of voters would have to be reached to ensure there was a significant local demand for such a contest.