ConservativeHome's Seats & Candidates blog

Sunday newspapers suggest that Conservative HQ has purged "right-wingers" from candidates list

By Tim Montgomerie
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Paul Goodman wrote about the review of the candidates' list on Friday. More dramatic accounts appear in two Sunday newspapers;

• "‘Tatler Tories’ ditched in purge of the right" is how The Sunday Times (£) reports it. It reports that "The clear-out sparked concern this weekend about the criteria used to remove people from the list, and the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs will discuss the matter next week when parliament returns from the Whitsun break." It names Deborah Dunleavy, Mark Clarke and Annunziata Rees-Mogg has three candidates who have been removed from the list.
• Annunziata Rees-Mogg's fate is the focus of the Mail on Sunday's story. Tory MP Andrew Bridgen MP is suspicious of the criteria that CCHQ has used:

"It is entirely wrong to treat some of our staunchest supporters in this way. Our grassroots supporters, who deliver leaflets and fund the running of the party, must be given a choice of candidates who reflect their views. Failure to do so will risk repeating the mistakes of the “A-list”, which demoralised a large section of our membership and support network... We should be drawing up a candidates list to win an outright majority – not end up in another coalition."

Paul suggested that the candidates list was being cut to about 700. My understanding is that about 150 to 200 people have been 'culled'. Anecdotally a good number of these candidates do appear to be right-wingers but it is only that; anecdotal evidence.

Party members will be suspicious because of the A-list experience. Examination of the electoral performance of candidates included on the original A-list revealed that many candidates had badly under-performed candidates who had been excluded from the list.

Paul Goodman reported that there will be no new A-list. In reality that means that no new A-list will be published. Tory HQ will be operating an informal list of preferred candidates. Many candidates are kept on the big list because they are donors or friends of high ups. That doesn't mean they are recommended to Conservative Associations when selections are taking place.

Candidates' list members to be assigned to regions before new constituency boundaries come in

by Paul Goodman
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Spirits are being raised and dreams shattered as I write.  The post-election assessment process for those on the old candidates' list is over.  Letters have been sent from CCHQ to those who were on it, letting them know whether or not their names are still to remain on.  The signature at the bottom of those letters is that of Carlyn Chisholm.  Jonathan reported last year that she was to co-chair the Candidate Committee with Baroness Browning.

I saw Chisholm earlier this week at CCHQ, and write briefly about her background below.  But facts first - those that are available, at any rate.  CCHQ won't say how large a list it's aiming for - when I floated a figure of a thousand, Chisholm told me that "it won't be as high as that" - but I gather from other sources that it will most likely settle down at about 700.  Unsurprisingly, CCHQ is keeping mum about how many people have been removed from the old list.  There will be no "A-list".

Parliamentary Assessment Boards will start soon and carry on all the way through until 2015, assuming the Parliament lasts that long.  However, the new constituency boundaries don't come into effect until late 2013.  This raises a question: if a candidate passes a board this summer, what is he or she going to do for the next two and a half years?  The answer is that each one will choose a region to be assigned to, and be expected to work there.  I expect that attendance at by-elections will be compulsory.

Six candidates will contest the Belfast West by-election on June 9th

By Jonathan Isaby
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Following the resignation of Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams from the Belfast West seat (which he did of course never take up in the House of Commons), a by-election will take place in the constituency on June 9th.

Six candidates are standing:

• Alex Attwood - SDLP
• Gerry Carroll - People Before Profit
• Brian Kingston - DUP
• Bill Manwaring - UUP
• Paul Maskey - Sinn Fein
• Aaron McIntyre - Alliance

Adams, who was elected to the Irish Parliament at its recent general election, held the seat at the 2010 general election with a majority of 17,579 after attracting more than 70% of the vote, making it Sinn Fein's safest seat.

What would the Scottish Tories be like today if Liam Fox, Michael Gove and Malcolm Rifkind had had to find a seat north of the border?

By Tim Montgomerie

In America, if you want to stand for office you have to stand in a state in which you have deep roots. People born in California run in California. The same is largely true in Australia. I'd be interested in readers' observations about the tradition in other countries.

There are big exceptions to this rule. Hillary Clinton's successful bid to become a Senator for New York was the most recent and most high profile example of "carpet-bagging".

I was thinking about this as I reflected on the relentless decline of the Scottish Tories. For four general elections in a row Scotland has returned one or no Tory MP. The party received just 13.9% of the vote in last week's Holyrood elections.

How different would things have been if Liam Fox (now representing a seat in Somerset), Michael Gove (Surrey), Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington after losing twice in Edinburgh) and other Scottish Tories had had to find their seats north of the border? The Scottish Party would have been a completely different beast.

I don't propose regional restrictions on the candidates' list but if we are looking for explanations of why Scotland is in the grip of the SNP, northern England is increasingly Labour territory and southern England is so Conservative I think we should consider the huge, decades-long transfer of our best talents into our most winnable territories.

Gareth Knight: More evidence of the complications and consequences of the forthcoming boundary changes

Gareth Knight is a former Conservative Party agent who is now an independent political consultant specialising in party conference activity and is a Director of Conservatives for International Travel.

Last summer I wrote this article on ConHome regarding the inevitable boundary review that would come about as a result of equalising constituency sizes and reducing the number of MPs. I used Lincolnshire as the example of how such changes may impact existing constituencies.

The Boundary Commission for England has now confirmed its methodology for the review and, surprisingly, there were no specific objections to grouping northern Lincolnshire with Yorkshire for the purposes of parliamentary constituencies (though one member of the public did lobby for the historic counties to be used as the basis of the review).

The Conservative Party itself supported the European Parliament regions as the basis for the review areas, meaning the people of North and North East Lincolnshire, who spent the best part of 25 years campaigning against the artificial tie to Yorkshire in favour of the link with the rest of Lincolnshire, are now considered part of Yorkshire once again.

Not all MPs remained quiet on the EU regions. Harriett Baldwin MP, Peter Luff MP and Robin Walker MP, all lobbied for their county, Worcestershire, to be linked to the South West EU region for the purposes of the review but this proposal was rejected. It is therefore certain that none of the new constituency boundaries will cross EU regional boundaries and that Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Wight will be treated completely separately.

A list of the 23 Tory MPs who may not have won their seats if AV had operated at the last election

By Tim Montgomerie

This morning's Independent lists the 23 Tory MPs who may not have won their seats if AV had been operational at the General Election:

1. Guto Bebb (Aberconwy)
2. Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon)
3. Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire)
4. George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth)
5. Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North)
6. Richard Harrington (Watford)
7. Andrew Jones (Harrogate & Knaresborough)
8. Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West)
9. Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth)
10. Jason McCartney (Colne Valley)
11. Anne Main (St Albans)
12. Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot)
13. David Mowat (Warrington South)
14. Sarah Newton (Truro & Falmouth)
15. Matthew Offord (Hendon)
16. Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster & Fleetwood)
17. John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare)
18. Anna Soubry (Broxtowe)
19. Mark Spencer (Sherwood)
20. Julian Sturdy (York Outer)
21. Mike Weatherley (Hove)
22. James Wharton (Stockton South)
23. Rob Wilson (Reading East).

The list was compiled by researchers at Essex University.

Meanwhile The Sun reports that 137 candidates who came THIRD in last year's election might have become MPs. One candidate who came EIGHTH might even have won. George Eustice MP commented:

"This research tells us everything we need to know about why AV would be wrong. It's a losers' charter which allows the second, third or even eighth-placed candidate to come first in an election."