Rowena Holland selected to contest Nottingham South in 2015

By Peter Hoskin
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A short post to congratulate Dr Rowena Holland on being selected as the Conservative candidate for Nottingham South. The selection was announced last night.

Dr Holland was, in fact, the candidate for Nottingham South at the last election — and performed admirably. In a seat that has been held by Labour since 1992, she placed only 1,772 votes behind that party’s Lilian Greenwood, and achieved a swing towards the Conservatives of 7.4 per cent. Notwithstanding the 8.7 per cent swing that Martin Curtis achieved in Nottingham North, that was probably the best Tory result in the city in 2010.

And Dr Holland is also a Conservative councillor, for the North West Leicestershire District Council. This fits into a trend, that Paul noted recently, for selecting candidates with a record of service to the party.

Anyway, she faces quite a battle now: Conservatives lost out in the last local elections in Nottingham, and Labour’s campaign against a directly-elected mayor for the city even drew Eric Pickles’ ire. She has started that fight with the statement below:

“I am honoured to have been selected a second time to represent the Nottingham South constituency at the 2015 General election as the Conservative Party candidate.

I am going to start hitting the streets straight away, talking to voters and listening to what they want for their city.

The Coalition Government has achieved so much for the people of Nottingham, such as the electrification of the East Midlands mainline and the widening of the A453, but there is so much more to be done.

There is a lot of work to do over the coming two and a half years to achieve real change for the voters of Nottingham. Whether it’s fighting to get resident’s voices heard or holding the Labour run City Council to account I am ready for the challenge.”