Year2(4): Abolish the A-list

Recommendation 4: I hear the A-list has been topped-up again and, of course, a few A-listers might soon be culled but isn't it time for it to be scrapped?  It has succeeded in increasing the number of female candidates but only at the expense of creating a large number of disaffected activists and of dividing Associations like Tynemouth.  My guess is that its tutorial effect will continue after it has been abolished.  Associations understand the leadership's desire for a more representative party but they also know that the A-list only offers a face-deep diversity.  It includes very few people with public sector backgrounds and is heavily skewed to the south east of England.  Given the A-list's recent successes it would be an apposite time for it to be abolished without too much negative PR and then relations between the centre and local associations could start to heal.

Comments

[Cllr Iain Lindley]

I'm sorry Tim, but whatever the rights and wrongs of the a-list, the Tynemouth situation has absolutely nothing to do with it. Their local candidate was entitled to apply and did so.

[Editor]

The A-list has everything to do with Tynemouth, Iain. CCHQ have made the Executive stage the final stage in order to reduce the power of members on these selections. The CCHQ view is that executives are more likely to do CCHQ's bidding and select from the A-list. CCHQ may be wrong in this calculation but that is why they have reversed the traditional process where the selectorate gets larger as the process reaches its climax.

[George Hinton]

Super, meritocracy always wins.
We should not be copying NuLab with its centrist, on message ways, that relies on the supine and slavish obedience of MP's, who owe allegiance to Central Office and not to the local constituency and who blindly follow the party line having had full frontal lobotomies.

[Gareth]

The A-list is, in my view, doing more to demonstrate to the punters that the party is changing than any other single initiative. It would be a serious error to scrap it.

You know Ed. - this advice has a serious flavour of 'back to the future' about it.

[Old Hack]

I agree with the Editor and moreover think that there needs to be an amendment to the Party Constitution to prevent the constant monkeying bout with selection guidelines.

It's time the National Convention did something useful and took ownership of the selection process.

The fundemental right of members to choose candidates (and deselect them) has to be upheld. It can no longer be entrusted to a few MPs or wonks at the centre.

[Voice from the South West]

We can but hope...

[HF]

I disagree with the Editor on ending the A list.

The A list and related initiatives has at least facilitated early selection.

The problems with the A list is the Chelsea South East centric selections. But it has brought about 50% very local selections, albeit inadvertently. These locals will be worth about 2,000 more votes compared to an outsider.

[malcolm]

I agree with your analysis HF but not your conclusion.The A list has failed utterly to give the Conservative Party genuine diversity of candidates.We have seen in some seats absolutely paltry numbers of applicants from the list and these are winnable marginals! It's time to drop the idea .

[Cllr Iain Lindley]

It [the A-list] includes very few people with public sector backgrounds and is heavily skewed to the south east of England.

Editor, what you have completely ignored in making this point is that the candidates' list as a whole also conforms to that description. I know that huge effort is being expended in getting new candidates on the list, but this will take time...

[Tory Loyalist]

Well I've asked this before...

How many dinner-ladies, dustmen, roadsweepers etc are on this fatuous and fraudulent list which is falsely claimed to "look like Britain"?

I'd put money on the answer being a whopping great zero.

Any advance on that from Gareth, Changetolose and the rest of the identikit Cameroonies?

I predict a stunning silence.

[Cllr Iain Lindley]

How many of the people who whine on this forum about the make-up of the priority list are northern or public-sector based? Very few, I suspect...

[Richard Carey]

The priority list has been a success in its own terms. For example, compare the 38% of candidates selected for winnable seats who are women (the figure on the left of this page)with the 9% of the parliamentary party who are women. This represents the initial delivery of a concrete pledge from DC's leadership campaign (yes, really!).

Is it ideal? No. But as a party, we frequently have the habit of letting the desire for a perfect solution get in the way of a good one. And in tearing in to the list as my fellow members sometimes unfortunately do, it is a little unfair to the many excellent campaigners on there.

This is the start, not the end, of selection reform. We need to professionalise local selection processes.

We do need better regional balance, more people from public service backgrounds, and as Tory Loyalist implies, people with relevant skills from a broader range of occupational backgrounds.

We also, on that point, need to do more to address the issues of financial exclusion facing candidates, perhaps an area where the wider political movement could help with arranging bursaries etc, as well as the Party.

[Tory Loyalist]

There was a time when the party was keen to have a few working-class parliamentary candidates. Back in the 60s they engineered the choice by Bath (!) of Edward Brown, a senior TU man from the chemical workers union and dished out a knighthood after a few years.

I once hosted a YC dinner with Brown as speaker. Couldn't disagree with his politics but the speech was terrible. He was like a cross between Alf Garnett/Archie Bunker and Arthur Scargill.

Sadly I don't think he would fit into today's metrosexual milieu.

[matt wright]

Well for once and very unusually I am closer to Tory Loyalist on this issue but for different reasons. I want to see real change and that is why I supported DC. However on candidates lets be honest we are not really getting change we are getting a slightly different yuppie and still from the South East. We need real diversity of normal people and far more from the North and many of those people won't be rehearsed in MBA type tests,

Matt

[RobinClash]

Tory Loyalist,

I think Arthur Scragil along wit Tony Benn, have been two of the countries greatest debaters.

I once hosted a YC dinner with Brown as speaker. Couldn't disagree with his politics but the speech was terrible. He was like a cross between Alf Garnett/Archie Bunker and Arthur Scargill.

[RobinClash]

Tory Loyalist,

Oops typewriter

I think Arthur Scargil along with Tony Benn, have been two of the countries greatest debaters.

I once hosted a YC dinner with Brown as speaker. Couldn't disagree with his politics but the speech was terrible. He was like a cross between Alf Garnett/Archie Bunker and Arthur Scargill.