Northampton South Conservative Association has announced has announced the final four candidates who will compete in an Open Primary to succeed Brian Binley when he steps down in 2015.
The seat had a Conservative majority of 6,004 votes (15.4 percentage points) in 2010.
The four hopefuls are:
- Cllr David Mackintosh. Born and brought up in Northampton, Cllr Mackintosh has been Leader of Northampton Borough Council since 2011, and is also a Northamptonshire County Councillor. As well as his work in local government, he chairs The KidsAid Foundation, a charity which helps children and young people who have suffered traumatic events .
- Stephen Mold. Currently the Chairman of the East Midlands Regional Conservative Party, Mold fought Derby North in the 2010 General Election, missing out by just 613 votes after a Liberal Democrat squeeze saw the Tory vote share fall by 3.7 percentage points. He, too, lives in Northampton, and is European Sales & Marketing Director for a US software company. Aside from work and politics, he is a trustee of Grandparents Plus, a charity which champions the role of grandparents in children’s lives.
- Cllr Chris Hayward. Cllr Hayward is evidently a busy man – he is the Deputy Leader of Hertfordshire County Council, the Leader of the Opposition on Three Rivers District Council and a common councilman on the City of London Corporation. He worked for much of his career in the events industry, and now runs a property investment firm and a company running tours to Italy and Russia.
- Cllr Jane Hunt. A caseworker for Nicky Morgan MP and a Charnwood Borough councillor, Cllr Hunt is also a two-times Parliamentary candidate. In 2010 she stood against Keith Vaz in Leicester East, where she increased the Conservative vote share by 4.6 percentage points. A year later, she fought the Leicester South by-election, where the Conservative vote share fell by 6.3 percentage points. Before working for Nicky Morgan, she has worked in business, the civil service and the charity sector.
The Open Primary will take place from 9.30am on Saturday, 7 December at Northampton Town Football Club, Sixfields Stadium, Northampton, NN5 5QA.
All registered voters in the Northampton South constituency are welcome, and anyone interested in attending should call the constituency office on 01604 633414 or email nsca@devlinfisher.co.uk