It seems someone at CCHQ reads ConservativeHome – we’ve been concerned for some time at the delay in selecting candidates in many seats, and pressing for them to pick up the pace. Indeed, our latest call for them to do so was in this morning’s analysis of the Newark result, which showed the advantages of having candidates in place.
Happily, the Candidates’ Department has listened. As of this afternoon, no less than 44 more associations are now open to applications from would-be PPCs (the full list is enclosed below).
It’s a welcome change of policy (and it is a change of policy – previously, we were told that the system could only handle 15 or so selections all at once, and I spy several seats on the list who were recently told they would have to wait until the Autumn before selecting). The sooner we have people in place, the longer they will have to get their campaigns up and running, the greater the name recognition they will have when the General Election comes and the less likely it is that we will be caught napping should another by-election arise.
It will be interesting to see how opening so many seats all at once affects the pattern of candidates being selected – those who might be tempted to apply for every seat that comes up might well be forced to choose a few to focus on instead, and there’s a wide range of different majorities facing the eventual PPCs.
The seats are:
Barrow and Furness
Batley and Spen
Birmingham Edgbaston
Birmingham Selly Oak
Blackburn
Blackpool South
Bolton NE
Bridgend
Burnley
Bury South
Cambridge
Cardiff West
Carmarthen East and Dinefwr
Darlington
Dulwich and West Norwood
Dwyfor Meirionnydd
Ellesmere Port and Neston
Feltham and Heston
Gedling
Great Grimsby
Greenwich and Woolwich
Hartlepool
Holborn and St Pancras
Huddersfield
Leeds NE
Llanelli
Mitcham and Morden
Newport West
North Tyneside
Norwich South
Scunthorpe
Sefton Central
Southampton Test
Stockton North
Streatham
Torfean
Tynemouth
Vauxhall
Wallasey
Workington
Wrexham
Wythenshawe and Sale East
Ynys Mon
York Central