Only one per cent of Tory MPs were once manual workers. For a party that considers itself to be the champion of the Just About Managing, this is not good enough.
The Tories are making gradual rather than spectacular progress on ethnic diversity – as the party’s class of 2017 looks set to prove.
Plus: Diversity sweeps Essex. Forget the Conservative Party – this is May’s campaign. And: Give Anne Jenkin a peerage. But of course: she already has one.
Plus: Eleven candidates selected elsewhere, including Gillian Keegan in Chichester and Kemi Badenoch in Saffron Walden.
She will now run to succeed Sir Alan Haselhurst as MP for the constituency.
Latest news from round the country.
The selections in the two Tory-held seats to date have both been won by women; and there is at least one woman on the shortlist of every such seat yet to select.
All the latest candidate selections, shortlists in key marginals and details of tonight’s contests.
Labour won the constituency by 1,138 votes in 2015 and by 42 in 2010, so this is unquestionably a target seat.
The Deputy Leader of the Conservative group on the London Assembly joins the contest for the hotly-anticipated London marginal.
We also have the running order for candidate interviews on Saturday week.
Commiserations to Kemi Badenoch and Cllr Janet Clowes, the other two finalists.
Three female candidates make the cut.
The association will select the second female candidate for a Conservative-held seat this week.