Tim Montgomerie at ConservativeHome has a running list of who's on the 'A' List. Click HERE. He explains why he's publishing it HERE. I said on Newsnight that if we have got an 'A' list we should surely be proud of it and be shouting about it from the rooftops. Instead, the Conservative Party is for reasons best known to itself concealing its membership. If we really are changing, then surely we should be more open about these things? There are some really good people on it. Let's tell the world.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Who's On the 'A' List?
Tim Montgomerie at ConservativeHome has a running list of who's on the 'A' List. Click HERE. He explains why he's publishing it HERE. I said on Newsnight that if we have got an 'A' list we should surely be proud of it and be shouting about it from the rooftops. Instead, the Conservative Party is for reasons best known to itself concealing its membership. If we really are changing, then surely we should be more open about these things? There are some really good people on it. Let's tell the world.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
"http://genea.wordpress.com/"
Agreed. Although thinking it over I can see the other side of the coin. Probably not wise to give Labour a list of candidates to dig dirt on/monitor for three years until the GE...but I think still the risk might be worth it if the list shows the changes the Tories are making.
Oops, cut and paste gone awry! I should have quoted you saying: "Let's tell the world."
Then followed with my agreement!
If these candidates had been checked out properly, there shouldnt be any worry about Labour digging up dirt as the Party will be prepared for it.
Mel Stride? As in Mel Stride of Balliol College in the early 1980s??? He was a Marxist.
Barking Bagshawe I have commented on at Guido's place...
No, let's not tell the world. That way when the "Priority" List is "topped up", most of the most important seats already having been filled, there will still only be one list and accusations from the opposition won't be able to make "B list" or "second rate candidate" smears.
That could even, hopefully, be in your interests, Iain!
Guess it is pretty predictable for those left off the list to be critical of those on. When will you so-called Tories realised that years of infighting have caused so much damage for the Tories in the past and none of you are helping by just picking apart the very people who may well just get the Tories back into power? I think the list looks pretty good and they need our support now, not criticism - especially the women who are getting a load of stick for doing just what you all want to do, be an MP.
Agreed, Anonymous. I think the list is a step in the right direction. It’s unfortunate that Rickitt has been so loudly trumpeted, as I think he’s a bit of a red herring, but I’m pleased at the idea of more women and ethnic minority candidates and I think the A-list will play well with voters which is, after all, how we get elected. And if one or two malcontents announce their intention to “vote UKIP,” in protest, well good - that will only help the party shed its millstone of an image. I’m with the little chameleon fella on this one.
Boris, it's not the one or two malcontents announcing their intention to vote UKIP that you want to worry about. It is the floating voters - the soft Tories, soft Liberals and soft Labour folk - who think on balance they won't bother going for you after all and quietly drift off elsewhere.
The A-list does several things that are unhelpful. It feeds into Cameron's gimmick-meister image. It lumbers constituencies with people who get on famously with the big man in various Notting Hill winebars but are actually crap. And it condemns some hopefuls to political death - hell, they might even decide that there are other things to do with their spare time, and these are lynchpins, not minor footsoldiers.
Post a Comment