Don’t force a Londoner on us, says leading local Tory (From Craven Herald)

Don’t force a Londoner on us, says leading local Tory

2:30pm Saturday 4th July 2009 in

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A leading Craven Conservative has voiced fears that the party will be forced to select an “offcumden” to represent the constituency.

Lady Roche, president of the Upper Wharfedale branch, says that the Skipton and Ripon Conservative Association could be faced with choosing from a list of London-based “apparatchiks”.

But she wants to see someone with Yorkshire common sense who has lived in or been brought up in the area.

Selecting the next person to replace MP David Curry – who has been in the job 22 years and stands down at the next election – had been taken out of local hands, she claimed.

Lady Roche, who lives in Starbotton, fears it will mean local Tories having to choose from a list of people – some not members of the Party – which has been approved in advance by the Party’s chiefs in London.

Speaking on behalf of her local group, she said: “Needless to say, these lists of Notting Hill apparatchiks tend to be London-based. They get on the train looking for safe seats.

“What the central office has done, as a result of the duck and moat scandal, is to re-open the lists in London to anyone who might want to be a Conservative MP whether they are a member or not.”

There was an enormous backlog in the system for compiling lists, which she claimed could take six months.

“The Skipton and Ripon association must make its own rules and decide how it is represented in Parliament,” she said.

“The Conservative party is likely to form the next Government. I consider it most important that we send to this governing party someone who can take a trailer-load of maturity and Yorkshire common sense.

“We need to send to Westminster someone with our values and not have London visit us.

“We need a candidate who has lived in or been brought up in the constituency and definitely knows something about farming.

“Here in Yorkshire the Conservative party is in fine fettle. We know what we stand for. We do not need to keep in our pockets a list of ‘Conservative values’ to remind us what they are.”

But Conservative agent Ken Houghton says there will be plenty of people from North Yorkshire on the selection list.

“There will be 50 or 60 from the county on the list that I know of. They have already made their opinions known to me,” he said.

The selection list had been opened up to people who were not necessarily members of the party and there were about 3,000 would-be candidates nationwide.

“The applications will be analysed and people interviewed and that is going to take two to three months,” he said.

“And when that is achieved we will be announcing our programme for the coming selection, probably towards the end of August.”

It was hoped to have the process completed by September and the news released to the Press.

Mr Houghton said the only time they would be rushed into selecting a candidate was if an early General Election was called.

Lady Roche has served as chairman of the ethics committee of the Cromwell Hospital and has also been a member of the ethics committee at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital.