Talent needs a seat

BrianSJ

"There are already a host of people advising the Tory leadership who have more influence than the average backbencher"
This is not a good thing. It would be good for democracy if the people advising the leadership were elected MPs. We need to stop this culture of spads and shady advisors.

Vulture

The important thing is that the new candidates are actually CONSERVATIVES! Let it never be forgot that Dave's lot ludicrously approached Greg Dyke to be Tory candidate for London's Mayor.

Victor, NW Kent

James

Some of are less sure about prospective candidates being from far outside their constituencies. We need more real representation of local interests. Having local candidates would also prevent such as the Margaret Moran matter.

If there about 70,000 electors in a constituency it should be possible to find one good candidate.

Johnny

Completely off topic, but I work in a government department and as of this morning Conservative Home and LibDem Voice have both been blocked by the firewall. Labour List is still available to view. Coincidence or manifestation of civil service political bias?

Dual Citizen

So you want the Tory equivalent of Ed Balls to step forward? Give me a break!

What's needed are LOCAL people, who understand about local education, healthcare, crime and policing.

Forget the A-list, advisors, or any PC crap like all-women shortlists. Put forward candidates already in touch with the issues of their communities.

strapworld

Talking about candidates!
This mornings post brought the pamphlet from the Welsh Conservatives for the EU election. In which I see a nice photograph of four people, numbered 1-4!!
I am given four names.
Dr.Kay Swinburne. Evan Price. Emma Greenow.David Chipp.

That's it! Absolutely nothing about them. I do not know them from Adam, yet the Conservative Party want me to vote for them! One of them looks so young she could not be long out of college! What experience as she got?

The arrogance of a party that expects us all to act like robots and cos it says they are conservatives you must vote for them!

IF this is proportional representation, no wonder the Lib Dems want it!

Incidentally the Labour Party pamphlet is exactly the same!

Democracy?

John MacLeod

Hm. My own view is that recent years emphatically suggest that the sort of professional pols and apparatchiks who end up staffing party leader offices are generally indifferent MPs and frightful, cynical politicians. As for your contemptuous crack at 'solid but unexceptional local candidates', several men of that stamp destroyed Michael Martin with a few deadly sentences on Monday afternoon.

Ivan D

Hell, if Central Office flacks should be fast-tracked, why not arslikan hacks?

Hawkeye

Parachuting in candidates only annoys the local party. Bad idea.

idle

If these stars you talk about were any good, they would have been part of the candidates' process these last two years.

Reasonably local candidates, with knowledge of and interest in the constituencies up for grabs, is the way forward.

The last thing that the public wants right now is anyone with ivory tower experience, but no local parish or borough experience.

Verity

God, no! As several saner heads have said above, let us have local candidates. No A-lists, no adoption of lefty programmes or "politically correct" (thought fascist) thinking, no nods and winks to SPADS, no women only. No rheumatic Cameronitis.

Solid local candidates who come forward to serve their communities. No relatives of party grandees. No Margaret Morans, as Victor said above. And no Georgina Gouldings.

Strewth!

Rhys Burriss

All of these concerns without exception could be addressed by a policy of OPEN PRIMARIES NOW (or at least in the next couple of months, in case there may be an election in the autumn). The principle is that any member of the public prepared to sign a declaration of 'broad support' for a party's declared ideals should be able to participate fully in a genuinely open selection procedure with 'Question Time' type public debates in schools / town halls etc.. Provided there is no pre-selection party apparatchics can compete with others who have different ( I would say wider, longer and therefore more valuable) career and life experiences. May the best woman or man come through such a selection procedure and at last we will have a Parliament worthy of respect.
It would do no harm if prior to the next election Mr Cameron ( or any other party Leader with imagination ) were to declare that if elected his party would immediately reduce MPs' stipends to #50,000 p.a.. In the light of sacrifices which the public will have to make to put the country's finances back together it is only right that MPs should show some leadership in terms of self-sacrifice.

Dave B

Using open primaries would be a good development now.

A less paranoid civil servant

I can still access ConHome. Johnny's firewall is more likely to be reacting to the bells and whistles on the different sites than their political content. Tho we should both be working anyway!

Chris Heathcote

Well I for one agree with you James. A Cameron Government cannot afford to waste a term and a half like the Blair Government did, finding its feet and over-promoting people to Ministries and the Cabinet because there was no one else to choose from the green benches. If we want the role of Parliament to increase under a Conservative Government at the expense of the safa government of now, then we should be looking to put the trusted advisers who already wield so much power somewhere where they can be accountable. And to respond to other points made, those elected to the Commons should represent modern Britain - all ages, races, sexes, educational backgrounds, but hand-picked on their merits. It's easier said than done and however it is achieved will offend some, but the rewards of good government are make it worthwhile.

Forlornehope

Interestingly, a look at the mathematics of polling, means that the last thing the Conservative Party needs are "Conservatives". Parties get elected from the centre. The most that can be achieved is a bias one way or the other. What is needed after the last 11 years are competence and integrity, not dogma of either left or right.

Disorganised1

I don't approve of candidates being parachuted in, local membership should provide more than enough quality.

Wily Trout

Local candidates can be sure which is their first home - the one they live in, in their constituency. Then if they need accommodation in London - that is if they live further away than, say, Peterborough,from where many people commute daily, they can perhaps call that a second home. There need be no flipping because there need be no doubt about which is first and which is second. The matter will be drawn from a principle - the principle that MPs live in the constituencies they represent.

Johnny

@2:24 - Haha! I'm sure you're most likely right. A nice coincidence to fuel conspiracy theorists though! Right. back to the thankless grind...

Denis Cooper

Totally disagree, and I hope that the local Conservative associations will adamantly refuse to accept any favoured person who David Cameon wishes to slot in as the official candidate for a safe seat.

Absolutely one of the worst manifestations of the power of patronage which has helped to corrupt the political parties.

My proposed residency requirement for parliamentary candidates is not harsh or unreasonable: a minimum of three years on the electoral register for the constituency, or for an adjacent constituency.

The second part giving a bit of flexibility, for example to allow for boundary changes.

Denis Cooper

I'm not entirely convinced about Open Primaries.

I certainly think it would be a good idea to have a free public meeting where those being considered for official candidacy could each speak about themselves and their personal convictions, answer questions from members of the general public, and even engage in debate with them.

But ultimately if the local members of a political party are going to provide their time and money to support a candidate, then they alone should choose who that will be.

It's one thing to allow political opponents to test the mettle of potential candidates, but it's another thing to allow them to have any say in making the final selection.

Tankus

If Ian Dale reads this and its implications sink in ..I this his underwear will explode !

Verity

I'm in absolute accord with Dennis Cooper's thoughtful posts above.

DaveyB

I have some sympathy with the posters who demand that MPs be local, however I firmly believe that the best candidate should be selected subject to an agreement to move to the constituency once elected.

To concentrate on "local" candidates to the exclusion of talent whould confirm MPs in their role as local Councillors and Social Workers rather than national leaders.

Churchill represented Oldham for years despite having no obvious ties to the area!

Rhys Burriss

With respect to Mr Dennis Cooper - I believe he has not noticed the important detail in my ( and not only my) proposal for 'Open Primaries Now!'. This is that only members of the public prepared to sign a written ( could be by email or in traditional format) declaration of 'broad support' for the Party's stated ideals would be eligible to vote in the primaries. I would not object to there being a two stage procedure where the primaries -say - narrow down to the top three candidates, and the full party members have the final say. I still think this means that people of greater and / or wider talent would come through who are ruled out by the current Approved List procedure which has largely eliminated older (over 45s) people and unduly promoted people lacking a reasonable amount of non-Westminster Village experience.
One quote I saw attributed to Mr Blair after he had been in office 5 or 6 years was that when he started forming Cabinets he prized intelligence. After a while he realized that experience and wisdom were just as important. Mr Cameron may come to regret the unnecessary narrowness of background of many of the newest Conservative MPs after the next election. Open Primaries Now could widen the spectrum.

Sophia Pangloss

Stop! I thought there was a revolution on! Suddenly we seem to be looking at wee tweeks we can make to our MPs. we really need to have a fundamental re-think, and now has to be the time. Now. Surely we should be asking questions like 'what is an MP?' 'do we want a presidential PM?' 'have the Revenue taken Hazel Blear's cheque and off-set it against her tax?'

I don't have the answers, but I have the questions.

Denis Cooper

Rhys Burriss,

Yes, I did notice the important detail about the declaration of "broad support", but I just don't think that it would be a sufficient bar to prevent unscrupulous political opponents having a say on the selection of the candidate.

At least if the selection is restricted to full party members of some standing - eg, not including the covert Labour party members who joined up to the Tory party in the previous few weeks with the intention of wrecking the candidate selection process - then it's more likely that they'll try to choose the best person, rather than the worst person, to be that party's official candidate.

Hence I would go for the alternative approach of having a public meeting or forum, open to all-comers, but leaving the actual selection to established party members.

Denis Cooper

"... an agreement to move to the constituency once elected."

And if not elected, the constituency can go hang.

It's strange how the safest seats, for all parties, often seem least able to produce local "talent", so it has to be imported from elsewhere.

Archie

Nonsense! We have presently a House of "exceptional, non-local" people and just look at the fearful mess we are in. We can expect more of the same if Cameron is allowed to force through his ludicrous so-called "A-list"!

TGF UKIP

You on the "A" List James?

"Solid local candidates" who in all likeliehood will have solid real world business experience can, in our James' view, sod off to make room for the bright, green, politically correct metropolitan young things with whom Dave surrounds himself.

Incidentally James, in addition to the pejorative adjective "unexceptional" you apply to "local" candidates, how come you didn't add white, heterosexual and Christian as well.

This unashamedly heirite post by James really does underline just where the Speccie hacks are coming from.

Cogito Ergosum

Well said Davey B 4.52pm.

Britain is a nation, not just a collection of towns and villages, and there are national affairs which Parliament ought to be discussing. For example, the national economy, defence, foreign and european policy, central issues in education, ...

Local affairs which interest local people should be dealt with at borough or county level. Only if there is maladministration at that level should national government step in.

So we do need at least some MPs with a non-local background.

Evan Price

Strapworld ... go to the party website and you'll find links to us, to our websites and you can even find my blog by searching for me on Google if you can't find me any other way. What you have received is the calling card ...

Michael Booth

OK How about rules of engagement which say
1) You cannot stand for Parliament until you have reached the age of 35 (and can prove you have had a job in the real world)
2) You can only stand in constituencies where you have lived for five years before the election
3) You agree to submit for re-selection mid-term (say after 2 or 3 years)

Verity

Michael Booth:
1. You must be British by birth.
2. Thirty-five (I agree) is the minimum age for standing for Parliament. The other hlf of that is, the previous years should have been spent in employment in the wealth creating sector. That gets rid of all that SPAD rubbish.

3. I would lower the length of residence in a constituency from your five years to three.

4. I don't like reselection mid-term. Too disorienting to everyone, and demoralising to those who have diligently spent the first two or three years learning the job.

Evan Price

So, someone who is talented and wants to serve in a political role as an MP would have to wait until one of his local MPs died or retired before being able to apply for the post - or move to another area to wait there - jokingly, I wonder what Agatha Christie would have made of such an arbitrary rule.

In my experience, one of the factors that local associations take into account is the commitment to the local area - and if you don't live in the area, you will have to be careful in your research before applying - and you will be asked if you will live in the constituency if chosen.

But to exclude people from the possibility of being selected purely on the basis of an arbitrary 'local' qualification is impractical and would be an additional disincentive for people to consider entering politics at precisely the time when we want to increase the spectrum of candidates - and in the party we have had some success in doing that.

Michael Booth

Hang on... the system was designed so that constituencies were represented... not so that metropolitan parties can parachute in their golden boys and girls... Are we talking about giving power back to the people or just 'the talented' political class who have served is so well recently?

Evan Price

To bar people who don't currently have a home in a constituency (and who, according to your proposals have not lived there for 5 years - Verity suggests 3) would result in reduced pool of talent.

Of course, local candidates have a significant advantage some considerable benefits, but someone new, from outside, can also provide advantages and benefits too.

Many of our most famous MPs, well respected constituency workers, have not been resident in 'their' constituency until after they are elected.

The local associations choose their candidates - now with the benefit of a primary in the constituency - from a shortlist chosen by the association's leaders - save in exceptional circumstances, this power will always be there - and that means that there is considerable protection for local parties to avoid a 'parachuted' person from the 'metropolitan'.

What we need is talented individuals who are prepared to take on the role - and the fact that they have some local experience and knowledge will be one of the factors that any sensible association will consider - on the other hand, a bar on 'outsiders' is, in my view, shortsighted.

MG

Generally having local candidates is very important but define "local". Some of the criteria above is far stricter than existing local govt rules! Would someone who was born in a constituency and lived there for 20 years but for the last 3 years was not in the constituency not be valid? What about someone who lives with nin 3 miles of the constitunecy and perhaps in the same county? What about someone who lives within 3 miles of the border but works in the constituency? etc etc. Please engage brains before posting.