Mark Wallace has been passed some very interesting information about local Conservative associations. He writes:
Small wonder that party membership has been in inexorable decline. We called CCHQ and they offered no comment, but I expect the errant associations will have braced themselves for a justifiable rollicking.‘Apparently Andrew Feldman reported (at a meeting this morning) on a study CCHQ has carried out into the effectiveness of local Conservative Associations. In a “mystery shopper” exercise, CCHQ wrote to over 300 associations under the guise of being a person who wanted to join up, and asking how to do so. Over half of the letters received no response at all, which is bad enough. Weirdly, a handful who wrote back saying the applicant would need to pass a membership interview before they could join the Conservatives. Most worryingly, though, around 10% wrote back to the pretend applicant saying they were “closed to new members”.’
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