At a time when the World is dealing with the corona-virus pandemic CCHQ have been shuffling the chairs at the Candidates Committee. The Party Co-Chairman, Amanda Milling (unelected and unaccountable to ordinary Party members) has told us that the Chairman of the Committee, Amanda Sater has stepped down.
Matt Wright has now been appointed the new Chairman of the Candidates Committee.
Gareth Fox who was the Director of Candidates will now be the Chief of Staff to the Chairman of the Candidates Committee.
The new Director of Candidates will be Matt Lane who was the previous Deputy Director of Candidates.
Andrew Sharpe, (Chairman of the National Convention, unelected and unaccountable to ordinary Party members) and Julie Marson MP will be Vice-Chairmen of the Candidates Committee.
Does this matter? This small group of people, none of whom are elected by or accountable to the ordinary members of the Party will be deciding who our parliamentary candidates will be. From these candidates we will get our Members of Parliament and from them we will get Conservative Government Ministers. That is why it is critically important. It makes a mockery of democracy within the Conservative Party and democracy within the United Kingdom.
At the last General Election candidates were imposed on Constituencies despite being promised that this practice would not happen again after the same thing happened at the 2017 General Election. Do not be sure it will not happen again and the people mentioned above will be the ones who will decide who these candidates - MPs - Government Ministers will be.
There needs to be fundamental reform to bring the Conservative Party into the 21st Century and create a genuinely democratic Party and Nation.
The Chairman of the Candidates Committee should be elected by the Party members at an Annual General Meeting of the Party to which all members are invited and present an Annual Report which can be questioned by the members.
