There is growing discontent amongst members of the Beckenham Conservative Executive over the shortlist for the seat. The Executive at its' meeting on October 21st indicated that it wanted to someone who would be a first rate constituency MP and that the preference was for a local candidate. The shortlist, agreed by the six representatives in agreement with CCHQ contains no local candidates despite the fact that both London MEP Syed Kamall and GLA Member for the constituency James Cleverly applied. Former MP and until the last AGM Beckenham Constituency Chairman Cllr Nicholas Bennett and Cllr Steve Carr, the Leader of Bromley Council together with Cllr Neil Reddin are also believed to have thrown their hats in the ring.
“We look stupid”, said one member of the Executive:
“Effectively we are saying that there are none of these people are worthy of interview or consideration. Instead we have a shortlist of county councillors from Surrey, a journalist and Col Bob Stewart. The only candidate with any local connection is a 30 year old doctor who works at the local hospital but who is a councillor in Surrey and on the shortlist at Suffolk Central and Ipswich North. The shortlist looks like a typical CCHQ list and many of the names are familiar from previous shortlists around the country”.
CCHQ heavily control the shortlisting process now and are actively discriminating against local candidates because they know the open primary process involving a public hustings - more correctly called an open caucus by Douglas Carswell MP - favours them. Resentment is being caused because local candidates are not even having the opportunity to appear in front of their fellow members but are being rejected at a secret meeting in Millbank Tower.
Tim Montgomerie