ConservativeHome can reveal that Thelma Matuk - who has been candidate for Walsall South since September 2007 - stepped down yesterday. Like several other candidates who have resigned since the recession started to bite, she has said that she needs time to "get things back on track" in her trouble-shooting business in these difficult economic times. She told me:
"The recession has been problematical, and since I'm not married I've only got my sole income to support me... I've got to devote some time to my business - I'm going to focus on that for the next four to eight weeks".
It was then that she indicated that she fully intends finding another seat to fight at the next election later in the year.
"I'll start all over again applying for seats in the autumn. I'm still very keen on politics and am very ambitious".
When I put it to her that it might look like she was deserting a difficult seat in order to try and apply to one of the more attractive seats where an MP was retiring and bequeathing a Conservative majority, she denied that this was the case:
"I hope people won't jump to that conclusion... When I was selected nearly two years ago, I couldn't have known that the recession would hit in the way it has".
Three weeks ago, Tim pondered whether candidates adopted for hard-to-win seats should be released for the new plum vacancies, but concluded that they should not.
Jonathan Isaby
P.S. As of 8.45pm this evening, CCHQ had still not removed Thelma Matuk's profile from Conservatives.com, despite having put out the advert seeking a new candidate earlier today... It was removed within minutes of us publishing this post!