Tories select candidates to replace outgoing big names
The candidates for Daventry, Northampton North and South Northamptonshire have now been chosen
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Tories select candidates to replace outgoing big names
The Tory candidates who want to take over from the big political names who have stepped down, were chosen at the weekend.
Northants’ biggest political figures, Andrea Leadsom, Chris Heaton-Harris and Michael Ellis, all announced they would not be standing in Rishi Sunak’s snap election, and over the weekend their replacements were quickly selected.
It was a rush job and only one of the candidates is local, with some concern that local activists and councillors who had wanted to be chosen were overlooked.
Despite the rumours, Michael Ellis did not make a chicken run to Daventry and instead former MP for Pudsey in Yorkshire Stuart Andrew was selected.
Andrew, whose current constituency will disappear due to boundary changes, was the clear winner with more than 50 per cent of the votes on Sunday’s first ballot. There were two other candidates, chairperson of West Northants unitary Joanne Gilford and Wolverhampton party activist Arun Photay.
Andrew told party members that if they chose him, he would most certainly move to Daventry from Yorkshire. “You can’t represent a constituency if you don’t live in it,” he said.
Answering questions from party members, he said defence was the Government’s No. 1 role and that it must be a top priority to fund it properly. He backed Rishi Sunak’s pledge to build 100 more GPs surgeries and said we should use the “vast resources” of our pharmacies to cut appointment waiting times.
After the ballot was announced at the meeting at Daventry Town Football Club, he said he was “deeply honoured” to have been chosen. “There is a massive fight ahead and I plan to get onto as many doorsteps as possible.”
Andrew overturned a 6,000 Labour majority to win the marginal Pudsey seat in 2010. He has successfully held onto it four times since.
Chris Heaton-Harris’s majority at the last election was 21,734 with 63% of the vote. He told NNJournal that after helping to canvass both in Daventry and nationally, he will consider his future plans during the summer.
In South Northamptonshire, long standing councillor and former cabinet member on the county council and the west unitary Lizzie Bowen was overlooked and did not even make the shortlist. The seat is one of the safest in the county and has been held by Andrea Leadsom since 2010.
Sarah Bool, whose father Kenneth is former Conservative chairman of Rutland County Council, won the nomination after a vote by members. In 2019 she stood for Vauxhall and is a property lawyer.
She beat former Bedfordshire police, fire and crime commissioner Festus Akinbusoye and Hertfordshire county councillor Caroline Clapper. In an interview with Andrea Leadsom posted to Leadom’s social media she said had big shoes to fill, but could not wait to get out on the doorsteps.
And in Northampton North, Dan Bennett, who worked for several years for outgoing MP Michael Ellis, won the nomination.
Since being selected he has deleted his X account and also his LinkedIn account.
In other news, despite missing out on the Wellingborough & Rushden candidacy, Conservative Helen Harrison was chosen over the weekend as the candidate for Thanet East in Kent.
Serving conservative MPs who will contest their seats again are Phillip Hollobone (Kettering), Tom Pursglove (Corby) and Andrew Lewer (Northampton South). Labour’s Gen Kitchen, who has only been in parliament since the February byelection, will also stand again.
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Think the new candidate for Daventry should have a word with Andrew Lewer who still has to move from Derbyshire as far as I am aware.
After the last 6 months one of the things I now dread is Northamptonshire being selected as an area for an elected mayor. Can you imagine the type of corrupt, lying, self serving and physically abusive character that would put themselves forward to be elected.
The electorate of Northamptonshire are in general, decent, honest people. Why oh why are we so naive when it comes to electing our leaders.