The not so recent appointment of Bob Neill, the London Assembly Member who has been selected to represent the Bromley and Chislehurst by-election, has sparked a renewed debate within the party that has started to question the emphasis Cameron has put on ‘change’. Although there has been much media hype over the selection of a few candidates that are questionable – most no doubt are there because they have the political forte to lead the party to election victory. While the candidates on the A-list, or if you buy into what conservative rhetoric call ‘priority list’, have been selected because of their merits there are certain flaws that have yet to be addressed. These include principles, such as empowering people to make the decisions for themselves or again to use what Cameron has often called ‘trusting people’. The A-list runs contrary to this which imposes a list of candidates selected by the ‘know it alls’ in CCHQ in London. The problem here is that many of them haven’t left London and don’t really know what the country truly looks like. The second problem centres on the very concept of change. At the present time Cameron wishes to change the party selection process, so he has decided to overrule give guidance to local associations on which candidates to choose. The problem Mr. Cameron is that you are heading down a path which only has sort term fixes. The crux of the problem in selection process is that the older generation tend to choose candidates that are male, and I am afraid white. Why? Because they have been brought up that way and they believe politics at Westminster is a man’s job. So the answer is not to impose produce an A-list that allows local activists to choose from but rather that local activists are the problem. As a CF member I wish not to get into an age debate with the older generation as I know they do a fantastic job. While saying this it is surprising how many of ‘them’ openly argue this case – thus becoming a paradoxical dilemma. The third problem is what I call ‘local produce.’ After campaigning, admittedly in many rural areas, they want a local candidate – something which the A-list still allows. Therefore a real test for the A-list will be how many of the target seats choose a local candidate over one on the list and if so would this not look extremely embarrassing if constituencies hardly delved into the A-list?!

A few interesting observations should be made to this A-list, no least which candidates go first. In other words, are the females and ethnic minority left last for the other target seats to choose – if the answer is yes then the problem stated above still exists. Even though (if I’m right in saying this) the A-list gets topped up when constituencies start choosing, does this mean other target seats will wait for the new candidates?

I understand Cameron and Maude are trying to do their best to change the party, which I wholly endorse, but creating a central system based on selecting candidates that are only in their because to show the party is changing is wrong. And as a conservative I completely disagree with it. What is also interesting is that the Welsh Conservatives have also failed to take this ‘A-list’ on board and I am astonished by the lack of women in target seats, or ranked lower down on the regional list than the men.

My solution is simple, scrap the A-list and replace the original selection process with a more transparent system and the Constituency level rather than at CCHQ. There are no short cuts to equality it takes time for the older generation to change to select modern candidates that best represent Britain. What the Conservative Party is faced with today is a crisis of modernity.