With Andy Burnham now set for Downing Street, the only thing that most pundits seem to agree on is that the Burnham bounce “honeymoon” period may not last that long. With the possibility of some changes to Labour’s manifesto, and the likelihood of Labour pushing up in the polls during conference season, party operation chiefs are making themselves at least battle-ready – in terms of candidates – should Burnham be so bold, or mad, to call an early snap election.

Political parties of all parties are now rapidly going through the selection and approval process for their next election’s candidate search.  Kemi Badenoch has written a punchy piece today in the Telegraph about how she – and the party’s new head of candidate’s, Clare Hambro (not actually mentioned in the article)—is purging the Conservative party candidate list of Net Zero ex-MPs – as well as clearing out the CCHQ stable of unsuitable non-Tories. 

“The assessors are not looking for a conventional Conservative MP. The Party is seeking diversity in its candidates.”

She has said the Conservative party is not a home for ‘failed MPs,’. This is a shrewd political move as it distances her from former leaders and allows her to put her own stamp on the party, and more importantly, its future.

Kemi is 100% right here. I recall that one of the first things that David Cameron – Eton and Oxford – did on becoming PM was to sit down with Gareth Fox, his honcho in charge of Tory candidates, and lay down that he didn’t want to see any Etonians or over-educated white Oxbridge types put forward on the A list for safe seats. This misplaced thinking continued into the Boris years and led to many of the problems that led to the Conservatives party having three leaders in as many years and dividing the party.

Indeed, when a friend, a successful and politically savvy Oxbridge educated entrepreneur, went into CCHQ for their assessment day (actually a half-day), he was told “no thanks” with a letter that set out in the 2019 ‘Applicant Guidance Notes’. “What are the assessors looking for?” the document asked. “The assessors are not looking for a conventional Conservative MP. The Party is seeking diversity in its candidates.”

Clare Hambro, who co-founded the Italian Conservatives group, is being clever, along with Kemi, to radically rip up the old Tory MP selection criteria and process – some 2000 have applied – as it is a smart way to purge her newly branded party of the toxic old Tory lite (closet Lib Dem) enemies within the party, as well as burying the legacies of her Tory leader predecessors. It is the final nail in the coffin of the Cameroon era.

The Hon. Clare Hambro, new chairman of Conservative Candidates, thankfully, is as Tory old school as they come and a long-standing and respected figure in the Conservative movement. She is a former Regional Chairman for London Conservatives and has been a national candidate assessor for a decade. Many are hoping that this role will give her the insight to fix what went so badly wrong in terms of putting forward the wrong sort of Tory candidates at the last election (often Tory wet Spads parachuted in by Sunak and his political cronies).

The Cameron/Osborne era candidate system – which Gareth Fox ruled over for 14 years – was outdated, discriminatory and stood against the very essence of Conservative thinking which is to believe that success should be gained by “merit” rather than some bogus discrimination based on whether one has an MA or BA, one’s accent or where one went to school.

To reverse the Cameroon era, and get the Tories back on track, Badenoch will be widely thanked for ordering a complete overhaul of the CCHQ party list. She says she wants to encourage those with “common sense” – such as teachers and builders – rather than Westminster careerists, Spads and policy wonks who haven’t worked outside the Westminster Tunnel.

I doubt having more teachers and builders will serve the party any better. As soon as you start labelling job background types you want, the game is lost. What the party really needs is talent – especially British business talent as shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith set out a few weeks ago.

At a recent political dinner, I met with a former minister – a very accomplished politician who had chaired an important select committee  – who said he had recently been put through the new ‘assessment’ process and that he was waiting for his results, making him sound like a nervous teenager awaiting his A level results this August. The big difference from when he first took the tests 20 years ago, straight out of the Tory research office, is that the process is now largely digital.

 My sources in CCHQ tell me that of the 175 Tory who lost their seats in 2024, only around 20-25% are hoping to get back on the List. But Kemi has made it clear that of the 2000 who have recently applied, including many former MPs, some are going to be “unhappy at not passing the test”, including the candidate who turned up drunk.

The truth is that much of the Tory party’s problems, and its crushing defeat in 2024, emanate from choosing the wrong soi disant Conservatives (ie tree-hugging, development aid-loving, human rights-loving, liberal Tory “Wet” types) going back 15 years. This is a critical reason the Conservative party has lost its way with centre-right voters.

 Now that the white, middle-class fatwa has been lifted, the Tory party may start to resemble a Conservative party again. Whether we shall see any of Kemi’s former ex-MP friends and allies purged from the list
remains to be seen.