There will be an Open Primary to select the Conservative candidate in Dudley South following the announced retirement of incumbent MP Chris Kelly. There are four shortlisted candidates – Sibby Buckle, Helen Harrison, Cllr Greg Smith and Cllr Mike Wood. The selection contest takes place on Wednesday 26th November. See the Stourbridge News for further details.
The Express and Star reports that William Cash, the son of Stone Conservative MP Sir Bill Cash, has been selected as the UKIP candidate in Warwickshire North, where the current Conservative MP, Dan Byles, had a majority of only 54 over Labour at the last election. The former Labour MP and Solicitor General, Mike O’Brien, remains the favourite to win the seat.
Liberal Democrat Voice reports that applications for 37 seats will close within the next month. Given that there are around 420 candidates still to select (as far as can be determined from public sources), at this rate all Lib Dem candidates should be in place by around September 2015….
In late October the BBC predicted that the SNP’s former leader Alex Salmond would stand in Gordon where Sir Malcolm Bruce is standing down. Now the Daily Mail is predicting he’ll go head-to-head with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.
A little late, but Conservative members in Banbury (18,227/32% majority over the Lib Dems) selected Victoria Prentis on Saturday as their Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) to fight next year’s General Election. Victoria Prentis is a former barrister, has been a senior civil servant in the Treasury Solicitor’s Department for 17 years and was Chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association. She is one of three daughters of former Conservative MP and now Baron Boswell of Aynho, Tim Boswell.