Bring Back the A-List!

And other ways to fix Conservative Candidate Selection

The Conservative Party is reeling from it biggest electoral defeat in modern¹ times. And while it was not the principal cause of the defeat, the break-down of trust and competence in CCHQ is a part of the ongoing post-mortem. Every leadership candidate has been asked about - and many other commentators have opined - on how they will fix CCHQ.

One of the main strands is candidate selection: associations complaining about CCHQ imposing candidates on them, candidates being selected too late, donors and SpAds being given special treatment, the Party Chair doing a ‘chicken run’ and favoured candidates being put up against ‘no-hopers’ to win. At a slightly more sophisticated² level, there are concerns about the ‘local councillor-isation’ of MPs, in which MPs are expected to be hyper-dedicated to local issues, and where the principal route to being a candidate is via a local councillor. While it is obviously good for an MP to care about their constituency, will this give the party candidates who can work effectively on national issues, as opposed to just being NIMBYs?

As someone who was a candidate until a year ago, before stepping back for family reasons (see here), here are some thoughts about what CCHQ was doing wrong - and how to fix it. With all the leadership candidates thinking about this - and the party in dire straits - there has never been a more important time to get this right.

It is very hard to write these sorts of pieces without it looking like what you’re really saying is, ‘They were wrong because they didn’t pick me.’ So for the record, I don’t think that. On the occasions I got close to being selected, those who went through to the membership had more illustrious records in terms of achievement, both inside and outside the party. Nor did I do (nor suspect I would be capable of doing effectively) the painstaking groundwork needed to overcome those advantages³. And I am not seeking to be an MP at the moment - I’m off the list - so have no axe to grind: this is purely about how the process could be better, for the good of the party.

To begin with, let’s clarify the goal:

• To get the widest variety of good⁴ candidates to want to apply to be an MP;

• To ensure that the best possible candidates get elected to help the Conservative Party win elections; and

• To ensure that those candidates elected are then able to govern effectively and in a Conservative manner⁵.

The Good

‘Candidate training’ comes up now and again, but I actually thought the training we were offered was pretty good. It seemed appropriate and would help to level the playing field for those with inexperience at certain areas. I’m not sure what training was offered to those who actually got selected, so can’t comment there.

The assessment centre also seemed fair and appropriate, in that it tested the skills one would need as an MP. One had to give a speech, write about a Private Member’s Bill that one would want to introduce if you had the chance, and so on, as well as a standard interview where one was asked about your campaigning experience and so on. I’m less sure about the ‘situational judgement exercise’, but they are all the rage in corporate recruitment, and I guess serves some purpose, if only to weed out the people stupid enough to tick the ‘I would keep the money and not tell anyone’ option when being asked what they would do if they were offered a bribe⁶. I do know the odd good person who got a bad result here, and some slightly surprising people who got through - but it is extraordinarily hard to assess who will actually be a good MP, and the process seems on a par with blue chip firms in the private sector. If there’s going to be an assessment centre, it feels like it is done fairly well.

There are various funds that are meant to help low income candidates with travel costs and similar. I didn’t access these, so don’t know much about them - but I’m glad they exist.

Finally, the vetting (in recent years) seems to be up to scratch. You will never catch everyone, but there has been no massive rash of candidates or new MPs with major skeletons in their closets⁷.

The Bad

It’s perhaps the least important thing, but the communication with candidates was demoralisingly terrible, particularly as the election got closer. We were bombarded with constant begging letters for donations (even more so than one gets as a member!). The idea that your candidates should also be your donor class is deeply unhealthy.

Equally frequent were the endless demands to go campaign in various by-elections. On one level this is much more reasonable: it is absolutely right that candidates should be expected to campaign hard, to do their bit on the doorstep to help others and not expect to waltz into a safe seat in Westminster. I have no problems with candidates being expected to campaign, or the candidate list being seen as a core human resource that CCHQ can deploy. But how this was done - and where we were expected to go - was an appalling squandering of that resource.

In 2022 and 2023 we were repeatedly ordered to travel across the country to campaign in hopeless by-elections - and there were a lot of hopeless by-elections in those years. Yes, flooding a marginal by-election with campaigners can turn the tide - and the candidate pool can provide those footsoldiers. In 2021 I travelled up to Hartlepool for a weekend to do my bit. But to travel for hours to by-elections we were obviously due to lose by 20, 30, even 40 points? We weren’t foot soldiers, we were the Light Brigade being sent repeatedly into the teeth of the cannon, all to make some hapless general in CCHQ feel better about losing by a slightly lesser margin.⁸

At the same time, the seat I live in - and the one I used to two years ago - went from blue to red. Conservatives have lost both councils. Of neighbouring seats, many also went red - some by only 1000-2000; others stayed blue by a similar margin. Wouldn’t campaigning time have been better spent there? Not to mention that I could put in more time if I wasn’t spending 3-4 hours travelling there and back?

There is an inevitable tension between the expectations of candidates to campaign and the need to attract candidates with families and/or other commitments. An added factor is the amount of local activity needed to make one an attractive candidate to local associations: most candidates have been local councillors, chairs of their local association or similar.

Given this, it is absolutely essential that the campaigning required is properly targeted, effective and useful. An occasional national deployment is reasonable. Requiring candidates to traipse halfway across the country half a dozen times each year for hopeless cases simply raises barriers of time and expense⁹ to being on the candidate list - not to mention squandering valuable good will which could lead to better, voluntary, commitment in more useful places.

Finally, many seats selected their candidates far, far too late. Sometimes that couldn’t be helped because an MP stood down as the election was called, but other times it wasn’t. There are seats we might have won had a good candidate been working it for two years, which as it was we lost.

The Ugly

There is one problem identified again and again by both candidates and local associations that I completely endorse: no-one trusts CCHQ to play fair.

CCHQ takes great pains to present it all as fair and transparent. After taking the assessment centre, you are given a certain type of pass: some let you go for any seat, others only for unwinnable ones, to gain experience. The clear impression given is that all who have a ‘Full Pass’ are on a level playing field.

But the trouble is, that’s obviously not true. It began even before the assessment centre: my first assessment centre¹⁰ was about 60% men, 40% women - but every man had waited over 9 months to get on it (I’d waited over a year), and every woman had waited under three months. I’d found the wait particularly galling as it meant I’d missed the chance to apply for the constituency I’d grown up in by weeks¹¹. And yet supposedly this was a fair and transparent process.

Despite normally being wholly against identity politics and ‘diversity’ initiatives, I would concede that electoral politics is one area¹² where this is justified¹³. Politics is literally a popularity contest, and a party will almost certainly not get as many votes as it could do if it does not, to some extent, look like (in terms of sex and race) the country it is seeking to represent¹⁴. So measures to attract women to stand, such as the Women to Win initiative, are justified. But let’s be open and transparent about this. I’d much rather an explicit rule such as ‘each shortlist of three must contain at least one woman’ than ‘let’s fast-track women through the assessment centre while making men wait a year, while pretending it’s a level playing field.’

The (not-so) hidden fingers on the scales only intensifies once one was on the list. In 2019, many seats were selected under the emergency rules, which allows CCHQ to choose three candidates and require the local association to choose one of them. It was very noticeable that some candidates - who often seemed to be those known to be favoured by No. 10, or related to donors¹⁵ - were put forward for many seats, whereas many others on the list were not put forward at all. This happened again in 2024, alongside a few high profile incidents (in one case a short-list of one being imposed). There is clearly a secret list of favoured candidates - but who are they, how are chosen, and who chooses them?

The worst of it is is that once it becomes obvious that CCHQ is not playing fair, there is no way of knowing how far it goes. If there is a secret A-List, is there also a secret black-list? Are local associations urged not to select certain candidates? A representative of CCHQ sits in every selection meeting and candidate interview, supposedly to ensure the local association is following the rules and playing fair. But I - and I suspect many others - was far more worried about foul play from CCHQ than from any local association!

This untransparent, demonstrably unfair, approach, also undermines CCHQ’s efforts to ensure candidates campaign. We were told to log our campaigning activities, and that how often we campaigned in these hopeless by-elections would be taken into account when selecting candidates for seats. But was that actually true? As one candidate wrote shortly after the general election:

The carrot-and-stick approach is a farce: they dangle the carrot of profile-building while wielding the stick of exclusion if we don’t comply. The truth is the vast majority of candidates are de facto excluded anyway. They don’t stand a chance of selection and never will.

I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying ‘the vast majority’ are de facto excuded - but I certainly know that by the end I had no trust in CCHQ not to flat-out lie to me. What’s the point in spending a weekend away from family, in a hopeless contest, to gain brownie points if it might all be stitched up anyway? And that in turn made me disengage further from the whole process, only turning out for local councillors or MPs and candidates who I personally liked and wanted to win.

The Solutions: Bring Back the A-List

The first thing that should be said is that it will always be very hard to become an MP. It’s always going to require a lot of time, patience and skill - and no small portion of luck, as well. And whatever happens, there will be a lot of disappointed candidates.

But the Conservatives can, and should, do better. First and foremost it is about restoring trust. We need to have a situation where candidates can trust CCHQ to treat them fairly. We need to do more to attract people, to retain them, and get the best possible people selected and elected.

Individual associations and the centre both have important roles: individual associations because they are the grass-roots, who a candidate must work with to win, and the centre because they can take a larger picture about the good of the party¹⁶. The role of both should be valued, and the relationship between them should be open and transparent, not marked with distrust and suspicion as it is now.

With that said, here are my three principal recommendations:

1. Bring back the A-List¹⁷

   This may seem an odd one for someone who’s criticised CCHQ meddling. And I know Cameron’s A-List was deeply controversial at the time - though we should acknowledge that even if a few bad MPs came through that route, so did many many good ones.

   The simple truth is that abolishing the A-List has not led to less favouritism, but simply to less transparent, less accountable, more secretive favouritism. No-one knows who gets a bump up, or how they are chosen, or why.

   There are those who idealistically say that the centre should have no say in candidate section. But let’s be honest: that’s for the birds. No party leader or chair will abjure all influence in who becomes an MP - and nor should they, for the centre has a valuable role to play in helping to find those who will be most valuable in the national party. If you try to bottle it this pressure, it will just find some other means of bursting out - as indeed it has.

   So let’s have an A-List of up to about 50 people¹⁸, and let’s make it totally transparent who’s on it, who selects it¹⁹, what qualities they are looking for, and how one can gain entry to it (or be relegated!), and what advantages they get. If there’s a diversity angle to address, let’s do it here, and openly. Let’s hold the party leader and chair to account for whose on it and whether they’re genuinely the best of the best. Let’s have people pore over how many are related to donors, what experience they have in the local party, or what other qualities they bring. This will also expose those on the A-List to valuable scrutiny²⁰ in exchange for the advantages they receive.

   And in exchange, CCHQ can make everything else fair and aboveboard. The next leader, chair and director of candidates must lead with integrity on this. No secret meddling, no fingers on the scales, no some candidates fast-tracked and others kept back. With an open and transparent way to prefer favoured candidates there should be no need for such measures: and everyone not on the A-List will know both that (a) how can they can have a shot at getting on it; and (b) that if they’re not, they’re in with a genuinely fair chance.

2. Make campaigning requirements more flexible

   It is entirely reasonable for candidates to be required to campaign. But rather than repeated requirements to travel across the country, let’s allow candidates to do their bit closer to home. This would help to both attract and campaign candidates with families, caring commitments or other responsibilities in their local communities.

   I appreciate that one doesn’t just want candidates to campaign in safe seats²¹. But almost every area has battlegrounds that are relatively local.

   I suggest that, outside general elections, each candidate should have an expectation of a certain number of campaigning sessions a year - say 12, or 24 - of which half can be done anywhere (including locally) and half must be done in a ‘battleground’ area. There should be identified battleground areas - ideally multiple ones - in every county. As now, candidates would be required to record their activity. Sending candidates across country should be done sparingly, on genuinely winnable by-elections where that extra campaigning power might make the difference.

   Such a system would actually more useful campaigning activities than the current approach - while being less draining upon their time and finances.

3. Select candidates early

   There should be no delay in selecting candidates. I don’t know enough to know whether the current situation of last-minute selection is the fault of associations or of CCHQ - but either way it needs to change.

   Where there is no current MP, a local association should be required to start the process within two years of the General Election. If an MP says they are not standing again, they should begin within three months of that announcement. If they do not comply, CCHQ would be allowed to move to the emergency rules²².

   CCHQ should then progress these contests swiftly, so that candidates can be in place well in advance of the next General Election - which could of course happen at any time.

There’s a big task in hand for the next Conservative Leader to win the next election. One part of that is sorting out CCHQ - and one part of that is sorting out candidate selection. These experiences and suggestions are offered as a contribution to that process - whoever the leader might be.

1. Where the word ‘modern’ is being defined pretty generously, including at least the whole of the 20th century.

2. Though not necessarily more important.

3. This interview is of a Labour MP, but the description of what he had to do to get selected applies equally, if one replaces the unions with ‘the local association executive’ or similar: “There was a well respected and locally liked candidate who had the backing of the unions. But I walked 426 miles in 3 months to meet most of the 477 local Labour members. On the day of the selection, I belted out what I wanted to say but was still stunned when the chair said you’ve won by four votes in the second round.”

4. Candidates can be good in different ways: there should be space for brilliant local campaigners and great Cabinet Ministers; brilliant public speakers and those who are adept at Parliamentary machinations.

5. Again, there is a broad church that can be accommodated here: the Party should have space for Thatcherites and social conservatives; for One Nationers, neoliberals and followers of Joseph Chamberlain. But it needs MPs who are genuinely committed to Conservative values of one sort or another, not ones who just think ‘I’d like to be an MP and the Conservative Party happens to be the best way of achieving this right now’, or who would defect to Labour at the drop of a hat for the main chance. I would also say that those who think ideology and values are dirty words, and all that is needed is technocratic managerialism, have probably not understood the purpose of political parties.

6. I’m being slightly unfair here. There were genuinely interesting questions about how you would prioritise things in Parliament vs things in your constituency, where you had to write about your choice - and I assume the thought pattern and reasoning was as important as the answer.

7. Famous last words.

8. This did not work. The by-election results were still incredibly painful for the Conservatives; no-one cares if you lose by 27 or 23 points.

9. Just as one example: as a household, we only have one car. If I’m travelling to, say, the south-west, that means either taking the car - with a big impact on my wife and kids who can’t use it - or taking the train, which takes ages and costs a lot. Clearly if one actually became an MP one might have to buy a second car (depending on the constituency) but it’s unreasonable to expect this of everyone on the list.

10. You usually have to do a mini one after each general election.

11. As a candidate new to the list I probably wouldn’t have got it - but I’d have liked the opportunity to try.

12. Policing is another.

13. And if you think it’s reasonable for a party to choose a gruff Yorkshire farmer rather than a smooth-talking Londoner to contest a rural Yorkshire seat, you do too.

14. To be clear: this does not mean ethnic minority candidates should only stand in seats with large numbers of ethnic minorities - in fact, the Conservative Party has conclusively proven the opposite, with all sorts of prominent MPs. In modern Britain most people will happily vote for a man or a woman, and someone of any race. But this effect applies much more at the ‘what does the whole party look like’ than at individual seat level.

15. I should note that one can be in these categories and still be a good candidate!

16. This is particularly important as the membership shrinks and ages.

17. For the avoidance of doubt, I’m not saying I should have been on any such A-List - nor that I should be in the future. I’m out of this game, off the list and intending to remain so, at least as long as the kids are still young.

18. That should be enough - though the exact number can be argued about.

19. Ideally a balanced committee of senior MPs, with perhaps also distinguished ex-MPs now in the Lords.

20. Though only a fraction of what they’d get if actually elected.

21. Not that there was any such thing in 2024.

22. In practice no association will want that so almost all will comply.