Kemi Badenoch has appointed a new supremo to oversee candidate selection and ensure “real” Conservatives are selected. It follows complaints from some Tory right-wingers before the 2024 election defeat that the party was infiltrated by “Lib Dems in disguise” who did not share Conservative values.
Ms Badenoch said she wanted to create “a new cadre of future Conservative MPs who really believe in less tax, less interference, less regulation and a government that does some things well, not lots of things badly.” And she said Tory politicians had to be willing to stand up to left-wing complainers rather than trying to appease them. Ms Badenoch said: “MPs who are going to hold the civil service to account, who are willing to change things, and who are willing to make difficult decisions amid the inevitable chorus of miserable left-wing opprobrium that the other side always uses to try to stop things.”
The role has gone to Clare Hambro, who is regional chair of the Conservative Party in London.
Her appointment is part of a shake-up of the way the party is managed which Ms Badenoch sees as essential in order to defeat Labour and Reform UK at the next general election. Other changes have involved redundancies among officials at Conservative Campaign Headquarters.
Writing for Conservative Home, an independent website for party activists, the Tory leader said: “If we are to build an army that can be successful, we need to select candidates who can be champions for their local areas but who, in time, can serve in a radical, transforming government once again, too.”
She promised that party members would have more say in candidate selection, admitting: “For historic reasons, trust in the system and the centre is low. Along with Clare, we want to rebuild that. Members need more confidence in the process and to see that our collective job is to get the right people advocating for conservatism in our communities once again.”
And she said candidates should have communication, charisma, cleverness “and, most of all, conservatism.”
One of Ms Hambro’s first tasks will be to oversee the selection of Tory candidates for mayoral candidates to stand in local elections next year.
Recent polls have shown Labour, Conservatives and Reform UK neck and neck with all three parties having roughly the same level of support. The latest YouGov survey found 24% of voters would back Labour if an election was held now, with 23% backing reform, 22% supporting the Conservatives and 17% backing the Liberal Democrats.
