Welcome to my blog. I am a former local journalist who now works in PR and a Conservative and community activist in Woking and Horsell. This blog will keep updated on local issues as well as my interests and quirky news stories.
The selection process to become Woking’s next Conservative parliamentary candidate is hotting up and I’m delighted to say that I’m on the selection panel, which is a great filip and I’m sure will be a valuable experience.
We will be using a similar open primary method of selection that was piloted last week in Totnes (see earlier post) and the pros and cons of that remain very questionable. However, all of that won’t matter if we get the right candidate.
And what will the right candidate possess?
For me, I hope that they will be first and foremost local. I don’t believe in candidates or MPs being parachuted into constituencies – although there are examples of people adopting places successfully and making them their home.
As far as I am concerned, the next MP for Woking needs to be someone who knows Woking as well as I and countless other residents do. They need to know its shops, businesses, parks, estates, shortcuts, nooks and crannies and they also need to have working knowledge of what Woking is like to get into, out of and around in.
If you don’t know the area, you don’t know the people. And if you don’t know the people, you have no place in parliament.
Baroness Anelay of St John’s, the opposition chief whip in the Lord’s, told a party gathering on Saturday at which I was present that Woking was a constituency worth fighting for. She is quite right – it is, and the person who fights it needs some real commitment to the constituency rather than themselves.
I find it hard to understand how those without a history here will achieve that – but I remain open to being convinced.
