“is the 14th person to be picked to fill one of the safe seats that have just come vacant (with eight more currently to go)”.

As noted by Glover, 38%  of these new candidates are women, three are doctors (one chosen just ahead of a teacher) and the final two run businesses. Only one of the new influx of Tory candidates went to Eton. Has the stereotypical upper-class, very wealthy, aloof Tory been replaced by:

“ local, middle income, probably state educated and quite possibly employed in the public sector, with a record of voluntary work and a deep-seated distrust of the central state and the European Union”?

As the Conservatives seek to win a solid majority in the General Election, open primaries are proving to provide a breath of fresh air, not only to the Conservative party, but also to the state of British politics

Glover endorses the Conservative policy of directing candidate selection as being responsible for the “change” of future MPs.

“The 38-year-old mother-of-two secured 4,892 votes, or 38.6%. James Bethell, a venture capitalist based in London, came second with 2,965 votes. Sam Gyimah, an entrepreneur, came third with 2,867 votes, and Julia Manning, an eye specialist in the NHS, came fourth, polling 1,935.“

The selection process was first used in Totnes, in July earlier on this year where local GP, Dr Sarah Wollaston replaced expenses row MP, Anthony Steen.

 In July 2009, as the open primary in Totnes was taking place, the Board of the Conservative Party was meeting to determine the rules for the future selection of parliamentary candidates.   It was a stormy meeting – the last stand in the battle to defend the rights of ordinary Party members – a battle that was lost.   The decisions taken will affect democracy in the United Kingdom for a generation.   So what happened?

Under the new rules the Party Chairman will decide whether a local Association should select its candidate by a Special General Meeting or by an Open Primary.

For each constituency a sifting meeting will be held at a place designated by the Party Chairman at which the Approved List of candidates will be reduced to six names, 50% of whom will be women.   At this meeting there will be six representatives of the local Association including its Chairman and two Deputy Chairmen.   The Party Chairman will have a veto on the six names to go forward to the next stage of Open Primary or Special General Meeting.

As from the 1^st January 2010 the Party Chairman will give an Association the names of three parliamentary candidates from which to choose their candidate.

The real impact of this is that the Party Chairman will determine Conservative candidates and consequently the Conservative Party composition in the House of Commons.   The Labour Party looks as though it is going down a similar route.   Many of the current members of the Cabinet were parachuted into their seats by the Labour Party hierarchy.   Peerage promises are seductive.   So a tiny number of people from our two main parties will determine who sits in the House of Commons and effectively form the government of this country.   Is this the way dictatorships are created without the need for bloody revolution?

So how are Open Primaries affected by these changes?   The model for Open Primaries is normally the United States.   How do Conservative Open Primaries compare?

In the United States anyone can stand.   As we have seen above, under the Conservatives, the Party Chairman decides who the candidates will be.   You can virtually guarantee that the only candidates allowed to stand are safe Conservatives.   After all they have to fight a General Election on the Conservative Party manifesto, which they have to sign up to, even though they will have no say in its composition.

In many States electors have to register support for a Party in order to vote.   With the Conservatives anyone on the Electoral Roll can vote in an Open Postal Primary or an Open Meeting Primary, even if they are members of another Party.

The candidates in the United States raise their own funds for campaigning in the primary.   The Conservative Party pays for a postal primary.   The costs in Totnes amounted to £38,000.   There are only half a dozen constituencies in the country that could afford this, so unless the Party at National level funds a postal primary it will not happen.

Campaigns in the United States are usually prolonged, giving everyone plenty of time to investigate the candidates.   The campaigns run by the Conservatives are strictly limited in time

Caucus meetings of registered voters are held in the United States at which the merits of the different candidates are debated and then voted upon.   These are banned by the Conservative Party.

A distinction should be drawn between Open Primaries where there is a postal ballot as in Totnes and Open Meeting Primaries, which are often lumped together and called Open Primaries.

The most common, because of costs, are the Open Meeting Primaries.   The Conservative Party imposes a number of restrictions on Open Meeting Primaries:

The meetings are advertised in the local paper so there is no guarantee that every elector is aware that the selection is taking place.

At the meeting no debate is allowed between the candidates – they are not even allowed to be on the platform together.

CVs of the candidates are only made available at the start of the meeting.

The elector must be present for the entire meeting and cannot leave for any reason.   Contrast this with a postal primary where the elector doesn’t have to hear any candidate before voting.

Limits are imposed by Central Office on the amount of money candidates can spend on their campaigns.

The vote on the final adoption of the selected candidate by Conservative Party members is done by a show of hands, rather than by a secret ballot, which can be intimidating, and which the Conservative government made illegal in the Trade Unions in the 1980s.

It can be seen from the above that there are major differences between what the Conservatives call Open Primaries and what in practice most people understand as Open Primaries.   The Conservative Open Primaries are a gimmick.   The media and the people have been hoodwinked by the Conservatives into believing that the process is totally open. It is not.   The process is controlled in detail by the Party hierarchy.   There is also the danger that the selection can be manipulated by the members of other parties, who can vote for the weakest candidate.   The Conservative Party does not care because it has vetted all the candidates.

There is much talk about electoral reform but when will the people “wake up and smell the coffee?”   Whatever the system of election, be it First Past The Post or Proportional Representation it becomes meaningless if the candidates are chosen by a few individuals.   Our two main political parties are wholly undemocratic organisations controlled by small oligarchies. In a democracy it is essential that the political parties are themselves democratic.   It is in a dictatorship that candidates are imposed.   “Once we had rotten boroughs, now we have a rotten parliament”.   Democracy R.I.P.

Politics’ Drift Beyond Satire begins with the following astute observation: 

“The idea that politicians are not honest comes as a shock. It’s so surprising, in fact, that it’s not even funny: satire works because it plays on people’s preconceptions. “

Continuing in that vein, John carefully sets up and lays out the case for open primaries.

It’s generated a lot of debate so far, why not head over and join in?

In print, we hit the London Evening Standard, Times Online, Portsmouth News, Liverpool Daily Post and Wirral News. Author, former MP and political journalist Martin Bell showed his support for our campaign in an article in the Telegraph backing our pursuit of open primaries. On top of this, Sky news online posted up our duck films. The total number of viewings of the duck films has now reached a massive 33,000!

Twitter-wise, we have near-on 600 followers, with tweets about the campaign continuing to grow day by day.

Within the world of blogging, Open Up continues to be a subject of great debate, appearing on the Canvey Beat blog, as well as on openDemocracy’s network. From discussions by political commentator Iain Dale and Birkenhead MP Frank Field, it is clear to see our profile is rising and reaching the right ears and eyes. In fact, Frank Field has openly challenged the Open Up campaign to put their money where their mouth is and aid in the calling for an open primary in Birkenhead. Though we can’t fund a primary in Birkenhead, we have agreed to do all we can to help. We’re hoping this will lead to more and more constituencies announcing their desire to reselect MPs through open primaries.

Hitting such a diverse set of media only goes to demonstrate how relevant our campaign is for everybody. So if you haven’t already, please join the call for change.

This morning, Conservative Home reported that Gosport – home to Sir Peter Viggers and his ducks – would be the next constituency to run an “all-postal” primary to select the Conservative candidate for the next general election.

Conservative party chairman Eric Pickles has now confirmed the news, stating:

“I hope this will build on the success of Totnes. It’s vital that we continue to empower local people and allow them to have the final say. I hope this will encourage people in Gosport not previously interested in politics to get involved and get their voice heard.”

Sir Peter announced he would be stepping down at the next general election at the height of the expenses scandal in May. We’re delighted that his party has chosen to put the issue of his replacement to the people of Gosport.

Here’s a snapshot of the buzz about the campaign so far…

For starters there was a really positive and detailed discussion on open primaries over at the left-leaning blog, LabourList.

The author of the LabourList post was then invited to take part in a discussion on BBC 5Live’s Simon Mayo show with blogger Iain Dale political reformer, Antony Barnett, and our very own John Lloyd.

This gave us some great coverage with the argument for open primaries being heard by about 6.5m members of the population.

The 5Live coverage also helped increase awareness of John Lloyd’s awesome campaign videos, Tales from the Duck House, which you can view over at Open Up’s YouTube channel. Current views stand at more than 30,000!

More online coverage which helped boosted campaign awareness was secured by high-profle blogs Boing Boing and Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish as well as being tweeted by Stephen Fry!

Both blogged positively about the campaign and helped drive additional further coverage which includes: Frank Field, Iain Dale, Jason Kitcat, Harry’s Place, Liberal Conspiracy, Sky News Online and the Times.

We rounded off the week with a fantastic Guardian Comment is Free blog post by campaign supporter, Peter Bennett-Jones.

These are but a few of a long list, and as if that doesn’t demonstrate how wide reaching the campaign currently is we’ve been the topic of hundreds of tweets on Twitter and the Facebook Page now has over 280 fans.

Join us if you haven’t done so already and sign our petition to make UK politics more open and democratic!

A quick note to supporters that John Lloyd and Anthony Barnett will be discussing the Open Up campaign with Simon Mayo on Radio 5 live today at 3.20.

You can listen to the show here (or on a radio, of course).

We’ll be Tweeting during the broadcast.

Later today, the Open Up blog is revealing its first guest blogger, campaigner and journalist Heather Brooke. Heather was the woman responsible for kicking off the expenses scandal way back in 2004 when she filed what she thought would be a routine Freedom of Information request to see how MPs were spending taxpayers’ money. You can read more about Heather’s campaigning work here.

To stay in touch with all the happenings on the Open Up blog, just grab the RSS feed. You can also follow the campaign on Twitter and Facebook, and watch the campaign videos on Youtube.

We are campaigning for an honest, effective and modern democracy; a government of the best possible people, who truly represent us.

We want Open Primaries in every constituency, where the people select their own candidates, and where anyone can put themselves forward to be a candidate.

When do we want to see this reform? By the next parliament, that’s when and to make sure this happens we need your support. Sign our petition, watch our videos to find out why we want to reform the current political system.

We’re going to be blogging throughout the campaign and talking to a range of people to hear their opinions on political reform, from celebrities, to political experts and you, the great British public. We want to hear what you think about the campaign and how you can help us achieve our goals.

This is the space on the website where you can follow the campaign’s progress and stay up-to-date on key campaign issues and news.