An article in the Times this week highlighted the ongoing debate over Tory ‘open’ primaries noting the dismay of some Tory MP’s at the ‘unintended consequences’ of the selection method. The discontent stems from Congleton where last weekend Fiona Bruce, head of a community law firm in Warrington, triumphed over Mathew Hancock, Mr Osborne’s chief [...]

This was the surprising endorsement from the Guardian’s Julian Glover on the Conservatives all-postal primaries. On Friday, over 12, 500 voters in Gosport picked Caroline Dinenage through an ‘Open Postal Primary’ to replace the infamous Sir Peter Viggars. Glover’s article highlights that Dinenage:
“is the 14th person to be picked to fill one of the safe [...]

An ‘open’ primary was held in Esher and Walton, a Tory safe seat, last week. Dominic Raab, a lawyer who currently serves as Chief of Staff to Dominic Grieve, won on the second ballot after fellow candidate, Jo-Anne Nadler, was knocked out in the first round.
The event was attended by over 700 members of the [...]

Here at Open Up, we’ve been following the story of Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Elizabeth Truss with interest. According to this report in the Guardian, members of the South West Norfolk Conservative association are considering deselecting Ms Truss, after it was revealed she had had an extra-marital affair with a Conservative MP – a fact [...]