The other Conservative leadership election, continued

 As I wrote a few days ago, there are two Conservative leadership elections at the moment.

Six MPs are standing to succeed Rishi Sunak as Party leader, and their fellow Conservative MPs will vote shortly to select four of these candidates to go through to the next stage, which is a hustings at Party Conference. The MPs will then vote to whittle those four down to the final two who go to a vote of the whole membership.

Voting has also started in another Conservative election - to elect the national officers of the voluntary party who also sit on the party board.

At the moment the people who hold these offices are elected by members of the National Conservative Convention - which mostly means constituency chairmen plus some regional and area officers. 

As I have written before, Some candidates for the party leadership have suggested there is a case of extending the franchise to a wider group, perhaps all party members for some Conservative elections including that of party chairman. There have also been suggestions that a wider range of members should have a vote for the National Officers. I think there is a case for this and will follow the detailed proposals from leadership contenders with interest.  

If anyone reading this is a member of the convention, you should have had emails with the details of the people nominated, with details of how to vote. If you have not had these I suggest you check your SPAM filters and if you don't find them, contact CCHQ urgently.

I know six of the seven people who are standing in these elections moderately well, having worked with all of them while I was Regional Chairman of the party for the North West and in some cases before.

My friend and predecessor in that role, Michael Winstanley, had been elected as National Convention president and party conference chairman, and I would like to congratulate him. He will do an excellent job in that role.

All four of the candidates who are standing for the three positions of Vice-President are hard-working and good people who would be excellent in the job and I wish all of them the best.

The most important of the elections is for the successor to Peter Booth, now Lord Booth,  Chairman of the National Convention. The holder of this post is the effective head of the voluntary party and the main "shop steward" for party members, and is also Deputy Chairman of the party board.

I would like to pay tribute to Peter Booth for his five years of hard work on  behalf of party members in that role.

Of the two people who are standing to succeed Peter, I know one well, and indeed nominated him for the position, and I do not know the other candidate.

Contested elections are not a bad thing and anyone who can get the necessary support to be nominated for a position should be congratulated on putting their head over the parapet and standing up for what they  believe in. So I will say nothing negative about the candidate I didn't vote for.

But I will say something positive about the candidate I voted for today.

Julian Ellacott, who is currently a Vice President of the National Convention and was previously a successful Regional Chairman for the South West, was extremely supportive of me when I was a regional chairman and he was the national officer responsible for liaison with my region. He is imaginative, hard-working, principled, and a good listener.

So I had no hesitation in nominating Julian and I voted for him today.