Another Voice | 1 August 2009

I was lucky last Saturday at 10.30 to become a West Country pioneer. For some years the Conservative party has been experimenting with open primaries for the selection of their prospective parliamentary candidates. I’ve acted as ringmaster for a few of these, supplementing questions from the floor with my own: a sub-Dimbleby figure, putting them through their political paces. Whatever the theoretical objections, the idea has in practice worked well — tending to discourage candidates from pandering only to the solid Tory core. But these meetings, typically attended by no more than a few hundred people, could in theory easily be ‘packed’. They still feel a narrow base for so important a selection.

Totnes Tories, now seeking a candidate, have just taken the logic one step further. Encouraged by the party leadership, they agreed to road-test a bold (and expensive) idea. Not only is everybody on the constituency voters’ roll, regardless of their politics, invited to attend the hustings meeting where the finalists speak and answer questions, but every local elector has been sent a postal ballot form and a personal leaflet from each candidate.