ConservativeHome is happy to announce the successful candidates for the upcoming by-elections in both Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton. Imran Ahmad Khan faces sentencing today following his conviction for molesting a 15-year old, which he is appealing, and his subsequent resignation as the MP for Wakefield. Even in the gruesome circumstances of this by-election, holding the seat will be a challenge since it only turned Conservative for the first time in 87 years in 2019.
Defending his 3,358 vote majority – and hoping to restore the party’s tarnished brand – is Councillor Nadeem Ahmed, leader of the Wakefield Conservative Group from 2014 to 2021, a councillor there since 2006, and an ambassador for the Holocaust Educational Trust. He defeated Laura Weldon, the 2022 council candidate for Wakefield West, and Tanya Graham, the former candidate for Bradford South in 2015 and 2017.
Meanwhile, down in Tiverton and Honiton, Helen Hurford has been announced as the candidate hoping to replace Neil Parish, noted tractor enthusiast. Hurford is a former headteacher, and has taught in schools across the constituency, before setting up her own business in 2019. One unsuccessful candidate was Pru Maskell, a councillor in Devon, and, like Hurford a member of the Conservative Women’s Organisation. Faxing Labour – it did not take an All-Women’s Shortlist to produce an all-female final roster, only the talent one would naturally associate with a potential Conservative MP.