Gregory Stafford has been selected as the candidate for the new seat of Farnham and Bordon. Crossing the country barrier between Surrey and Hampshire, it contains 59 per cent of Jeremy Hunt’s current South West Surrey constituency, and 34 per cent of Damian Hinds’ current Hampshire East constituency. Electoral Calculus give it a 69 per cent of remaining blue next year.
Stafford was lead Ealing Council between 2014 and 2022, having served as a councillor since 2007. He was the Greater London Assembly candidate for Ealing and Hillingdon in 2021, and has worked as the Director of Policy and Engagement at Getting it Right First Time, a clinically lead programme designed to improve the quality of NHS care. He will hope to join his brother Alexander in the Commons.
In the final three with Stafford were Aphra Brandreth – the 2019 candidate for Kingston and Surbiton, daughter of Gyles, and an increasingly familiar face from these selection write-ups – and Adam Hanrahan. Remarkably, Hanrahan is a former Liberal Democrat Councillor in Sheffield who worked as Nick Clegg’s election coordinator. He now works for Jeremy Hunt.
Understandably, Hanrahan’s political tergiversations did not go down well with some members. According to one local Conservative, it “put people off” when they found out, but also, that he should have been “more open about it from the start”. That was especially as he had a website that he was “desperate” for locals to read that “seemingly made no mention of it”. He “needed to own it”.
Nevertheless, when the three emerged from the long-list of six, ConservativeHome has been told Brandreth placed first, with Hanrahan in second, and Stafford third. What swung it to the latter on the night was that Brandreth “had a poor performance” – compared to a good one in the previous round – whereas Stafford was in fine form.
Like other recent candidates, Stafford also made much of his long-standing personal connections to the area. He clearly “knew his stuff”. Most importantly, it was clear that he was “concentrated on the constituency” in a way that Brandreth – who has put in for many other constituencies nationally – was not.
Yet she was still a frontrunner in a seat where many members were used to an MP with “star power” after nearly decade of Hunt. I’m told that members “weren’t looking for a local councillor”, by which was meant they wanted a candidate who could go on to be a future minister, and not simply fight the local corner in the Commons.
One hopes the Tories of Farnham and Bordon can unite their efforts across the boundaries of their counties and pull together around a candidate who has put “time and effort” into campaigning in his adopted seat. ConservativeHome wishes him all the best. As ever, if you have any candidates and selections information, please contact me at william@conservativehome.com.