We have the final three shortlist for Monday’s selection for the newly-(re)created seat of Mid Cheshire – and in a possible career tip for aspiring Conservative MPs, they’re all former ConservativeHome contributors:
- Charles Fifield is a chartered surveyor and does policy and engagement for the Almshouse Association. He sat on Cheshire West and Chester Council from 2011 and 2023, and wrote for us about how to be an effective local councillor. Fifield stood for the Tories in Bootle at the 2017 election, where he placed an inevitably very distant second.
- Amy SelmanĀ is a former communications consultant now training as a journalist, according to her LinkedIn. From 2012 to 2016 she worked as an adviser to Boris Johnson during his second term as mayor of London.
- Imogen Sinclair serves as a director of the New Social Covenant Unit. She is also a director of the New Conservatives, the organisation set up by MPs Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates to represent the views of the 2019 intake and challenge the party’s current policy direction. She is also a local.
Based on recent experience, Fifield seems the most plausible favourite, given associations seem often to favour selecting local councillors. We wish all three the very best of luck.
Whoever does win seems fairly certain to be returned to Parliament. Mid Cheshire is being carved out of four constituencies (helpfully mapped here by the Northwich Guardian), of which three – Tatton, Eddisbury, and Congleton – currently sport Conservative MPs with the sort of majorities which ought to be proof against even the current state of the polls. The fourth, Weaver Vale, was very narrowly held by Labour in 2019.