As Sarah Ingham highlighted for us last week, Samuel Bromiley has been selected as the Conservative candidate in the upcoming Kingswood by-election. Having been a South Gloucestershire councillor since 2015, serving as the Conservative group leader, Ingham suggested the former office manager for Chris Skidmore knows the seat well. He now works as a manager at Helplines Partnership.
However, his ex-boss’s abrupt departure from a seat abolished at the next election means Bromiley faces an unusual challenge even if he succeeds in winning the constituency. Electoral Calculus is currently predicting a Labour win over the Conservatives by a substantial margin of 16.2 per cent, in a seat Skidmore won by 22.8 per cent under five years ago.
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Meanwhile, Sidney Yankson has been selected as the Conservative candidate for Southampton Itchen. A former Army reservist, champion tennis player, and charity founder, now a commercial barrister and a councillor in Kensington and Chelsea, Yankson will hope to retain the constituency which Royston Smith won by 4,497 votes in 2019. He was joined in the final by Maria Higson, an NHS worker, former Camden councillor, and ConservativeHome contributor.
Despite not being from Southampton, Yankson claims to have a third of a century’s worth of experience there, having first visited when a student at Durham University. A local Conservative source suggested that Yankson was well-placed to promote Southampton’s businesses on a national level, and that they approved of his commitment to campaign as frequently as possible. Yankson has described his priorities as including tackling crime and getting levelling-up funding targeted to the south.
ConservativeHome wishes Yankson the best in a seat described by one source as “extremely marginal”. Electoral Calculus gives him a 2 per cent chance of success. As ever, please get in touch with any candidates and selections information you might have at william@conservativehome.com.