Date published: 2006/06/04
The BBC says:
London Assembly Tory leader Bob Neill has been picked to fight the Bromley and Chislehurst by-election.
Mr Neill beat off a challenge from two candidates from Tory leader David Cameron's controversial "A-list" - Julia Manning and MEP Syed Kamall.
Mr Cameron said Mr Neill would be "an outstanding champion" for a constituency he knew "extremely well".
...
The party interviewed 10 people for the Kent by-election, but did not have to pick from the A-list - criticised for putting "beautiful people" ahead of local campaigners.The A-list, which includes former soap star Adam Rickitt and author Louise Bagshawe, came under attack from some Tories angry at what they claimed was discrimination against local campaigners.
Mr Cameron has defended his initiative, under which candidates for the party's safest seats at the next general election will have to be selected from the approved pool - designed to make the Tory party more representative of society.
The problem with these policies of reverse discrimination is that the people who have directly benefitted from the discrimination in the past are not the people who are paying the price. Cameron is the perfect example. He's an old Etonian toff, a very typical white male Tory MP. Yet he is not offering to resign to allow a woman or non-white male take over his seat, in order to make the Tories more representative. He is instead insisting that today's prospective white male Tory MPs are those who should suffer.
_________________________________________________________
All material not included from other sources is copyright cambridge2000.com.
For further information or questions email: info [at] cambridge2000 [dot] com
(replace "[at]" with "@" and "[dot]" with ".").