The Rock Blog

I am sorry that I have not commented on these issues sooner - my travels to CF events in Nottingham and Newcastle have delayed this slightly.

I am obviously very disappointed about the recent news of ballot paper problems and the CCHQ issue. It has once again soured the CF elections and we will all be worse off because of it. Looking at what has happened if has further reinforced my desire to make CF better and I believe it reinforces my argument for a real, tangible shift in power.

The main reason I am standing for CF Chairman is so that we can all move away from this - members are sick to death of all this London-centric in-fighting that has held us back for many years. This is why I am pushing for CF to be regionalised: the force behind CF needs to come from a local level. Yes CCHQ will always “play a part” in our organisation, but we need to focus on local issues, local campaigning and local members.

Regarding the Michael Lunn situation specifically, I believe the issue has been dealt with internally. I trust the Party Board to act appropriately. I do not think that the evidence put forward is conclusive; there are obviously two sides to this story.

On the ballot issue, it all comes down to the condition of the CF members list - it was very out of date and needed a huge amount of effort and time to update it. I want a proper database for the membership and believe this election, and the work the ERS has done, will make this result much easier. I am not happy that a lot of members have not got a ballot yet, but hope that by the end of the election they will have. The obvious benefit of outsourcing is that ERS is responsible for righting any wrongs, both at their expense and on their time. If CCHQ had run the election, then we would have more reason to complain.

The most important thing is to move ahead, restore power to the members and make Conservative Future the local & conservative organisation it should be! This episode is damaging for CF and for the Conservative Party. We run the risk of this being blown out of all proportion. I hope the matter is allowed to die down before there is any further coverage, we are gaining nothing by it.

I look forward to any ‘constructive’ comments members have relating to my views on this issue.