Plaid Cymru criticises selection of Welsh Tory election candidate who lives in Oxfordshire
Martin Shipton
A Plaid Cymru general election candidate has criticised his Conservative rival for living more than 100 miles away in Oxfordshire.
Tory Jack Robson, who is standing in the Pontypridd constituency, has declared on his nomination papers that he lives at an address in the Banbury constituency.
But while Banbury, estimated to be 105 miles from Pontypridd, has been held continuously by the Conservatives since 1922, with MP Victoria Prentis securing a majority of nearly 17,000 at the last election in 2019, the situation is very different in Pontypridd, where the seat has been represented by a Labour MP, also since 1922.
In 2019 Labour’s Alex Davies-Jones was elected with a majority of 5,890 over Sam Trask, the Tory candidate. On July 4 Mr Trask was due to stand as the Conservative candidate in Bridgend, but pulled out after it emerged that he had posted lewd messages about women on the myfitnesspal website.
Chris Elmore, the Labour candidate for Bridgend who is seeking to win back the seat from the Conservatives, said “These lurid revelations pose serious questions about the calibre of candidates the Tories have been forced to select.”
Attention has now turned to Mr Robson’s candidacy in the neighbouring seat of Pontypridd, where Mr Trask was one of the 10 signatories signing his nomination papers.
Plaid Cymru’s Pontypridd candidate Wiliam Rees made reference to the recent row over candidates being parachuted by Labour’s National Executive Committee into the Cardiff West and Swansea West constituencies, with ordinary party members having no say about who should be selected.
Parachutes
Mr Rees said: “It seems that it’s not only the Labour Party which has been handing out parachutes to budding MPs from across Offa’s Dyke in this general election.
“It is embarrassing that the Conservatives have had to overlook their own local councillors for the area, and every other Welsh Conservative within a 100 mile radius, before settling on their candidate for Pontypridd.
“I am proud to be standing in Pontypridd, my home constituency. From the very start of this campaign, I have said I will be a strong local voice for Pontypridd in Parliament. That is what the people of Pontypridd deserve.
“For too long, both the main parties at Westminster, the Conservatives and Labour, have taken Wales for granted. It’s time for a fresh voice to represent us at Westminster who is accountable to the people of Pontypridd, and not their party bosses in London.”
Scrambling
It’s an open secret that the Conservatives have found it tough to find enough candidates to stand in every seat in Britain. Two weeks ago The Independent reported: “The Tories are scrambling to find candidates for almost a third of constituencies after Rishi Sunak’s decision to keep many of his party’s senior figures in the dark about his decision to call a snap election.
“It is understood that when Mr Sunak made his rain-sodden announcement on the steps of Downing Street, candidates for 191 of the 650 seats still needed to be selected.
“Since then more vacancies have occurred with a number of Tory MPs announcing they will retire, bringing the total to at least 78, breaking the 1997 record of 75. This dramatically included Levelling-up Secretary Michael Gove and former leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom.
“Party chiefs are desperately appealing to prospective candidates to put themselves forward for seats – many of which they are projected to lose heavily – with the Conservatives expected to still be putting up batches of adverts for constituencies into the weekend.”
Political commentator Sir Anthony Seldon, a biographer of six prime ministers, said: “Surprise is always a smart tactic for a general, but it’s the enemy who should be surprised, not your own side. The Conservatives are going to have to move pretty damned quickly to fill their remaining empty seats to show that they are truly a national party.”
In the event, they managed to find a candidate for virtually every unfilled seat. However, because of a late withdrawal, there will not be a Tory on ballot papers in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.
Support our Nation today
For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.
Lets hope the people of Pontypridd see sense and vote Plaid. Labour MPs of long standing have done nothing for the area or its people. Give Plaid a chance it has to be better given their allegiance is to Wales not England and Westminster
Hear, hear. And let’s hope the people of Wales generally see sense and vote Plaid. Wake up Wales, nothing is going to change under Labour. It’s time to kick the Tory and Labour parties out of Wales unless they totally separate themselves from their English masters.
Exactly, I hope the voters also remember former Pontypridd Labour MP Kim Howells words, when he said devolution will see the ” Balkanisation” of our country , hinting at bloodshed on our streets, while campaigning against devolution.
They must have an illiterate sense of history because all three countries in the UK predate the UK by 1000 years. You shouldn’t take anyone serious who says the UK is a country! Countries are born out of a common culture among tribes of people, a unions default position is to erode the nations sense of self within it.
Labour and Conservatives treating Wales like a rotten-borough.
This is unacceptable – at least most of our current Tory horror show have some claim to beiong Welsh even if they never stand our corner against Worstmonster or act in our best interests.
We are a devolved Nation and deserve our own representatives.
Could you tell us who all the candidates are for the constituency please? Believe this is a requirement for political balance during the pre-election period.
There’s no such requirement on the press as long as the reporting is accurate. I think you are getting confused with the rules that apply to broadcasters.
Should be illegal….imagine me who despises some certain nation and then moving there to expressly run in their elections so I could have a hand in running the country into the ground! It’s totally unacceptable that foreigners can do this, especially those from England, a nation that has history doing everything it can to destabilise a unified Cymric nation.
Similar happens in Tibet.
What about people born ochr draw a y clawdd?
Probably couldn’t find a native to stand for them. Bunch of losers.
The disrespect shown towards Wales by our centrist Labour/Tory Unionists is evident with those English based candidates parachuted into Welsh constituencies deemed safe seats. I hope voters realise Labour & Conservatives are laughing at you? They are making a mockery of democracy and the Welsh electorate. When will the people of Wales finally wake up? Don’t voters understand that the only ones who will benefit are not the constituencies they allegedly represent, but those political ticks who are strategically placed in Wales by London as vehicle for them to ladder climb, essentially a £92k reward of sorts by the political… Read more »
Parachuting of prospective MPs into Wales isn’t new but it’s still a disgrace.
My guess is that Mr Robson is the archetypal ‘paper candidate’, given that his chances of winning in Pontypridd are absolutely zilch. So his residence in the Thames valley and any vestigial connection with Wales that he might have hardly matter. This is the standard road for any newbie aspirant politician to cut his or her teeth in pursuing a parliamentary ambition. Worth remembering, perhaps, that one Boris Johnson’s first ever pitch to be elected to Westminster was to stand as Tory candidate in Clwyd South, where his connections with the local area were as remote as his chances, back… Read more »
Parachutes should be abolished for elections.