Olympic champion seeks to be Tory candidate for MP

ROWER James Cracknell has entered the race to replace John Howell as Henley’s MP.

The 50-year-old double Olympic gold medallist is bidding to be chosen by the Conservative Party as their candidate at the next general election.

Last month, Mr Howell confirmed that he would not be seeking re-election.

The 67-year-old said he would be too old to return to Parliament having already served for 15 years, winning five elections.

He took over the constituency in 2008 from Boris Johnson when he became Mayor of London.

There had been speculation that the former prime minister might want to swap his marginal Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency for his former safe seat but he has been reselected.

Mr Cracknell, a member of Leander Club in Henley, told the Sunday Telegraph that the town had a “special place” in his heart and representing it would be a “humbling honour”.

He said: “I rowed there from when I was 18 years old, bought my first house in the town and had my first child when I lived there. So many of my best personal and professional memories are from my time in Henley.”

If selected and elected, he pledged to focus on “challenges” including “a lack of affordable housing, job opportunities in the town and a rail line that is still not electric”.

This is not the first time he has entered politics. In 2013 he bid to become the Conservative candidate for the South West England and Gilbraltar constituency of the European Parliament but was unsuccessful.

At the time, he said: “The European Union is going to have an effect on my children and grandchildren. I’d like to think I can have an effect — bring a fresh perspective. It’s not something I have to do, it is something I want to do.”

Mr Cracknell won gold in the coxless fours at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and the Athens Games in 2004. In 2005 he was awarded the OBE for services to sport.

In 2019 he became the oldest competitor in the Boat Race as part of the victorious Cambridge crew. He had enrolled at the university to study for a master’s degree in human evolution.

Mr Cracknell was married to TV presenter Beverley Turner from 2002 to 2019 and they have three children. In 2021, he married Jordan Connell, an American graduate of the University of Cambridge Judge Business School who works in finance.

South Oxfordshire Conservative Association has said that it will select a new candidate “in due course”.

In a letter to Will Hall, who chairs the association, Mr Howell said he did not want to remain an MP due to his age.

He wrote: “By the end of the next parliament, I will be approaching my mid-Seventies and that is why I said at the time of the 2019 general election that I would not seek re-adoption again. I have a number of other areas I would like to pursue.”

Freddie van Mierlo, who is standing for the Liberal Democrats, said: “Henley doesn’t need another celebrity MP — we’ve done that already as a constituency and as a country.

“If done correctly, being an MP is a very demanding job, where you use your office to serve and advocate for local residents. We need someone who will take the time to work hard for their residents and run a strong constituency office. “