Cracknell chosen for another Tory seat

OLYMPIAN James Cracknell will run as a Conservative candidate at the next general election in Colchester.

The two-time champion will fight the seat currently held by Tory MP Will Quince, who is standing down when Parliament is dissolved.

He had put himself forward to succeed Henley Conservative MP John Howell, who announced in April that he would not be seeking re-election.

But the process to choose the candidate had to be abandoned following rule breaches.

Mr Cracknell, who has been linked with the Tories for years, topped a long list of applicants seeking to be the Colchester candidate at the next general election, which is widely expected to take place next year.

Mr Quince first won the Essex seat in 2015 before holding it in 2017 and 2019. At the latter election he had a 9,000 majority over the Labour candidate in second place.

The Henley selection process was scrapped in July after multiple complaints, including that names from the longlist of candidates had been leaked and that membership of the selection committee had been stacked in favour of one candidate.

About 100 names from the party’s approved list had been whittled down by a committee to a longlist of about eight candidates and these were to be cut down to about three after interviews by a selection council.

The process was called off by the Conservative Party Board after complaints had been made about the way it had been run. The South Oxfordshire Conservative Association hopes to have a candidate in place by November.

Meanwhile, Reading West Conservative MP Alok Sharma has announced that he will step down at the next election.

Sir Alok, who chaired the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, said: “It has been the honour of my life to serve as the MP for a constituency in the town where I grew up and a privilege to serve in Government.”