Philip Hammond’s local party membership have reacted furiously to Guido’s investigation revealing Hammond had requested a secret meeting of his local party executive to ensure his candidacy for the next election is waved through – without consultation with the wider local party membership as took place in 2017.

Guido understands that the local executive has received a barrage of emails from fairly miffed members of the association to which Hammond’s agent responded in an email leaked to Guido: “Guido’s article is simultaneously true and untrue.”

“It is true that there will be a meeting of the RWCA Executive on Monday at which a vote will be taken to decide whether to adopt The Right Honourable Philip Hammond to be our Conservative candidate at the next General Election.

It is untrue to suggest that this is in any way an attempt to sneak things past the membership.”

Which is a bold approach to take considering the membership had to find out about the secret meeting from Guido’s article rather than the man seeking to become their candidate. Local members aren’t happy with the lack of transparency, especially when last time round they had the chance to question the candidate before the executive voted…