The Conservative Party’s national convention chair election is underway, with ballots landing in the inboxes of the 800-or-so voters from today. They’re some of the least well-known political elections, despite the winner going on to head up the voluntary side of the party machinery. Some say it’s already playing out like a Shakespearean tale of duplicity…

There are three candidates: Pam Hall, Peter Booth and Tom Spiller, though it wasn’t always meant to be. Peter Booth had spent a year working with Pam Hall’s campaign, only to tell her in March he was jettisoning to launch his own chairmanship election – after months of access to her strategy and planning. There are questions over whether Booth was ever really planning on supporting Hall, or whether it was always an espionage mission. 

Booth claims he was courted by both campaigns last year, joined Pam Hall’s camp, only for nothing much to then happen, at which point he concluded he was best place to take the crown. Sounds like he’s taking lessons straight out of the Gove handbook… 

For co-conspirators out of the loop, this election decides who gets control of the party’s levers on issues such as membership, candidate selection, campaign budgets and disciplinary procedures. It remains to be seen Booth’s decision be looked upon kindly by the genteel Tory local chairmen who make up the electorate?