It’s a payneful end to Seb Payne’s political ambitions in Bromsgrove, as votes came in from the re-run of Sajid Javid’s seat selection last night, resulting in an “overwhelming” mandate for Bradley Thomas to be the Tory candidate. Thomas was selected in July, beating Payne by 5 votes, though a complaint from association president Mark Jones led CCHQ to launch an investigation that concluded there should be “confirmation vote”. Local Tories were concerned CCHQ was trying to push Seb Payne in by dubious means. To much angst within the association, CCHQ failed to make the report public. Now they failed to vacate the seat for Payne too…
It would have been tricky to oust the locally popular Thomas, though some local Tories wonder if CCHQ was merely testing the water for these kinds of interventions before more Tory MPs stand down and rapid selections open next year. It’s not the first time the Onward director has thrown his hat in the ring though, being shortlisted in May for Selby and Ainsty. Looks like it’s onwards to the next seat for Seb…
