Guido’s phone is ringing off the hook with complaints about Tory selection shenanigans, which will all be done and dusted this week.

Jack Brereton, Greg Hands, Joe Rich

Stoke on Trent South is likely to go Tory in June for the first time since the Second World War. The Tory candidate from last time is Joe Rich, he added 4% to the Tory vote share in 2015 putting him just 2,539 votes from taking the seat. Having worked the seat hard since 2014 he has a lot of support from local Tory councillors.

CCHQ have told the local Tories they must select Jack Brereton from a list of one. Jack stood in neighbouring Stoke Central, where he came third in the recent by-election to second placed Paul Nuttall. Ironically the picture above shows Jack on the campaign trail being supported by Joe in February.

Local Tories feel that Joe Rich deserves to fight the seat this election after working it for years. Brereton works for Karen Bradley, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The suspicion is that she has engineered the seat switch for him. Guido can’t understand how Jack Brereton can honourably pinch the seat off his neighbour Joe Rich who was working the seat when he was still a student…

Elsewhere the former MP for Brentford & Isleworth, Mary Macleod, has emailed the local Tory membership setting out her stall in great detail, promising to build “on a strong foundation” bragging that she increased her share of the vote by 5.7% from 2010. Unfortunately her victorious Labour opponent Ruth Cadbury added 10.2% to her vote share in 2015…

She concluded her email with a handy guide to voting for her selection: 

Rival candidates are crying foul, that this is a breach of the selection rules and probably a breach of the Data Protection Act. Ooops…