Late last year, the Sunday Telegraph revealed concerns among senior Tories that the Tory seat (CCHQ) was trying to “sew up” safe seats in favor of “Blue Prince” candidates aligned with Mr Sunak , before the elections scheduled for this year.
More than 40 MPs, including Liz Truss, Suella Braverman, Sir John Hayes and Jonathan Gullis, have written to the Prime Minister urging Mr Sunak to end his attempt to impose a “shortcut” selection process on candidate MPs.
They are right to be worried. In addition to his “duties” as Number Ten’s resident psychopath with a 6-figure salary at Conservative campaign headquarters, Dougie Smith is listed as a member of the candidate selection panel. In reality, he would veto those he judges to be too sympathetic to Boris Johnson, Liz Truss or Tory principles. He wants yes-men with unwavering loyalty to Rishi Sunak’s technocratic style of government to be selected as Conservative candidates.
Team Sunak fears that Smith’s authoritarian, centralized control of the selection process will alienate the Prime Minister from Conservative constituency committees who believe they should have more say in choosing candidates.
In conflicts between the center of CCHQ and the periphery in the constituencies, it is usually the center that wins because that is where the power is and where the money is. Given the likelihood of a general election on November 14, expect a protracted struggle between precinct committees who want local, colorful candidates to represent them and Dougie Smith who wants candidates loyal to him.
For a full account of this, read the exposes that Nadine Dorries made public in her book “The Plot,” as well as in her subsequent articles and speeches.