Tories pick team for council election battlegrounds
THE Conservatives in Camden have a host of new faces in their bid to expand their territory at next year’s council elections, although this means they will be heading into battle without a sort of holy trinity of three long-serving councillors. You’d have to go a long way back to find a slate which didn’t include Andrew Mennear, Andrew Marshall and Jonny Bucknell – two former group leaders and perhaps the most colourful, quotable backbencher at the Town Hall. But all three have decided to step down, all for their own, very different reasons.
The line-up going up for the public vote in key wards next May instead is set to be:
BELSIZE: currently held by Conservatives
Claire-Louise Leyland (group leader)
Leila Roy
Steve Adams (replaces Jonny Bucknell on the slate)
FROGNAL & FITZJOHNS: currently held by Conservatives
Cllr Siobhan Baillie
Cllr Gio Spinella
Andrew Parkinson (replaces Andrew Mennear)
HAMPSTEAD TOWN: currently held by Conservatives
Hamish Hunter (replaces Tom Currie)
Cllr Oliver Cooper
Cllr Stephen Stark
HIGHGATE: currently held by two Labour councillors, one Green
Henry Newman
Ben Seifert
Jim Ormiston
KILBURN: currently held by Labour
Chantelle De Villiers (pictured right)
Harry Richardson JP
one vacancy
SWISS COTTAGE: currently held by Conservatives
Kate Fairhurst (replaces Roger Freeman)
Calvin Robinson (replaces Andrew Marshall)
Cllr Don Williams
WEST HAMPSTEAD & FORTUNE GREEN*: currently held by four Labour councillors, one Lib Dem, one independent
Ian Cohen
Charlotte Kude
David Brescia
Helen Harris
Nick Grierson
Cyrus Parvin
Regular readers will, of course, already be aware of Chantelle De Villiers and Helen Harris’s activism…
* The Tories are still deciding in which ward the six candidates picked for West Hampstead and Fortune Green will stand.
Richard Osley 
West Hampstead and Fortune Green already have Tories as cllrs many believe, for sure they love cutting everything possible and attacking the working class.
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So many that we can see them when they throw little pebbles from the shadows.
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It’s not entirely clear from this report whether they were elected by local members or selected by a panel. The Labour Party has elections from within the ranks of our membership. Labour’s process is often reported/gossiped on but with this, don’t we deserve to know if they are just put in place and by what criteria?
The interesting dilemma for the Tories is what they do when so many moderate ‘Remain’ Conservatives are no longer around – like it or not Brexit is an issue and how residents who overwhelmingly voted to Remain will feel represented by more hardline Leave campaigners is anybody’s guess…The Conservatives are the party of government, deeply divided on the nature of leaving, so deserve some scrutiny.
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