General Election special: Lindsay Hoyle stands and every other confirmed candidate
The Lancashire Lead - May 23, 2024
So here we are then. After months of speculation over a date, Rishi Sunak took to Downing Street to announce a General Election will take place on July 4. Given the importance of the announcement, it felt only right to publish a special edition of the newsletter.
Stood in a rain sodden suit, with the soundtrack to Labour’s 1997 landslide win blaring out in the background, it can’t have been how the Prime Minister pictured that moment and it did make me he really needs better advisers around him.
Behind the scenes, political activity has gone into overdrive. In Lancashire, each of the main parties still have seats with no candidate selected and time is pressing. As pointed out by journalist Michael Crick, whose Tomorrow’s MPs Twitter/X account is in for a busy run, nominations must be submitted by 4pm on June 7 to make ballot sheets (voter registration deadlines are here).
For those who have been selected, work will have been ongoing for some time and will really ramp up now. Social media feeds of candidates were filled with not only political messaging and slogans after yesterday’s announcement, but more so with requests for volunteers and donations to help out with campaigning.
What we know so far
Because it has been such a long run to this point, we do know quite a few of those who will be asking for your votes so I’ve listed those below. There are also changes to watch out for due to boundary changes.
Thousands of people in places like Preston, Wyre, Clitheroe, Fleetwood and Chorley are being moved to new constituencies, while four wards from South Ribble have been moved into the Southport seat - which is why you may see it featured here more often.
You can enter your postcode on the BBC’s very SEO-friendly election information page here to see if and how your constituency is affected by plans to spread voter numbers more evenly across each seat.
Who will be standing?
In the case of one prominent MP who I hadn’t seen an announcement for, I’m told Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay “definitely will” be standing again. His seat is an interesting one because convention dictates that the speaker is not opposed. The Lib Dems have already indicated they won’t field a candidate and I suspect the Conservatives will follow suit, while the Green Party has selected one, having done so in 2019 as well.
Elsewhere, there are a couple of independent candidates already confirmed. In Preston, Michael Lavalette will stand on a pro-Palestinian platform, while councillor Tiger Patel is running in Blackburn. He earned plenty of fame thanks to videos posted on social media but quit the Conservatives over the party’s response to the Gaza crisis and now sits as an independent.
Another person of note is Mark Menzies. The Tory MP had been re-selected by the party but confirmed he will no longer stand after being caught up in a scandal involving using party funds to pay off “bad men”. Meanwhile, Blackpool South MP Chris Webb will find himself fighting to be elected in a seat he won just three weeks ago.
What do you want?
Part of the reason for sending this newsletter is to see what readers want ahead of the General Election and help shape how I cover it. Are there people/issues/questions you want to know more about? Are there under-reported areas which you feel need more coverage?
As well as showcasing the work already being done, there’ll be plenty of original content here too so please let me know if there’s anything you’d like to be reading.
Candidates announced so far
I’ll finish off with a round-up of the confirmed candidates standing so far (with thanks to the Who Can I Vote For site which had many I hadn’t yet realised)
I’d expect a flurry of announcements in the coming days but if I’ve missed any, please do let me know on jamie@thelead.uk so I can keep the lists up to date.
Blackburn - Kate Hollern (Lab)*, Jamie McGowam (Con), Adam Waller-Slack (Lib Dem), Craig Murray (Workers Party of Britain), Paul Topping (Social Democratic Party), Tiger Patel (Independent), Tommy Temperley (Reform),
Blackpool North and Fleetwood - Lorraine Beavers (Lab), Paul Maynard (Con)*, Bill Greene (Lib Dem), Jeannine Cresswell (Social Democratic Party), Tina Rothery (Green)
Blackpool South - Chris Webb (Lab), Andy Cregan (Lib Dem), Ben Thomas (Green),
Burnley - Oliver Ryan (Lab), Antony Higginbotham (Con)*, Gordon Birtwistle (Lib Dem), Jack Launer (Green)
Chorley - Lindsay Hoyle (Lab)*, Mark Worsley Tebbutt (Green), Ben Holden-Crowther (Democracy for Chorley), Martin Powell-Davies (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition)
Fylde - Tom Calver (Lab), Andrew Snowden (Con), Mark Jewell (Lib Dem), Brook Wimbury (Reform), Robert William Perks (Workers Party of Britain), Anne Aitken (Independent), Brendan Wilkinson (Independent)
Hyndburn - Sarah Smith (Lab), Sara Britcliffe (Con), Beth Waller-Slack (Lib Dem), Richard John Oakley (Reform), Matthew Britcliffe (Hyndburn), Mohammed Shabir Fazal (Green)
Lancaster and the Wyre - Cat Smith (Lab)*, Peter Cartridge (Con), Matthew Severn (Lib Dem), Jack Lenox (Green)
Morecambe and Lunesdale - Lizzi Collinge (Lab), David Morris (Con)*, Peter Jackson (Lib Dem), Gina Dowding (Green), Barry Parsons (Reform)
Pendle and Clitheroe - Jonathan Hinder (Lab), Andrew Stephenson (Con)*, Anna Fryer (Lib Dem), Victoria Anne Fletcher (Reform), Paul Graham (Green)
Preston - Mark Hendrick (Lab)*, Trevor Hart (Con), Neil Darby (Lib Dem), James Elliot (Reform), Michael Lavalette (Independent), Izzy Metcalf-Riener (Green)
Ribble Valley - Maya Ellis (Lab), Nigel Evans (Con)*, John Potter (Lib Dem), Caroline Montague (Green), Qasim Ajmi (Independent)
Rossendale and Darwen - Andy MacNae (Lab), Jake Berry (Con)*, Rowan Fitton (Lib Dem), Bob Bauld (Green), Daniel Matchett (Reform)
South Ribble - Paul Foster (Lab), Katherine Fletcher (Con)*, Ange Turner (Lib Dem), Andy Hunter (Reform), Stephani Karyim Mok (Independent)
Southport - Patrick Hurley (Lab), Damien Moore (Con)*, Erin Harvey (Lib Dem), Edwin Black (Green), Andrew Lynn (Reform), Sean Halsall (Independent)
West Lancashire - Ashley Dalton (Lab)*, Mike Prendergast (Con), Graham Smith (Lib Dem), Simon Evans (Reform), Charlotte Houltram (Green)
Note: * denotes sitting MP
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