Tory chairman calls for ‘real’ Merseysiders to join campaign trail

CONSERVATIVE Party national chairman Eric Pickles last night told the Daily Post how Merseysiders willing to stand as Tory MPs would be key to restoring faith in politics.

Mr Pickles said he was encouraged by the number of people from the region responding to party leader David Cameron’s announcement he would open up Tory candidacies to “successful head teachers and the owners of small businesses”.

But Mr Pickles insisted the party was not merely looking to the “petit bourgeois” to restore Parliament’s credibility in the wake of the expenses scandal, which has rocked Westminster.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Post, Mr Pickles, MP for Brentwood, said the party would use the furore “as a way of rebuilding the party and rebuilding trust”.

But he recognised Merseyside was a challenge for the party because the region has not returned a Conservative MP since the 1990s.

He said: “It is one of the ways we can open up politics. We are still counting them, but we have had a phenomenally large response and we will be sifting through them to find people who will become MPs.

“David Cameron does not give up and is prepared to spend time and effort working in an area which the party has retreated from.”