Conservative headquarters has issued an advertisement to kick off selections in 35 of the 140 or so target seats needed to take Downing Street – including two key seats in Yorkshire.
But in most cases only Tories on the new "priority list" of the pa
rty's best and brightest candidates will be able to apply.
Drawn from the 600-strong list of "approved candidates" – those allowed to apply to local associations to stand for Westminster – they are the way Tory leader David Cameron intends to increase the number of women and ethnic minority candidates in target seats and, ultimately, Parliament. He also hopes it will end the overwhelmingly white male image of the party.
More than half of the priority candidates are women and around 10 per cent are from ethnic minorities.
Two new North Yorkshire seats, which will be redrawn at the next election, are Selby/Ainsty and York Outer and in both of these candidates have been given just a week to apply to stand. Both are likely to be very good prospects for the party.
Earlier this week the Yorkshire Post revealed a number of the men and women on the priority list of "super-candidates".
Soap heart throb and singer Adam Rickitt, the former Coronation Street star, as well as millionaire environmentalist Zac Goldsmith, the son of the late Eurosceptic financier Sir James Goldsmith, and chick-lit novelist Louise Bagshawe are on the list.
In Yorkshire, Muslim lawyer and party vice-chairman Sayeeda Warsi, who stood in Dewsbury in the 2005 General Election, has been chosen, along with teacher and Hull councillor Andrew Percy, who contested Normanton last year.
But more names on the list – which Tory chiefs are attempting in vain to keep a secret – emerged last night.
Mark Menzies, who narrowly lost out to John Grogan in Selby last year, has made it, as has Elizabeth Truss, the Leeds-born communications manager who contested Calder Valley in 2005.
Present Vale of York MP Anne McIntosh is also on the list, since her seat disappears at the next election, with parts going to the new Selby/Ainsty seat and others going to York Outer.
Party insiders in Yorkshire are expecting a fight over both these seats from Ms McIntosh and others who stood in the region last year.
