Former West End ward councillor, Tim Barnes, has been selected as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for the Cities of London and Westminster.
Barnes will face off against current Tower Hamlets councillor Rachel Blake (Labour) and journalist Edward Lucas (Liberal Democrats) in the parliamentary elections, due to be held sometime this year.
The “two cities” constituency includes the whole of the Fitzrovia West neighbourhood area.
Over 200 members of Cities of London and Westminster Conservative Association voted for Barnes, beating a long list of candidates including former Camden councillor and Conservatives’ leader Oliver Cooper and current councillor and London Assembly member Tony Devenish.
He will be replacing the current Tory MP, Nickie Aiken, who last month announced she would not be seeking re-election after representing the constituency since 2019, and will be looking to hold on to the seat which has been Conservative since its inception, with Aiken’s predecessor, Mark Field, holding it for almost 20 years.
Barnes’s victory comes after a much contested candidate selection process as local Tories expressed concerns that three of the longlisted candidates for the seat were clients of the association’s chair, Thomas Borwick’s, employer. It also emerged that one of the candidates who applied for the seat was Borwick’s mother, former Kensington MP Victoria Borwick, however she was not longlisted.
Barnes, a Soho resident, was one of four cabinet members who lost their seats on Westminster Council when Labour swept to power in 2022.