Who can fill Forth's shoes?

TORIES look set to revolt against 'A-list' candidates including a soap star when they select a potential successor for Eric Forth.

The local Conservatives will get the final say between around eight 'local

activists', including portfolio holders on Bromley's ruling executive, and at least

one member of David Cameron's controversial list of top candidates on

Saturday.

A senior source told the Bromley Times that there was a lot of interest in fighting the seat, one of the party's safest after Mr Forth held it with a majority of 13,000 last year, and that the party would be unhappy to see a candidate 'parachuted in' from Tory HQ.

He said: "There is a feeling that people should have the option to choose a local candidate."

Mr Cameron's A-List, including former Coronation Street star Adam Rickitt and 'chick-lit' author Louise Bagshawe, is made up of equal numbers of male and female candidates, and 10 per cent of names are drawn from ethnic minorities.

John Hayes, chair of the party's rightwing Cornerstone group of MPs, last week branded plans to impose candidates on local associations as "the bizarre theory of people who spend too much time with the pseuds and posers of London's chi-chi set."

Although no Tories have publicly declared their interest in succeeding Mr Forth, two Independent Conservatives have announced their intention to fight the seat as the 'natural heirs' to safeguard Mr Forth's legacy.

Ex-Conservative Party member Chad Noble, who resigned from the party in March this year in protest at David Cameron's leadership, detailed his intention to stand in the by-election on Tuesday.

He said: "As Eric himself directly complained to David Cameron, those who believe in more grammar schools, immediately lower taxes and higher prosperity through business are no longer represented by Cameron's Conservative Party which has taken a deliberate step closer to New Labour's big government approach.

"As an ex-Conservative party member myself it seems that for now, the only way to be able to promote these values, Eric's values, is outside the Tory Party itself."

Chislehurst resident John Hemming-Clark, who has dubbed himself the "Son of Eric" for his "trenchant non-PC opinions" also announced his intention to stand on Tuesday.

He said: "The good people of Bromley and Chislehurst want a local person as their MP, someone who, like Eric, stood up for them both locally and in the House of Commons.

"Unfortunately the Tories have a choice from either a Bromley council, GLA or other constituency MP dinosaur, or a parachuted-in PC celebrity whose interest is their own self-promotion and not the interests of the local people."

Among Mr Hemming Clark's campaign topics are crime, scrapping the planned congestion charge for Bromley in 2010, the sacking of adulterous MPs, and the re-nationalisation of Thames Water.

Bromley Liberal Democrats selected their candidate at a private meeting of local Party Members on Tuesday night from a shortlist of two, Bromley councillor Ben Abbotts and activist Jo Christie-Smith.

Bromley and Chislehurst Labour party said they were expecting a lot of interest from prospective candidates, who would hold hustings at the HG Wells centre on Sunday.

Bromley Times