Chairman of Leicester Conservative resigns over election results

The chairman of  Leicester Conservatives has resigned over the party's tactics in the local elections held earlier this month.

Leicester Tories lost their only city councillor and failed to come anywhere winning the mayoral election despite choosing a former government minister as their candidate.

You might think the chairman would have had something to do with developing the party's tactics, but when that chairman is this blog's old friend Jack Hickey anything is possible.

Here's what he told the Leicester Mercury:

“We had an awful election. 

"Our campaign was low energy, there was no strategy and we did nothing on social media. 

“We fought on 54 fronts but we didn’t fight smart. 

“A third of our membership were standing for election. 

"We should have concentrated on winnable seats, but we spread ourselves too thin. 

“People worked hard, but they worked in the wrong places.”

And it must have really hurt that his cherished tram scheme did not make the party's' city manifesto.

What is most significant in all this is that the Tories, who in 1983 won all three Leicester constituencies, now have only 150 members across the three of them.

Finally, a word for that defeated Tory councillor Ross Grant. He had spent the past year as the city's ceremonial mayor and is respected well beyond this party.

Why, he once wrote a guest post for this blog!