This race is not, he believes, the aforementioned conclusion some commentators are predicting based on the Secretary of State’s better ratings in Tory rank and file polls. “At Bromsgrove, we’ll want to hear the arguments first.” Clearly the deciding factor won’t be personality or spin. “What I would say is that members are looking for someone who articulates good, old-fashioned, pragmatically conservative values. “We have a lot of small businesses in this constituency and there is a feeling among members here that small businesses have not been loved by the party over the last decade, even if those who run them remain the bedrock of the Conservative Party.” Uppal, who is 55 and himself took the (traditionally Labour) Commons seat of Wolverhampton South West in 2010 before losing it again in 2015, wants to break down the stereotype of Conservative unions as old and right-wing. “Most are full of pretty normal people, rooted in real life, doing jobs they don’t always like to put food on the table for their families,” he says. “And we have a vibrant group of young Conservatives in the union.” Does the prospect of the small number of members choosing the prime minister for the second time in three years upset him? “Well, in a few years the public will have their say, so ours is essentially a curatorial role that we will take stoically and seriously, in the spirit of putting our shoulder to the wheel as a public service.” If Uppal makes it sound like a duty to endure, in the Bishop Auckland seat of Red Wall in County Durham, where decades of Labor rule were overturned by the election of a Tory MP (Dehenna Davison) in 2019, the deputy chairman of The local association, James Middleton, feels a real excitement among the 200 members.
