This interview was originally published in the Westminster Extra. You can read it on their website here.
Conservatives choose Barnes to contest next general election
Tom Foot talks to Tim Barnes, who will fight for the ‘Two Cities’ seat
The deputy chairman of the Cities of London and Westminster Conservative Association will contest the next general election after running out a winner in a selection contest.
Tim Barnes was voted-in at a meeting of more than 200 members on Sunday evening.
A former cabinet councillor at Westminster City Council, he is a resident of Soho and chief executive of a charity based in the Aldwych.
The 49-year-old, who stood as a Conservative candidate in Holborn and St Pancras against Sir Keir Starmer in 2017, is facing an uphill task with pollsters predicting a Labour landslide.
But Mr Barnes said: “There is no glossing over it, it’s going to be tough.
“The wider background is not a strong starting point. But I do think that there are reasons why things might be a little different than a straightforward recasting of the national stats.
“Also the economy is picking up.
“People feel a bit better about what is happening. There is always time. Who knows?”
He added: “Knocking on doors and meeting as many people as possible. That’s got to be the bread and butter of it.”
The selection race was launched after Nickie Aiken, who was elected in a Conservative party landslide in 2019, announced she would not stand at the next general election.
Mr Barnes (pictured, above, with the MP) said her tenure had filled him with a combination of “admiration and fear”, and added: “She has raised the bar in terms of what you are able to do as a backbench MP.
“There has been a whole host of things that she has pushed the agenda forward on, including treatment of women, pregnancy and child-bearing issues, leaseholders. And really slamming down on things that Sadiq Khan has messed up or the Labour council hasn’t done.
“It has been enormously inspiring.”
At any other point in the history of the “Two Cities” constituency Mr Barnes would be a firm favourite to win a safe seat and potentially spend the rest of his career in the House of Commons.
But Labour is now predicted to win in Cities of London and Westminster, two-and-a-half years after the party swept to power at Westminster City Hall in the council elections in 2022.
Mr Barnes, a cabinet councillor at the time, lost his seat in that election.
Mr Barnes said the magnitude of his selection hit him on Tuesday when he met Ms Aiken for coffee at Portcullis House.
He said: “I went into parliament to see the pedicabs bill go through. We had a coffee and several MPs came up and said congratulations.
“And I thought, hold on a minute, this just got real. Yes the odds are not in my favour. But ok, yeah, this is a thing.
“It’s going to sound twee, but when you sit on the green benches looking out into the chamber and watching legislation being made, and knowing that in six months people’s lives are going to change, well if you can’t be energised by that…”
He said he had never met any political candidate who was in it for “the money or street cred”.
Mr Barnes could not identify any strong political differences between him and Labour candidate Rachel Blake and the Liberal Democrats’ Edward Lucas.
But he said: “I am the only one who lives here. I work in the constituency. That is not a throwaway line. I know and feel what it’s like to worry about pedicabs and e-bikes, to know which shops are closing down, about late licensing or the 24-hour economy. Those are the things that make you connect with people and explain.”
He added that he was not a “tribal” politician and that if someone had something sensible to say he was up for listening.
He said Westminster residents’ experience of Labour replacing the Conservative at council level was one of frustration.
“The expectation was that things could change very quickly, but they have discovered that the bigger issues are genuinely tough things to work out and reconcile. So there is a good deal of frustration with the Labour administration that is not delivering on what they promised.”
Would this be repeated on a UK level if Labour got into government?
He said: “The real problem the Labour Party has is that you look at the Owen Jones and Corbyn version of what Labour should be about. Then you look at the Keir Starmer version.
“And then there is an Angela Rayner version also. There’s no way everyone can be happy.”
He added: “The reality of being in power is that you have to solve the argument in a way that suits everyone. In opposition it is much easier to build alliances with people who are unhappy with the status quo.”
His Centre for Entrepreneurs charity helps people from disadvantaged backgrounds who are interested in starting a company.
He dismissed claims that there had been calls for a rerun of the selection contest, adding that he would be campaigning for residents on the issues that affect them including crime, cost of living, affordable homes, e-bikes and opportunities for young people.
This interview was originally published in the Westminster Extra. You can read it on their website here.
