A CHAGFORD woman has launched a campaign to enliven grassroots democracy and give local people more say in Westminster. Nicky Heyworth wants to stand as the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for the newly created constituency of Central Devon. Last month, Mrs Heyworth learnt she had not made it onto the shortlist of approved candidates drawn up by Conservative head office. However, Mrs Heyworth has decided to fight back by launching a campaign to be given the chance to be considered by the people of the area. She said one of the reasons the party had given for not choosing her was her relative lack of political experience, but she says she believed this was more than offset by her strength in grassroots campaigning. Now she has produced 80,000 postcards bearing the slogan ?Heyworth for Central Devon? and is distributing to them to people around the new constituency. She is asking people whatever their political allegiances to send the postcards to David Cameron asking that he allow her to try to win selection as a candidate for the next election. Mrs Heyworth?s unusual methods have already brought her to the attention of Radio 4?s flagship current affairs programme ?Today? which recently conducted an interview with her. ?It wasn?t the people of Central Devon that said they didn?t like the look of me,? she said. ?All I am seeking to do is open out the selection process. Nobody knows what is going on down here. I am someone who lives here and is passionate about local issues,? she added. ?People say they feel political parties are all alike, it is a dangerous situation. Forty percent of people didn?t vote at the last election. Apathy is not the problem, but a lot of people are concerned about the way politics is going.? Mrs Heyworth said she had detected a problem with the way politicians communicate with those they seek to represent, a complaint she heard from those she spoke to around the area, including the young. ?I am talking to a lot of young people. If we don?t get them involved in politics, are we just going to stand by as more and more people drop out of the democratic process.? She said touring the area, she had also found people were not well informed about the changes of constituency boundaries. ?All the parties are going to be forming new constituency associations and assessing potential candidates. It is a great opportunity for people to get involved in politics,? she said. ?There are an awful lot of people who will be in this new constituency and know nothing about it.? In fact, she said of the all the people she had met spreading her message around the constituency, only two knew anything about the boundary changes. Mrs Heyworth said while new leader David Cameron had said he wanted to recruit more women MPs to the Party, he needed to do more to alter the traditional under-representation of women. ?All the parties have appalling under-representation of women, and a history of sending women to seats they cannot possibly win, while reserving anything that looks promising for the highly polished male politicos,? she said. Mrs Heyworth added: ?The party hierarchy have said I am a very good candidate but there are other good candidates too. ?I don?t want to hurt anybody. I just want to make things work better. If I can produce enough cards to say ?Give the girl a chance? hopefully the party might change its mind.? Mrs Heyworth said if she did not succeed in her campaign to be added to the shortlist, she hoped she would at least have raised awareness of the new Central Devon constituency. Mrs Heyworth runs Monks Withecombe Art Galley just outside Chagford and has lived in West Devon for seven years. To find out more about the campaign, visit Nicky?s website ? http://www.centraldevon.co.uk">www.centraldevon.co.uk l The new Central Devon constituency, the creation of which was recommended following a Boundary Commission review, will become a legal entity in January 2007. The new constituency will incorporate wards from the existing West Devon, Mid Devon, East Devon and Teignbridge constituencies. The wards of Okehampton East and West, Chagford, Hatherleigh, Lew Valley, Exbourne, North Tawton, South Tawton and Drewsteignton will all be part of Central Devon under the shake-up.
