NORTH Oxfordshire barrister Victoria Prentis has been chosen to represent Banbury for the Conservative party at next year’s General Election.

Party members chose the 43-year-old to replace MP-of-31-years Sir Tony Baldry, to retire in March, on Saturday.

Mrs Prentis, formerly a Government barrister focusing on security and the military, was chosen from a shortlist of four by more than 100 members of the North Oxfordshire Conservative Association.

The Somerton resident said: “It’s very exciting to be chosen. We need to get going on campaigning, I’ll be out in Banbury every day from now on.”

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She is the daughter of Tim Boswell, now Lord Boswell, who held ministerial posts in the Department of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture between 1992 and 1997. The mum-of-two said she “has been campaigning since before I could walk” because of her father, Tory MP for Daventry, Northamptonshire from 1987 to 2010.

Sir Tony – who had a 18,227 majority and 52.8 per cent vote share in 2010 -– said: “She has a great headstart having grown up in a political family and I can’t think of anyone who I would rather have. Everyone in North Oxfordshire is in very safe hands.”

Dan Sames, who put his name forward but was not shortlisted, put a critical post on the association’s website on Saturday. That was removed by 5.30pm.

The Cherwell district councillor for Bicester South said all electors should have had a vote in the selection through an “open primary”. He wrote: “It has been a missed opportunity to have a candidate to appeal to the wider community. Victoria Prentis is definitely not the right choice.”

An association spokesman said he would be spoken to over the “disappointing post”.

Read a full interview with Mrs Prentis in tomorrow’s Oxford Mail.

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