A NEW Chairman has been appointed to Pudsey Conservatives.

Rob Harris, a Horsforth town councillor, was appointed to the role seven months after the resignation of previous chairman Dr Jason Aldiss, who left the Conservative Party after Boris Johnson’s election as Tory Leader.

Cllr Harris has been appointed by the Pudsey Conservative Association and takes over from Andrew Carter, Leader of the Conservative Group in Leeds City Council, who had been the interim Chairman since August 2019.

Cllr Harris, who is 27 years old, becomes one of the youngest Chairmen of a Conservative Constituency association.

The role of the chairman is to be the link between the sitting MP, Stuart Andrew, and his association and also to ensure that the association provides strong support to its MP and functions effectively in local and general election campaigns.

Cllr Harris has been involved with the Pudsey association for a number of years and moved to Leeds in August 2015. He is a tax accountant with one of the major accounting firms in Leeds.

Mr Andrew said: “I am delighted that Rob has been appointed to this role. He has campaigned extremely hard in recent local election campaigns and, of course, in the general election campaign last December. The younger members of the local association bring that little extra in terms of moving forward that we need as an association. The energy that Rob and the large number of young members in the association bring shows it is just not true that the Conservative Party does not appeal to young people in this country.”

Cllr Harris said, “I am delighted and honoured to have been made Chairman of Pudsey Conservatives and look forward to working tirelessly to support our MP and to re-elect our city councillors Pat Latty, Amanda Carter and Jonathon Taylor in May, along with Dawn Seary who is standing for the first time as our candidate in Pudsey.”

When Dr Aldiss stepped down in July he issued a strongly worded criticism of Boris Johnson and “his band of power-hungry saboteurs”.

In a letter to Conservative Party Chairman Brandon Lewis, Dr Aldiss said: “I have loyally served our Party for almost a quarter of a century, holding countless offices at Area and Regional level.”

He added: “Yesterday’s leadership election result, which saw more than two thirds of Party Members vote for Mr Johnson, confirmed that this is no longer the Party I joined in 1995.

“The hardline Brexiteers in Conservative ranks, hellbent on a no-deal departure, claim to be patriots. I see nothing patriotic about willingly risking untold damage to our economy, to jobs and to our global standing for decades to come.”