By Julia Mazza

Sir Robert Goodwill, Conservative MP for Scarborough and Whitby, retires at the next General Election and his party has chosen what they assume will be his replacement, Roberto Weeden-Sanz.

The new candidate should be a shoo-in: after all, Sir Robert won the 2019 General Election with a majority of 10,270 with 27,593 votes.  Only four candidates were standing. Labour trailed with 17,323 votes,  and the Liberal Democrats and Yorkshire Party were no-hopers with 3,038 and 1,770 votes respectively.  The turnout in those ‘Borismania’ times was a keen-as-mustard 66.8% 

But that was then and this is now. 

The predictions especially since the hammering the Tories received in last May’s elections, are grim. Electoral Calculus for instance gives Labour an 87% probability of winning, the Tories only 13%.

The local Conservative Association has pulled out all the stops with their new candidate: Roberto is young (around 29), handsome and talks posh. He describes himself on Facebook as a politician and former charity worker.

What are his links to North Yorkshire? He tells the press that he comes from three generations of Yorkshire farmers. When he was standing in the Doncaster Central constituency in the 2019 General Election, he told the local paper he had spent some time as a child growing up in Bawtry and Leeds.

So what do we really know about the new candidate? Here’s what we found.

Weeden-Sanz’s father is an accountant. His Spanish mother was a secretary at Santander Bank in London. He is English-Spanish bilingual and as a child spent four months a year with his grandparents in Soria, he told the Spanish media.

Despite the accent and demeanour of a public school boy, Weeden-Sanz was educated at The Latymer School, a state grammar in north London with a reputation for academic excellence. He then studied History at Oxford at St Benet’s, a lesser-known Hall run by the Benedictine monks of Ampleforth Abbey, which closed down last year.

Weeden-Sanz was the first St Benet’s student to be elected as President of the prestigious Oxford Union, but his tenure was short-lived. He was forced to resign after non-attendance at compulsory meetings (a bit harsh, as he said one absence was due to attending his grandmother’s funeral).

But his Oxford Union position was enough to get him his first job. After Oxford he worked for three years as Public Affairs Director at One Young World, a youth leadership charity.

In 2020 he started at Weatherbys, a private bank for High Net Worth individuals and the racing community. According to LinkedIn, he joined the bank as a Private Banking Associate and was promoted to Private Banking Executive last year. 

His LinkedIn profile mentions that he’s currently studying for the Investment Advice Diploma (Level 4) of The Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment. 

So he’s a banker. But what do we know of Mr Weeden-Sanz’s political career? 

He was a councillor at Barnet Council from 2018 until last year. 

At the 2019 General Election he stood in Doncaster Central against Labour’s Rosie Winterton, coming second to her. Despite his close connection to mainland Europe, he campaigned on the ‘Get Brexit Done’ ticket.

In May 2021 he stood as GLA Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden and campaigned against Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ (Ultra Low Emissions Zone) policy which aims to create cleaner air in the capital.

He raised hackles when he failed to turn up to two hustings, one held by London Jewish Forum and another by Inclusion London which represents deaf and disabled Londoners.

It is alleged that he chose as his mentor Brian Coleman, the disgraced former Barnet councillor and Assembly Member who was convicted of assaulting a woman in the street – even though Weeden-Sanz declares himself a White Ribbon Ambassador, apparently campaigning against violence against women. 

Coleman accused the Labour candidate Anne Clarke of being a “Cricklewood housewife”. He denied that he was an official mentor, yet accompanied Weeden-Sanz to the count to watch him lose to Anne Clarke.

In Barnet, Weeden-Sanz represented Brunswick Park ward, but with boundary changes making the ward more likely to turn Labour,  he looked elsewhere for a council seat. He found one at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. 

In May 2022, he was elected councillor for Queen’s Gate ward in Kensington and Chelsea. The borough is a patchwork of opulence and deprivation. To say that Queen’s Gate is comfortably well-off is a wild understatement. 

There was criticism from some quarters that young Roberto was parachuted into this safe as (£1.5m minimum) houses Tory ward, and that Kensington Town Hall was “potty-training territory” for baby politicians aiming to become advisors or MPs.

There were also comments that Mr Weeden-Sanz did not live in the borough, but that the local Tory Party told the press that “he has family in Chelsea” and that “he has just bought a flat here”.

Since his election, Weeden-Sanz has spoken three times at Full Council meetings.  His maiden speech on the shortage of police placed the blame on Mayor Khan. He reported on the council’s plans to reach net zero carbon, and praised a ward coronation party. 

Not for Mr Weeden-Sanz the deprivation elsewhere in the borough or the continuing fallout from the Grenfell tragedy, with survivors facing higher rents and service charges.

While the Scarborough and Whitby candidate might be reticent in tackling questions from the public at hustings, he’s a born networker amongst the well-heeled. He is seen in press photos with socialites like Heather Bird Tchenguiz, former wife of a tycoon;  and James Stunt, heiress Petra Ecclestone’s ex who is currently on trial for fraud. 

The Sun has decided he’s the spitting image of Canadian premier Justin Trudeau, publishing a photograph of the two together.

He’s also a well-travelled campaigner. In the past year his Facebook page has posted his canvassing forays across the North.

Now all he has to do is defeat the Labour candidate, Alison Hume. She has lived in York for over 20 years – 41 miles from the constituency –  and spent childhood summers at Whitby.  Her parents are from York and Hull. She’s a producer and screenwriter with her own production company, and she’s a single mum with a son with complex disabilities.

In 2021 Ms Hume failed to win an election for North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner. But she could well be that third pesky Labour woman to defeat Mr Weeden-Sanz at the ballot box.

Julia Mazza is a writer for North East Bylines.

Image: Scarborough, North Yorkshire. Author: Thomas Tolkien from Yorkshire, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.