MP faces deselection after affair

Mr Gray said the defeat followed adverse publicity

Conservative MP James Gray is fighting for his political career after losing a deselection vote.

The local party executive in Chippenham voted against the 52-year-old North Wiltshire MP continuing to represent them in the next election.

The vote follows criticism that he had an affair while his wife Sarah was being treated for cancer.

There will now be a postal ballot of local Conservatives which Mr Gray says he is "hopeful" of winning.

Mr Gray has been the MP for North Wiltshire since 1997.

'First class job'

The father-of-three said he was disappointed, but blamed the adverse publicity that followed his affair and marriage break-up.

"What the Executive Council has decided is that my divorce, which I'm currently going through, is sufficiently important to have to ask the members' association as to whether or not they'd support me in the next general election," he said.

"I'll be going to a postal ballot, I'll be saying that I've done a first class job, I believe, as a constituency member of parliament.

"I don't think the fact I am going through a divorce should necessarily prevent me from doing that job in the future too."