Conservative candidates in the seats the party came closest to winning at the last election are overwhelmingly white men, an analysis by The Times has found.

Of the party’s candidates in the 30 seats it either came closest to gaining or lost by the smallest margin in 2017, twenty are men, nine are women and one has not yet been selected. All are white.

By contrast, a majority of Labour’s candidates in the thirty seats it came closest to winning last time are women — eighteen, compared to twelve men. All but one is white.

Only six of the thirty Conservatives stood in the same seats at the last election, four of them former MPs trying to win back constituencies they unexpectedly lost to