The Conservatives selected Esther McVey as candidate for George Osborne’s former constituency in Cheshire after she lost her local seat 40 miles away. She also offered to run for David Cameron’s former seat in Oxfordshire

Less than a third of all Conservative MPs had any previous connection to the constituencies they were elected to serve before entering parliament, research has shown.

A study by the think tank Demos found that about half of all MPs had either been born, educated or lived within 20km (12.5 miles) of the constituencies they now represented in the past five years.

The figures show huge regional and party variation. While 64 per cent of Labour MPs had ties to the areas they now serve, just 32 per cent of Conservative MPs had local roots. Seven out of ten Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs had local links while only 28 out of 102 in the southeast of England had such connections.

The report also