The Conservative Party has announced that it is willing to consider candidates that don’t already have a criminal background.

All previous Conservative candidates have had some form of criminal background but the party will drop the requirement going forward to open itself up to a new selection of political talent.

“We don’t want to worry about the criminal background so much as the criminal foreground. We can always train candidates up in the art of sexual assault, bribery, battery, drug use and general corruption.

“We’ve been missing out on a lot of potential candidates who could go on to commit some truly horrific crimes and get away with them because of our old way of thinking,” said the Conservative Party chairman.

However, there has been some pushback from older members of the Conservative Party.

“The idea of running a Conservative candidate without a criminal background is preposterous. We might as well run a transsexual alien from Mars!” said Graham Labont-Labont, a Conservative member from Crayford.