The Conservative Party took a big step forward in its attempts to modernise last night by selecting a lesbian businesswoman for a highly marginal seat.

Margot James, 47, a self-made millionaire who cites Margaret Thatcher as her heroine, was chosen for Stourbridge in the West Midlands.

The seat is 25th on the Conservative target list and is held by Labour MP Lynda Waltho, who, after boundary changes, will have a notional majority of 1,285 at the next election. This will be the first time an openly lesbian candidate has been selected to fight a seat, according to a senior Tory source.

With her tailored suits and Prada handbags, Ms James has been dubbed Britain’s most glamorous politician and is part of the modernising wing of the party. She has impressed David Cameron, who made her a vice chairman of the party in charge of women’s issues.

Ms James is open about her sexuality and is in a 10-year relationship with fashion stylist Jay Hunt, 38, co-host of the BBC makeover programme Would Like To Meet.

She said in a recent interview: “I truly don’t see myself as a gay this or lesbian that; I think it’s all very limiting.

She was born in Coventry, the daughter of a self-made businessman and educated at Millfield School in Somerset and the LSE, where she was chairman of the Conservative Association. She left the Conservative party in 1990 because of the coup which outed Mrs Thatcher and flirted with Labour. But she fell out with Labour over the treatment of Mo Mowlam, a former Northern Ireland Secretary, and rejoined the Tory party in 2003.

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