In October 2005, Rickitt was approved as a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Conservative Party. As part of this attempt to reinvent himself, in February 2006 he appeared on the political debate show Question Time, as the non-partisan guest. In May 2006, he was one of 100 would-be MPs chosen for the Conservative party A-list. The following month, he appeared on Sunday AM with Andrew Marr. He attended national and local Conservative party functions in the hope of being selected as a candidate, and developed a political blog on his website. However, a newspaper article alleged that he was not a member of the Conservative Party and had only decided to support them because of his dislike of then Prime Minister Tony Blair. Rickitt refuted these claims and confirmed that he was a member, while the newspaper retracted its claims the following week. Along with David Cameron, he also provoked the anger of Sir Nicholas Winterton when it was revealed that Rickitt was being tipped to stand for the safe Conservative seat of Macclesfield, which the outraged Winterton had represented for nearly thirty years. Winterton responded that he had no intention of standing down from this seat: "I wish Adam luck, but there are no vacancies here."