Clinging on to Gloucester?

A chill must have gone down the spine of Richard Graham this morning. He is the Conservative candidate for Gloucester at the next election, with high hopes of winning.

Labour has a 4,271 majority in the constituency, and it must be ripe for picking next time - one of David Cameron's obvious targets.

Only today, the Labour MP for Gloucester, the former minister Parmjit Dhanda, announced he's a candidate for Speaker.

By convention, when a former Labour MP is the Speaker, he is not opposed by the Conservatives (Labour used to abide by the same convention with former Tory MPs who became Speaker, but dropped the practice years ago.)

So If Mr Dhanda does become Speaker, Mr Graham will be expected to stand down and give the sitting MP a straight, and the Tories will suddenly be deprived of one of their targets (though the Lib Dems would probably still stand).

In fact becoming Speaker is probably Mr Dhanda's best hope of holding onto Gloucester.
Indeed Labour MPs have suggested to me recently that they ought to find someone from amongst their ranks with a marginal seat for this very reason.

But Mr Dhanda is of course an honourable man, and no such thought could possibly explain why he is putting his name forward.

And Mr Dhanda must have some chance of winning, since he seems to be one of only two Labour MPs officially in the running so far - Margaret Beckett declared this afternoon - and, in case you have forgotten, Labour still has a good Commons majority.