As you may be aware, Sir James Paice will retire as our MP in 2015 and the local Conservative Association are in the process of selecting a new candidate via a primary. They now have a shortlist of four candidates and anyone in the constituency (regardless of their political persuasion) can vote on who should be selected.

As SE Cambridgeshire has historically been a very safe Tory seat this is probably as close as you are going to get to choosing your MP for the next parliament. The election takes place on Saturday, 7th December at 10:30am at Ely College, Downham Road, Ely, CB6 2SH and the deadline to register for tickets is noon on Monday 2nd December. You can register:

• by phone: 01638 578424
• By email: secca.openprimary@hotmail.co.uk
• By Post: Open Primary Tickets, SE Cambs Conservatives, Unit 8, Swan Lane Bus. Park, Exning, CB8 7FN (although you’ll have to be quick)

The final four candidates, with brief notes from this article on the Conservative Home web site are:

• Heidi Allen – A councillor in St Alban’s, Allen is Managing Director of the family manufacturing business. Born in Yorkshire, she studied Astrophysics at University College London before going on to work as an operations manager in organisations as diverse as Royal Mail, Tubelines, Esso and Churchill Insurance Group. Notably, she runs a blog about her campaigning in South East Cambridgeshire, and has evidently been very active there in recent weeks.
• Paul Bristow – The Conservative Future national chairman 2003-05, Bristow stood in Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland in 2010. There, he increased the Conservative vote share by 3.8 percentage points, cutting an 8,000 vote majority to 1,677. He is also a former Hammersmith and Fulham councillor.
• Lucy Frazer – A barrister, Frazer specialises in commercial law. She is an activist in Hampstead and Kilburn Conservatives, an ultra-marginal seat in which campaigning is all, where she is Deputy Chairman of the Association. A few weeks ago she made the final four in Croydon South.
• Charlotte Vere – Currently Executive Director of the Girls’ Schools Association, Vere has worked in the private sector for 25 years. She was the Conservative candidate in Brighton Pavilion, where she increased the Tory vote but saw Caroline Lucas turn the constituency Green. She was Finance Director of the victorious No2AV campaign in the 2011 referendum, and has campaigned for Conservative policies to be better targeted at women voters. Like Frazer, she recently made the final four in Croydon South.