Sir James Paice has announced that he will stand down at the next general election. He will have been our MP for 28 years by the time of the election in 2015.

Now approaching his seventies and no longer a minister after the last cabinet reshuffle the news is unsurprising and as South East Cambridgeshire is historically a very safe Tory seat (he used to get an absolute majority in some elections, which is relatively unusual) no doubt there will be lots of competition to succeed him.