Good news in Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk

John: a fine MSP and hopefully soon to be MP!

It was announced last night that John Lamont, MSP for Roxburgh and Berwickshire has been selected as the Conservative candidate to stand in Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk at the next General Election.

This is great news: John won an historic victory on his election to the Scottish Parliament in 2007 and I have no doubt that he can pull off a similar feat next year. For those who don't know the area, this is Borders country that has been something of a Lib Dem stronghold since David Steel's legendary (or should I say infamous, as one of his political opponents!) by-election win in 1965. The Westminster seat (R,B & S) takes in John's Holyrood seat (R & B) plus what we used to call Selkirkshire, the historic county in the heart of the Borders.

John has a Lib Dem majority of 5,091 to overcome, standing against Michael Moore (no, not that one), whom he stood against back in 2005. The previous selected candidate for the next election, Chris Walker, stood down earlier in the year. I don't know the reasons why he quit but suffice to say I wasn't impressed by him when I met him at previous Scottish Conservative party conferences. I doubt that he would have come across well on the door step.

John will hopefully do much better, and with a potential win for Peter Duncan in Dumfries and Galloway, we could have Conservative wins in southern Scotland from sea to shimmering sea!

Then we just need to win all the seats north of there!