THE ink may not yet be dry on the announcement that Sir John Butterfill will not be seeking re-election in the Bournemouth West seat.

But be in no doubt, the race to succeed the Tory grandee will have started, even if ever so gently; a few phone calls here and there, a bit of testing the water, some canvassing of potential support.

Sir John has been an assiduous constituency MP and will have served for 27 years by the time of the next General Election if it goes the distance and is called in 2010.

Whether the best candidate will be a local or national one remains to be seen.

A local politician may come with sound local knowledge but with baggage too.

The seat is sure to be much sought after, though in terms of its ranking as a Conservative stronghold, Bournemouth West is not what is was.

The current majority is now a rather slim 4,031. When Sir John was first elected in 1983, it was a healthy 13,331.

Whoever is selected will be left in no doubt about the size of the task on the doorstep.

  • If you get a taxi today, you can be pretty sure what your driver will be going on about, in the way only cabbies can.

Bournemouth council is preparing to get tough with taxi and private hire drivers - over 300 of them, who haven't passed their NVQ in transporting people around.

First of all, exactly how hard can that be? It's not nuclear physics is it?

Secondly, the council could decide to take around 100 of them off the road for failing to get qualified.

So it's not all bad news then, because that ought to be a boost for road safety.