The selection of Nick Timothy as West Suffolk Conservative candidate for the next general election came as something of a surprise for many people.

West Suffolk is a rock-solid Conservative seat. In 1997, when the Tories were being wiped out in many places they held it with a majority of nearly 2,000. Matt Hancock had a majority of 23,000 in 2019. 

So the chances of Mr Timothy not making it to Westminster at the next election are miniscule - and when it comes to operating in parliament he will hit the ground running. 

As the former chief-of-staff to Theresa May he knows everything there is to know about how Westminster works. 

So from that point of view he's got all the skills to be the perfect MP.

But in the run-up to the selection all the vibes I was getting suggested to me that wasn't what the people of West Suffolk wanted this time.

When he was selected as Conservative candidate for the seat in 2009, Matt Hancock was George Osborne's chief of staff. Even then he was being talked of as a future cabinet minister.

Of course, that all happened - he ended up in one of the biggest jobs in the country as the nation faced one of the biggest crises in recent times.

But even before he crashed and burned out of government and ended up in the Australian jungle, I'd heard frequent grumbles from West Suffolk that their MP was so tied up in government matters he didn't seem to know what was happening in his constituency.

When he did step down, the mood music from West Suffolk suggested that they might look for someone like Peter Aldous - an MP with no ministerial ambition but who works tirelessly in the constituency and tries to be on top of every issue his voters throw at him.

That is not Nick Timothy! And one of the other candidates, Suffolk County Council deputy leader Richard Rout, did seem the more likely to succeed in this seat.

But in the end it was not to be - now Mr Rout is looking for another seat and it could be that another opportunity might come his way.

Conservatives in the new Waveney Valley seat which straddles the Suffolk/Norfolk border and takes in places from Stowupland to Harleston and from Diss to Bungay are currently getting themselves organised and will be selecting a candidate over the next few months.

I understand Mr Rout will be putting his name forward for this - it should be another safe Tory seat. 

I know the Greens, bouyed by their success in Mid Suffolk in May, think they stand a chance here - but given they didn't win a single seat on South Norfolk council in the same election, I can't believe the Tories will be too worried about them!

And before anyone points out the Greens did win a South Norfolk division in a county council by-election - only about half of that is in the Waveney Valley constituency and can hardly be treated as a portent of Green march to power here!

There is some confusion about the new Waveney Valley seat which has, sort of, been squeezed in between Central Suffolk and North Ipswich and South Norfolk - both of which constituencies remain.

Some have confused it with the current Waveney constituency, which is being renamed Lowestoft, and some don't seem to be aware that there are any changes planned whatsoever!

To me it looks like Mr Rout's best chance of representing a seat in his home area - but he does have one of the Conservative Party's "Golden Tickets" which allows him to apply to constituencies anywhere in Great Britain.