Richard believes passionately that Gloucester needs an MP who can meet several tough criteria:

Focused on Gloucester's needs, not his own career ambitions

We need an MP who understands that Gloucester is not an island, but the centre of a county - providing its city and shire administration, cathedral, shopping, hospital and health services, colleges and museums and top class rugby. And from the countryside in turn comes our food, some of our holiday entertainment, our visitors, clients, students and rugby supporters. We need an MP who can work with our neighbours, not against them, in solutions for administration, transport, health and waste.

I believe that the Labour government agenda and Gloucester's interests are fundamentally at odds. This has been shown by the demise of Holly House in mental health care: the closure of Kingsholm Post Office, far away regional development plans, the Environment Agency's inadequate budget for flood defence, the low level of education funding for the county, the regionalisation of our ambulance service and the attempt to regionalise the role of the Fire and Rescue Service - costing £6m for an empty regional fire centre waiting to open in 2011. That's not counting mindboggling economic mismanagement that has caused each of us to own about £20,000 of government debt, and is causing the fastest rise in unemployment in Gloucester for a generation. In particular, as a result of the Prime Minister encouraging Lloyds Bank to buy Halifax/Bankof Scotland, the result is a significant loss of autonomy for Cheltenham & Gloucester, and likely to lead to a significant loss of jobs in their Barnwood HQ. For a government that claimed to have abolished boom and bust, and a Prime Minister who claimed to have saved the world, this is a spectacular own goal. Thye Lloyds/HBoS deal was a bad one, done without appropriate due diligence, and the Chairman has since had to resign.

Who can stand up for Gloucester even when that means going against your own party's policies.

We need an MP who understands Gloucester's traditions, the buildings that we have shaped and which in turn have shaped us; our ancient schools, churches and shire structure; not someone for whom history is an obstacle to an expensive new initiative and who believes that his party's obsession with regionalisation and unitary authorities is the right way forward.

Who sees that the regeneration of Gloucester is much more than an inward investment statistic: that it's about motivating people to join in, volunteer, work and have ambitions for life - and to have pride in their city

We need an MP who realises that a regeneration body which only targets inward investment figure could well be missing the human regeneration which can result from the best projects. I believe in tough love and that leadership, like parenthood, is at its best when it confronts what is wrong, rather than pretending that the problem doesn't exist; that when youth or community centres are burnt down, statues are damaged and teenage gangs dominate certain streets then society IS broken and needs fixing.

Someone who can face difficult issues without photocalls, like the number of our teenagers not in education, employment or training; the number of  drug addicts in our prison; the negative impact of the extended licensing laws and a benefits system that gives no incentive for a young mother to go back to work.

Above all we need an MP who recognises that the easy years are over; that the decade of throwing taxpayer money to paper over problems no longer works - 'a day without a new initiative is a day wasted for New Labour (David Blunkett)' - and has run out of credibility as well as money.

And we need an MP who can respond to people who believe that it's time for a change - nationally and in Gloucester.