Councillor Shirley Houghton was last night selected on the first ballot for the London Assembly seat of Lambeth and Southwark (held by Labour's Valerie Shawcross). The Conservatives came third there last time but this is significant as she is the first female candidate selected to stand in the next Assembly elections.
Two of the nine current Conservative Assembly members are women, Angie Bray and Elizabeth Howlett, but Bray was selected for the extremely marginal Ealing Central and Acton parliamentary seat last October, and Howlett is standing down. Assembly candidacies seem to be increasingly competitive, with people like Kit Malthouse and James Cleverly (people who have been through to the final stages of selection for winnable parliamentary seats), being selected.
Also, I believe double-congratulations are in order for Shirley - she marries fellow Tower Hamlets Councilllor Philip Briscoe (who was in the final stage of this selection!) this weekend.
Update: Councillor Andy Jennings was selected for the GLA seat of Greenwich & Lewisham on Friday
Deputy Editor