Brian Binley MP to leave the Commons at the next election

By Paul Goodman
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I feel as though I've been a member of the Conservative Party for a long time...but Brian Binley has been one since the year before I was born.  And it is with sadness that I report the announcement this afternoon that the MP for Northampton South and member of the 1922 Executive Committee, will stand down from the Commons at the next election.  He is due to be 73 by the time it is fought.

Binley entered Parliament in 2005, and says that he believes that ten years in Parliament was "enough":  "Whether I have ten years left, or even 20, there are other things I want to do," he said.  He says that he is now in remission from a cancer diagnosed earlier this year.  "I was always told my disease was manageable and I now say to people, 'If you have to have cancer, ask for the menu and ask for a low-grade manageable one'."

Binley's majority at the last election was 6004.