Would-be MP stuck between a rock and a hard place

Rock solid commitment - Aysha Raza shows her pride in Ealing

Labour has revealed a four-women shortlist from which it will choose its candidate in Cynon Valley at the next general election.

Ann Clwyd, the sitting MP, has made it. Her rivals include Sue Pickering (a Unite member, councillor and AM's caseworker), another councillor, Aysha Raza, and union official Katie Antippas.

Aysha Raza is a scientist and Labour councillor in Ealing, west London. According to her Facebook profile, her hometown is Aberdare, although her website tells a slightly different story. "Quite simply," she writes, "Ealing is home. And that's why it's the only parliamentary seat I'm interested in.

"Ealing is in the very fabric of who I am. I have lived in Ealing all my life and I know it inside out. I have played on its streets, attended its schools and have a vast extended family dotted all over the borough."

She has even gone to the trouble of publishing a photograph of a stick of rock bearing "Aysha Raza 4 Ealing & Acton" to demonstrate her local commitment. I suspect she is currently working on a different flavour rock.

She told my colleague Mark Hutchings: "Quite right. Hands up in the air. Guilty as charged" .

She said she hadn't changed her mind but she hadn't realised that the Cynon Valley seat would be coming up. Ealing and Cynon Valley are the only seats she'd stand for. (She was born in Aberdare and moved at the age of about 3 or 4).

"I don't go shopping for an MP's seat like going shopping for shoes", she added.

She says some people had mentioned the website in the meet and greet in Cynon Valley and she would now be changing it.