YORKSHIREMAN Robert Marchant wants to be Leigh's next MP. The 33-year-old Oxford graduate heads Labour's national technology department at the party's Millbank headquarters.

Comprehensive and grammar school-educated Mr Marchant manages the national technology unit and since 1998 has been invoved in a number of key IT projects and revamped the Party's website and redesigned its national computer network.

He is now putting the finishing touches to a national "intranet", a database containing the vital local information the Party machine will need to fight the next election.

In 1997 he contested the safe Tory seat of Skipton and Ripon in North Yorkshire, increasing the Labour vote by 36pc. He has been carrying out research into what Leigh people want from their next MP for some months, but has been waiting for a formal start to the process before declaring an interest.

He says he strongly supports the Xanadu project, and Leigh Centurions' entry into rugby's Super League and if elected, he has undertaken both to open a full-time office in Leigh.

He said: "To win the next general election nationally the Party needs to keep faith with its heartlands and listen to local parties. I believe in John Prescott's motto for Labour: "traditional values in a modern setting".

The growing list of Leigh Labour candidate 'wannabes' includes three more women.

Transport and General Worker's Union officer Jenny Smith is one of the female contenders -- and tipped by insiders as a Millbank favourite.

The others are Barbara Keeley-Huggett, a Trafford MBC councillor and Liz Kendall a former adviser to Social Security Secretary Harriet Harman.