Speaker's hustings

Having just seen ten of the candidates squaring off, I'm left mulling over a conspiracy theory. Parmjit Dhanda is a Labour patsy, a creature of the whips: why is he running? Reports that the Labour whips are agitating in favour of the 'Conservative' John Bercow only make the question more pertinent. (I put 'Conservative' in scare quotes because Bercow now be thanking his lucky stars he didn't cross the floor despite having moved from the stolidly Conservative Monday Club to being well to the left of a good number of Labour MPs.) So what's going on?

Well, here's this. Bercow's age was being cited as a problem for some MPs, but Dhanda is younger. Did the Labour whips put Dhanda up to running on a no-hope ticket to stop people from saying that Bercow was the youngest candidate?