While there has been an earth tremor in Kent, there has been a shock in Lewisham. In a selection race which was clearly hard fought, the outcome was decided by pulling a name from a hat!
Jo Christie-Smith, a hardworking, potential candidate lost last night to Alex Feakes, in the Lewishan West and Penge selection.
This means the Party has managed to select two white males for two of our top seats in London.
Both Alex and Chris are able, there is no problem with them representing our Party, and they are good blokes. I really like Alex. But I can't help feel that opportunities to change the make-up of the Parliamentary Party and our image are being missed.
Leaving aside that the final stage of this selection really wasn't really reasonable, it does seem odd that members in three constituencies - Lewisham East, Lewisham Deptford and Lewisham West & Penge - plus members from the three wards in Bromley Borough that will be in the new constituency, were able to vote for the candidate in one of the seats.
I do not understand this. People living in Lewisham East and Lewisham Deptford will not be able to vote for our candidate at the General Election. It seems mad that they should decide who might become the MP in Lewisham West & Penge.
There ought to be questions asked about who was entitled to vote in this selection and if it was consistent with common practice. Or indeed if it was fair.
Saturday, 28 April 2007
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11 comments:
Obviously it's always difficult when moves to increase the number of female and ethnic minority candidates run up against stopping individual white male candidates in particular seats. Although as you say Lewisham has selected two men, I get the strong impression that elsewhere in London and outside there is a lot more diversity in candidates - for example Islington South and Holborn & SP, both of which have selected women and both of which are probably at least as winnable as the two Lewisham ones.
On who can vote in the selection, I take your points about this, but I know it does happen elsewhere for people within the same local party but not that constituency, to be able to vote, for example in Islington. There are arguments both ways on this - I think acting as one party in Islington rather than two, has been generally very helpful.
Justine, your comments insinuate that if ther is a top target where there is an outstanding male candidate, that people should vote for the female just to balance things up. This is wrong.
if, as you say, the female dandidate in the Lewisham selection was outstanding, what are you trying to imply about the male candidate ? Are you saying he is not up to the job ? Do you know him well enough to make judgments on him ? Could it be that he too is outstanding ?
The issue is slightly different from that described. Lewisham and Beckenham North is a borough party, and it is not uncommon for borough parties as a whole to select candidates for all of their constituencies.
What was unusual about this situation is that the Lewisham East selection was decided by Lewisham East residents only, whereas Lewisham West and Penge (and Lewisham Deptford, eventually) was (will be) chosen by the borough party as a whole. Thus it's "one rule for us and a different rule for them".
I have taken to calling this the "West Lewisham question".
I also echo the points made by Jeremy and Nich that Justine's suggestion that women candidates should somehow be given preferential treatment is disgraceful.
The reason that Alex did as well as he did was in part due to the fact that he is a local councillor and has stood in both parts of the new constituency in previous general elections. To suggest that his success was due to his gender is libalous.
As for Lewisham East, Chris Maines was by far the best and most obvious candidate.
I know Jo pretty well, and she would have been an excellent candidate. I also know Alex and am sure he will be an excellent candidate too. What really sucks about this is that it was decided by drawing lots. That is frustrating for Jo, and must leave Alex feeling like he has a tenuous mandate at best. But as Kurt Vonnegut would have said, "So it goes".
If there is a complaint to be made, it is about the process and the constitution, and should be aimed at making the situation better in the future.
In the meantime, those of us in the constituency are ready to throw our weight behind our candidate and get him elected. We were out delivering today, and Jo was among us.
To suggest that his success was due to his gender is libalous.
I don't think that is what Justine meant. All she said was that it was disappointing that both seats had picked men as it wouldn't improve the gender balance of the parliamentary party.
Two things about Tom's posting.
1. It is NOT a borough party, it is a borough plus a bit party.
2. I can't believe the rules for Lewisham East are different to Lewisham West and Penge on selectorate. Surely, one local party - one constitution?
I think Tom is quite right about the borough (or "borough-plus-a-bit" - it's the same principle) vote. That's common, indeed quitre a good thing as Jeremy points out.
Does seem strange that Lewisham E did things differently, though. The only circumstances where I've seen that happen is when there are 2 seats and one of them has fewer than 30 members - which is clearly not the case here.
In any case, Alex is a first rate candidate & best of luck to him.
By my reckoning some of the key seats have selected as follows:
Top tier:
Hampstead & Kilburn (M)
Islington S (F)
On a good day:
Holborn & St Pancras (F)
Walthamstow (M - BME)
Streatham (M)
Vauxhall (F)
Lewisham E (M)
Lewisham W&P (M)
but I'm probably missing a few.
The reason for the difference in who could vote in Lewisham East and Lewisham West and Penge is down to the bizarre rulings of English Council apparently. Because of the constitutency boundary changes, Lewisham Borough Party changed to Lewisham and Beckenham North party on 1 January.
We were told that, for seats advertising for selection before the changes came into place, only those living in the consitutency could vote, but that after the changes came into place, all those in the newly constituted party were eligible to vote.
As you can imagine, this has caused a lot of disgruntlement in Lewisham and BN. Some members will have been able to vote for all 3 seats and some (like me) for only 2. For me, it was particularly galling because where I live has just been moved from East into Deptford so, even though I am a councillor for a ward in East, I got no vote for the East selection! Make sense of that....
I can sort of accept you not having a vote in East, and having a vote in Deptford where you live, if it was at all consistent.
To be fair many years ago I lived in Chislehurst, but was a member in Orpington. They had different constitutions. Chislehurst's said you had to be a member there, Orpington's that you had to live there. I got to vote in neither PPC selection!
Interestingly, the Returning Officer for both Lewisham East and Lewisham West & Penge was the same person, Ashley Lumsden, and I'm absolutely confident that he has applied the Rules to the letter, as one would wish.
To some extent, Jo was taking on the incumbent PPC, as Alex fought Lewisham West last time, and would have been better known across Lewisham as a whole.
It would seem that, in this case, timing is everything...
Mark, I would not criticise Ashley for one minute - he was as frustrated by the situation as I was when I spoke to him about it. He was an excellent returning officer. That is not the point - as you say, timing (due to some silly rules that nobody had thought through properly) was everything.
Just to be clear: I certainly wasn't saying that Justine's comments were "disgraceful" - and indeed I'm not at all sure that she was in fact arguing that women candidates should always be selected over better male ones....
I certainly agree that the English Party has taken some extremely odd decisions about memberships recently, which have had some very strange consequences. Worst of all, in my eyes, they did not even tell most of those affected about the fact that, for example, they had unilaterally moved them to a different local party. Full rant available at http://www.libdemvoice.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2868&highlight=#2868 if anyone's interested.
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