GLA selection results (UPDATED)
Written by Mark Pack on 1st June 2007 – 1:58 pmDuncan Borrowman has the top 11 selected for the London Assembly list elections next year:
1 Mike Tuffrey
2 Dee Doocey
3 Caroline Pidgeon
4 Jeremy Ambache
5 Geoff Pope
6 Ben Abbotts
7 Stephen Knight
8 Shas Sheehan
9 Duncan Borrowman
10 Monica Whyte
11 Merlene Emerson
Posted in News
31st May 2007 at 9:23 pm
Very disappointing lack of ethnic minority representation in the top ranks.
31st May 2007 at 10:06 pm
I’d like to echo that RMC.
31st May 2007 at 10:10 pm
Seeing these results is one of the first times I’ve actually felt ashamed to be a Lib Dem.
We didn’t even manage to put a BME candidate within the top 7 preferences, even though there was a fairly high proportion of BME candidates, most of whom were at least as good or better than some of those who’re in the top 7.
I guess I should know this as a Lib Dem (why the hell to people vote Labour or Tory!), but sometimes democracy sucks
31st May 2007 at 10:12 pm
The membership have spoken - and frankly I’m surprised at what they said. I was expecting the current incumbents to be wiped out on the basis of their generally uninspiring performance, to be honest.
I know it’s pointless saying “the result would have been different if…”, but I suspect the result would’ve been different if there’d been an official hustings. I was disappointed that there wasn’t such a thing (though not disappointed enough to get off my backside and organise such an unofficial hustings).
Particular congratulations to Caroline and Jeremy for coming in so near the top of the list, but generally an opportunity lost in my opinion.
31st May 2007 at 10:36 pm
I agree. I’m disappointed by what the membership said; as an activist, it’s pretty uninspiring.
31st May 2007 at 10:39 pm
Definitely agree; we’ve picked a white, middle class list (okay, Duncan, I’ll let you off being called middle class - you gave me so much grief last time I did).
I really thought we’d pick a list that resembled London this time. It’s a disappointment.
It’s a particular shame to see James Allie and Nasser Butt missing. After the little event we hosted in Hackney, I think it’s fair to say all the candidates impressed, but these two and Meral the most.
31st May 2007 at 10:49 pm
All that said, irrespective of whether the end result tallies with our personal preference, we must respect the fact that a democratic process took place, and this is the result - and as such, get behind it!
31st May 2007 at 11:00 pm
You’re right, of course, Rob. But for tonight I’ll let my disappointment linger a while longer - I’m particularly sad to see that Meral didn’t make the list.
31st May 2007 at 11:27 pm
I have to say that the list doesn’t surprise me that much, although a few of the positions within it do.
The arnchair members will always favour incumbents and the rest came down to the ability to organise a campaign. Caroline was always ahead of the game, and had been planning long before the campaign started, building a team of supporters and making early contact.
I’m pleased for Jeremy, as he has contributed much to campaigning across London through his work on the Regional Executive.
Otherwise, profile and the Golden Triangle’s block vote have proved to be key once again. If you had neither, you risked being frozen out. And so it came to pass…
My fear is that we’ll see something similar for the European selection. Ironically, I warned EMLD activists four years ago as to what would happen if they left their effort to the last moment. Guess what has happened so far…
31st May 2007 at 11:36 pm
I have to say that I’m not so terribly surprised, although I share the sense of lingering disappointment. The list reflects those candidates who I saw most of, either through my activities as a Regional Officer, or through their active campaigns.
Caroline was exceptionally well-organised, with a campaign team in place late last year and a plan of action which was, as far as I can tell, delivered professionally. The team was ready to swing into action as soon as the starting gun was fired, and it showed in the result.
I’m genuinely pleased for Jeremy, who did better than I might have predicted but has reaped the reward for some dedicated work as a member of the Regional Campaigns Committee.
What has been proved once again is that without a plan of action and the means to deliver upon it, any non-incumbent will struggle to make the top half of the list. That means building a campaign team (you cannot reach that many members without one), and knowing what message you want to convey – making it an original one doesn’t hurt either.
My fear is that the European selection will go the same way. Four years ago, I warned EMLD members that, if they wanted to have a serious shot at getting a high place on that list next time, they had to start building a regional profile immediately. I see no evidence that anyone has even started that process since. Being a good candidate is not enough, and hard work done early is key, just as it is in ‘real’ elections.
31st May 2007 at 11:51 pm
Disappointed Liberal: I did make the list at no. 9, but pulled out as I couldn’t see the point.
If you’re not from South London and white, you are wasting your time under the present system. We end up with a list once again that do not represent London- for that matter, London Regional Executive do not represent London, nor seem particularly interested in doing so. The most diverse city in Europe, if not the world, will decide which party deserve their support come next year.
31st May 2007 at 11:57 pm
Not at all surprised that the useless wankers who have done basically nothing for London (other than sit on their arses and collect their taxpayer’s dosh) get to the top again. The rules that people like Mark are so proud of make it virtually impossible to get rid of useless incumbents. In fact they make it almost impossible to get to stand in the first place.
Let’s be clear the people who run London region are by and large those from boroughs with no experience of winning elections. Those with experience of winning elections are far too busy running their councils or opposing illiberal Labour or Tory administrations to bother with the region.
It’s time not just to sweep out the appalling Dee Doocey’s of this world, but the infrastructure that allows such an incompetent and nasty character to bully her way to the top.
1st June 2007 at 12:08 am
Mark - I warned EMLD activists 4 years ago if they left their efforts to the last minute - Amazed you say this. As chair of EMLD, I emailed yourself and the chair of the candidates committee in January asking when you were planning to advertise selections, but guess what? heard nothing back. Seems all those on London Region, made the rules, set the timetable, and took full advantage of this without allowing the general membership any information until the advert appeared in Lib Dem News.
Its outrageous to suggest that its all EMLDs fault. Remind me how many BME members you have on London Region again?
No, I think they have got the list they wanted and frankly deserve.
1st June 2007 at 12:14 am
Not knowing anything about the candidates really, and not having been eligible to vote seeing as I’ve never been from anywhere near London, I find the opening comments slightly disturbing… it seems almost to be a kneejerk reaction that a lack of BME/female candidates is necessarily and intrinsically A Bad Thing.
If you want to say individuals are at/near the top of the list are bad candidates (I don’t know if they are or not I’m not saying they are or not), that’s one thing. But if the best candidates for the positions were old, white, middle class men, they should be the ones selected. Of course diversity is good, but if the old white man is a more capable and experienced candidate than the young black disabled woman, he should get the position - we shouldn’t look at the list and say “very disapointing lack of diversity”, because liberalism is colour blind and doesn’t care what’s between your legs. If the top candidates aren’t the best ones, that’s bad. But happening to be a white man isn’t a reason people should vote against you.
1st June 2007 at 12:16 am
I’m pleased that my standing down has allowed Merlene Toh Emerson, one of the founders of the Chinese Liberal Democrats to get on the list. She would have been an asset to the GLA if she’d got in the top 5. A rising star.
1st June 2007 at 12:47 am
I have a real problem being party staff but…
The whole result yet again shows the SW London bias (sorry Meral not South London). Of course we need should answer it by recruiting members elsewhere.
The system also virtually stops campaigning. The rules are a nightmare, written by bureaucrats for bureaucrats. Incumbents have a total upper hand (ignoring other issues in the contest). This is not a post result comment - I have raised it more than once during the process.
I was reluctant to stand this time. But this confirms my reluctance. Never again.
1st June 2007 at 12:57 am
Duncan, I did mean SW London. But with 1 person at the bottom of list from North London, I’m afraid I did’t want to get into semantics.
9 BME candidates this time, demonstrated that we have people coming forward, so that cannot be used as an excuse any longer.
1st June 2007 at 1:10 am
Wow. I’d need to look at the full breakdown to work it out exactly, but my vote must be one of the most worthless in the whole city!
Seriously, the South West bias does need to be dealt with - this is supposed to be a London-wide list. There should be some kind of degressive system that weights the votes from each local party, just as we have at conference.
This isn’t just bleating about unfairness, this is about ensuring our London-wide list looks like London. Funnily enough, the GLA elections themselves won’t have the same biases!
The worst thing about this is that the places where we have the most members are the places where we are most likely to win constituency seats. In effect, those parts of the city are getting double representation.
1st June 2007 at 1:22 am
Meral, I said it because it was true. When you’re trying to get selected by an electorate of 9,000, profile helps. It takes time to do that, and a network of contacts isn’t built overnight. Cast your mind back to the argument that I had with Nasser Butt after the European Selections last time. I may even have the e-mails somewhere…
I didn’t blame EMLD at all, merely noted that the warning had been given a long time ago. As a Returning Officer for two European selections in a Region far larger than London, I do understand what makes a candidate more likely to win (I just don’t have the urge to try it myself).
As for the timetable, it was only agreed in December. I sought authority to publish it but didn’t get it. Whilst I’m quite keen on transparency (remind me who it was who notified EMLD of the European seelction timetable as soon as it was a matter of public record…), I cannot and will not override the authority of a fellow Officer.
I agree that the Rules limit the ability of candidates to campaign. In some ways (the impossiblility of buying a selection) this is a good thing, but limits on activity do clearly favour incumbents. There are attempts being made to revise the European Selection rules to reflect this issue, although I cannot be confident that they will be successful.
If Dan were to pay attention for a moment, he would note that I acknowledge that the Rules were a nightmare, and I’ve already publicly accepted that. It is a personal commitment of mine to try and improve things for the next time, and I expect to be held to that. If I have my way, that process will involve proper and widespread consultation.
Apart from the limits on campaigning, it must be accepted that incumbents have a huge advantage in any all-member ballot. They have, if they’re even halfway competent, been using their platform to bring their activities to the attention of members, and armchair members tend to be more respectful of the hierarchy than activists do (many of whom would quite like to be the hierarachy some day…).
Finally, for those of you thinking of running next time… wait for laughs… a proposal will be going before the Regional Executive next week calling for the London Assembly selections to be held from July to November 2010, as part of a rolling Regional Plan.
1st June 2007 at 1:30 am
James, yes!!!
1st June 2007 at 8:20 am
If by “south west London” people mean the big membership local parties in Richmond, Sutton and Kingston, then two of the top three aren’t from South West at all.
I think the results much more closely reflect the quality and length of campaigns that I saw people ran rather than which bit of London they are from.
Caroline Pidgeon was clearly running for the GLA for a long time before even the email that Meral Ece mentions. She started early, campaigned well and got the result she deserved.
Jeremey Ambache doesn’t seem to be quite my cup of tea - but same story with him. Worked hard for a long time, and well done to him.
I wonder how many of those complaining now didn’t start their campaigns until some time this year? Well sorry, if that’s the case, you shouldn’t be looking to blame the system or others for your result.
1st June 2007 at 8:25 am
The whole selection system needs looking at for next time. There was not a selection ‘campaign’ except for endless e-mails and a few candidates turning out to fundraising events.
It amazed me that London Region had a conference in February (I think) but started the process in March. Why were the two not put together and used as a hustings event? Regional hustings should also have been held.
It seems a missed opportunity to me.
1st June 2007 at 9:02 am
Anyone got a link for the full STV result?
1st June 2007 at 9:09 am
A good list. It paves the way for co-operation with the BNP.
1st June 2007 at 9:27 am
Oh dear. Exactly what we had all feared is starting to happen. A large number of ethnic minority candidates came from nowhere, with no profile and having done almost no campaigning, and stood. Predictably they did very badly - either because they are very low calibre and should never be elected to anything, or in most cases simply because they have not done any campaigning and nobody has heard of them - and then they claim (or some do) that it is all racism.
As someone who really does want to see us maximising our opportunity for votes by having a list which reflects London’s diversity, this is so depressing. “White” candidates do not, contrary to claims, have it all simply fall into their laps - they have to work very hard for it over years. Ethnic Minority candidates cannot expect anything different - when will we get some EM candidates who realise this and are prepared to go out and actually do the hard work?
If someone can show me an ethnic minority candidate who had a campaign team in place a year ago and has spent that time going round London being seen, campaigning in council byelections, raising their profile and generally making lots of party members think they would be a good GLA member - the sort of commitment shown by Jonathan Fryer, for example, who has been doing this for the last four years - and then who didn’t end up in the top few places, then I will accept the claims of racism. Until then, stop whinging. Caroline Pidgeon, for example, did all that and that, rather than the fact she is white, is why she did so well.
1st June 2007 at 9:42 am
I’d like to second the comments of JohnS above. The snide moaning about the lack of a BME candidate is undemocratic and unseemly. By all accounts this was a fair and open election (albeit with some procedural flaws) and this kind of compliant implies that simply being white British should place you at a disadvantage. It also carries the distasteful proto-racist connotation that only those of the same ethnicity can represent you.
London is the most ethnically diverse city in London but so what? That is not an argument for fiddling the system. I don’t care if my representative on the GLA or in Parliament shares my gender, my age, my religion or my race. I only care that they have a genuine interest in representing me and my area and that requires intelligence and competence not a unique skin colour. For those that do care I refer you to the 2001 census where it found that 71% of Londoners identified themselves as white, 12% asian, 11% black, 3% mixed and 1% Chinese. So based on these numbers and accepting the dodgy premise of ethnic representation there should still be a majority of white candidates. Of the white population there are more non-British white than there are black. Do they deserve there own representation? These numbers are of course 6 years old but if anything I would imagine the non-British white share to have grown considerably with the influx from Eastern Europe so where can I ask is the Polish candidate? But why stop just at ethnicity? Where is the representation of Londons 600,000 Muslims or it’s 100,000 Sikhs and 1 million atheists? I think I’m ranting now so I’ll stop this post and just repeat what I think was my point…
I don’t care if my representative on the GLA or in Parliament shares my gender, my age, my class, my religion or my race. Any party that fiddles the system to ensure better ‘representation’ on any grounds except ability loses my vote and my respect.
1st June 2007 at 10:23 am
In all the talk about BME representation (and Shas and Merlene both have good positions to build on in the future), it’s worth noting that both the top five and the list as a whole are pretty much gender balanced.
1st June 2007 at 10:28 am
David,
The February conference is an evening event. A hustings for twenty-two candidates would take hours if it were to be anything other than a series of very short speeches.
The European hustings are broadly similar and we allow for five minute speeches and five minutes of questions. Without any breaks, and assuming that it ran like clockwork (and we’re Liberal Democrats so the chances of people not overrunning are huge), you’re talking about nearly five hours.
I’m not convinced that setpiece hustings for Regional lists are a great idea. Who can remember what candidate 1 said after candidate 22 has finished? Who could stand the idea of twenty-two speeches on broadly the same topic?
Instead, we should organise more local meetings where ordinary members can mingle with the candidates and find out more about them than you can in a hustings.
1st June 2007 at 10:46 am
Meral,
Your allegations about the Regional Executive really do rankle. So, let’s see. There are no visible BME members of the Regional Executive. I guess that I’m the only non-European BME member.
How many BME members ran for a place on the Regional Executive? Two, Farhana Hoque and Balan Sisupalan. Neither of them is that well-known outside of LDYS circles, in the case of Farhana, or Haringey, in the case of Balan. Farhana, at least, is one of our English Council delegates and I hope that she (and Balan)will consider running again this year for the Executive.
As EMLD Chair, you could do something about that. EMLD could organise some of its members to run, which might be more positive than making implied suggestions that we’re a bunch of racists. We aren’t. Remember the policy motion that we sponsored last year? We meant it.
Cheap shots like this do little to convince me that the members were foolish in their decision making, and I reckon that you’re a much better political operator than the impression given by your comments above.
1st June 2007 at 10:54 am
The issue isn’t BME representation, the issue is the South, and South West in particular, bias. I don’t believe there is a case to be made that there was significant racist voting, but nor is the assertion that all the BME candidates were of low calibre.
I remember Lynne Featherstone warning this would happen. She had to campaign hard to get on the list, and she had a significant personal wealth to fall back on. Shas Sheehan isn’t just the best placed BME candidate at a disappointing 8th, she also the highest placed North Londoner. When the only new blood who has a chance of winning (Jeremy Ambache) stood on an explicit SW London platform, one has to wonder why anyone North of the Thames should bother voting Lib Dem.
1st June 2007 at 10:54 am
Whoah, let’s be a bit more positive guys. BME representation higher up the list would have been great, of course, but we’ve got some really talented people in electable positions here. Contrary to what some people have said about people not being able to campaign, I think Caroline’s success in particular (and Jeremy’s too I think) shows that good campaigning, not necessarily in terms of expensive direct mail shots, but in terms of getting about over a period of years, developing a reputation and building up a strong campaign team really pays off. Likewise Stephen Knight’s in terms of getting selected for the south west London seat.
My commiserations to those who didn’t get a high place, or any place, on the list, but some advice too - go for one of the constituencies and use that, even if you don’t win, to get a great result, impress people and put yourself in a stronger position for four years time. That’s what a number of those successful this time did.
1st June 2007 at 11:19 am
Mark “A hustings for twenty-two candidates would take hours if it were to be anything other than a series of very short speeches.”
I was waiting for that one. And there lies one of the flaws in the process. There was no attempt to shortlist, partly because the whole application process was totally truncated (and some would argue flawed). As I have argued elsewhere we could virtually have only presented the membership with 11 people (maybe a couple more to allow some reserves). As only about 5 will be elected,the real contest is who gets in those 5. Essentially the task for the membership is to order the list.
1st June 2007 at 11:20 am
This looks pretty bad guys. Sorry but it does. If this is what your current system churns out you need to look at that system and change it accordingly.
Other parties have problems too but the geographical bias and lack of BME candidates in winnable positions (which the LP NW Euro list had too - by protecting incumbents, whereas the LD list delivered Saj - but an isolated success that), well it deserves to back fire come the elections.
1st June 2007 at 12:00 pm
If the reports here are true of massive SW London bias remaining in membership, I wonder what the likes of Islington have been doing these last few years.
It’s clear that part of the problem lies in the middle-class armchairs of South-West London; but part lies in the promotion and development of strong BME candidates too. The ‘how to get yourself selected’ techniques aren’t exactly new, and there are many ways to do them. Why isn’t the Party as a whole putting dedicated resource into offering these to BME candidates? What has happened to all the promises at Brighton about diversity? (Sorry, I can guess the answer to that one….)
I don’t live in London but close enough to know most of the candidates. Most of the BME candidates had no profile whatsoever in the Party as far as I can tell.
But that said, Dan has a point. Incumbency does tend to reward itself, however uninspiring the incumbents may be. That creates an unlevel playing field, which in itself is not Liberal, and needs to be addressed. The selection rules were clearly a total joke; but all those unhappy with them should now get on London Region and ensure they’re changed, prompto.
1st June 2007 at 12:03 pm
Duncan,
I wasn’t arguing that a hustings should not have taken place, merely that it wasn’t appropriate for the Regional Conference.
Shortlisting didn’t take place as the number of candidates applying was in line with the number of recommended candidates for the shortlist “the Selection Committee will ideally aim for a shortlist of twenty-two candidates”.
Had we produced a shortlist of, say, eleven, I suspect there would have been uproar over the decisions of the decision of the selection committee, and I also suspect that the number of BME candidates would have been significantly lower than it was, given the variations in experience of the candidates.
Finally, the question of South West London bias. The Party membership doesn’t reflect London as a whole, but I’m not yet convinced that the membership of Twickenham and Richmond distorts the results to the extent implied.
I would be interested in turnout figures from different parts of the city though, and that data could be very useful if it could be obtained.
1st June 2007 at 12:19 pm
It is not only the membership level in SW London. It is also the issue that at every GLA selection the SW London local selection has happened just before the list selection, allowing awareness of the process to be massively increased in that part of London.
1st June 2007 at 12:34 pm
Where is Steve Hitchins and his thousands to support BME candidates?
1st June 2007 at 12:54 pm
Dear oh dear oh dear. Labour and the Tories will be rubbing their hands in glee. At a time when London’s BME population is almost 40% and will probably be in the majority within a decade, the Lib Dems select an all white London slate for the London Assembly. LOL!
1st June 2007 at 12:56 pm
I am aswell disappointed with the result. However, every Lib Dem member in Lodon and volunteers, should all help to captilse on the current Labour losses, thus hopefully having a chance of getting Merlene Emerson elected.
We can not split now otherwise there will not be an effective campagin especailly with the Conservatives and over “grammargate” it proves they are diveded still a bunch of MPs and party memebrs. We should all put this behind us and start campainging, after all it is lest than a year to go.
1st June 2007 at 1:45 pm
Operation Black Vote have forwarded me a press release they’ve put out. Why a ‘non-party political campaign’ would give Livingstone a chance to indulge in some party political bashing defeats me:
London Lib Dems face Black backlash
Operation Black Vote joined the chorus of discontent about the Liberal Democrat selection for next years GLA elections.
Accusations of ‘Shameful’, useless, and ‘racist’ and others that are unprintable were some of the many responses coming from BME Lib Dem party members after the announcement of the Lib Dem top up list for the GLA elections.
Not one BME candidate made it in the top eight of the Lib Dem London Assembly top up list. To date the Lib Dems like the Tory’s have never had a BME GLA elected member. Due to its complicated selection structure, the top up list is the only mechanism that the party has to ensure greater political representation from BME communities. And on this showing-only the top 2 or 3 stand a chance of being elected; the party has failed miserably.
Simon Woolley, Director of Operation Black Vote said: “Ming Campbell, Simon Hughes and the wider party leadership have spectacularly failed their Black members and Black Londoners. In London where 1 in 3 are from a BME community the Lib Dems have behaved like an oligarchy hell bent on maintaining an unrepresentative status quo. The consequences for the party as a whole could mean a meltdown of BME support.”
Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said: “The LibDems failure to select any black, Asian or other ethnic minority candidates in winnable positions on the Assembly list is simply not sustainable. The LibDems say they’re formally against racism and in favour of the diversity of London but that it doesn’t actually apply to their candidates for the London Assembly. London is the most diverse city in Europe - it deserves an Assembly that reflects that fact, which means not just selecting black and Asian people as token candidates but selecting them in winnable seats. Unless the LibDems step in to correct the selection of their list candidates they will be totally out of step with London.”
Karen Chouhan, Director of the 1990 said: “It is unacceptable that the most diverse city in the world, where 40 per cent of the population is non white, the Lib Dems have failed to select a single BME candidate for the London Assembly. Warms words from the Lib Dem leadership cannot substitute for real action on this important matter. The majority of Londoners will feel deeply offended that a mainstream party has produced an all white candidates list for the forthcoming London elections. The Lib Dems will therefore be joining the BNP in offering an all white team of potential candidates to London’s electorate.”
Ashok Viswanathan Assistant Director of OBV said: “The Labour Party has 13 Black MPs and the Tories 2 Black MPs. Furthermore, both parties have shown leadership and been bold in policy - Labour announcing black-only shortlists and Cameron’s Tories introducing the A list. The Lib Dems have failed Black communities at this critical time. Black communities are fed up waiting for politics to catch up with the 21st century and deliver racial equality.”
Ends
Notes to editor
• Operation Black Vote is a non-party political campaign.
• The term ‘Black’ is a political term. It refers to African, Asian, Caribbean and other ethnic minorities.
1st June 2007 at 1:54 pm
I’m see that our opponents continue to mistake rhetoric for accuracy… it isn’t an all-white list. Besides, short of rigging the result, how much more are we supposed to do?
On the other hand, as a member of an oligarchy hell bent on maintaining an unrepresentative status quo…
1st June 2007 at 1:57 pm
Yellow Dawn: I think your remarks are very offensive. As one of the ethnic minority candidates I take exception to your telling me and others that we were either of ‘low calibre’ or did nothing and had no profile, so deserved to lose. So all the white candidates were high calibre, hardworking and ran fabulous campaigns?
As a senior councillor, former PPC, GLA candidate, FE member, & chair of EMLD, I would certainly never expect anything to ‘fall in my lap’
I have heard this disgraceful tired argument too many times!
We will once again have a GLA exclusively from South London and all white.
They will not be representative of London, and therefore attract fewer votes.
Merlene and Shas, both from Richmond too, have no hope of getting elected.
At least I won’t have to worry about being wheeled out on the Politics Show, as I was in the last campaign, to explain why we had no BME candidates in winnable positions.
I know for a fact that the other parties are ensuring their candidates are far more diverse.
1st June 2007 at 2:13 pm
Have saved these comments. james Graham’;s, in particular, will be featuring in a Labour leaflet near you sometime soon.
1st June 2007 at 2:14 pm
OBV has obviously been bought into the whole Livingstone/Jasper ‘diversity’ agenda. It’s a disgrace and I hope they never come crawling to us for anything in future.
The ‘where’s Hitchins?’ question is entirely fair comment.
1st June 2007 at 2:32 pm
As a white male from South London who chose not to stand this time I’m really pleased to see Caroline selected so high up the list.
What we should be doing is getting on with campaigning on issues that matter to all Londoners rather than pandering to tokenism.
I’m no great fan of selection contests rules and returning officers having fallen victim to them once or twice - but to play the race card is a cheap trick.
In my experience Lib Dem members tend to positively discriminate rather a lot in favour of women and ethnic minorities - I know I do. I suspect some of these candidates who are moaning might have done a lot worse if we hadn’t.
1st June 2007 at 2:32 pm
Mark: I am not criticising you personally, but London Region collectively.
Have you ever discussed how you are going to increase diversity in the London Region? Have you taken a lead on this?
When was the last time this issue was even debated or discussed?
As a member of London Region in 1999, I wrote a paper on ‘Engaging with BME communities’ Has this ever been rolled out, discussed or updated? No, thought not. Yes I got information on the Euro selections months ago both from you and from Jonathan Davies. Despite my best efforts, the timetable for the GLA selections remained a closely guarded secret, presumably for the benefit of the candidates from London Region - Jeremy Ambache, Caroline Pidgeon, and her ‘agent’ Dominic Mathon,et al.
I can’t force BME people to stand for London Region. Bit like asking a woman to join an all men’s club.
The Operation Black Vote PR, is a taste of what will be thrown at us in the coming year. Lets hope the ‘Top 5′ can come up with the answers.
1st June 2007 at 2:51 pm
Well we could field more BME candidates at consitunency level? In places like the inner city boroughs, couldn’t we?
1st June 2007 at 3:11 pm
Two of the top three candidates are women and two of the top three candidates are from areas where we are primarily fighting Labour.
Great news on both fronts.
1st June 2007 at 3:11 pm
The OBV press release has now been updated with the following quote from former LibDem Deputy President and Chair of Ethnic Minority LibDems. Doesn’t this counter the view that this is party politics, OBV can also get a quote from the Tories if you wish:
1st June 2007 at 3:18 pm
Since when does Shas count as North London? (lives Putney, councillor for Kew…). And what is this cobblers about SW London ‘bias’ – are you suggesting our votes count for more? We were probably marginally less likely to vote for Dee than otherwise, on account of knowing her so well. And if some of us voted for Jeremy (not me, I voted for Shas) it’s because we’re all absolutely terrified of him after his iron grip on Susan Kramer’s election campaign.
I’ve been worried about this for ages. I voiced my concern to our party chair about the damaging message sent by Nasser and Norsheen’s poor results in the SW constituency ballot – only to be firmly told they made a poor showing at the hustings.
I don’t know what we do – any suggestion of affirmative action brings screams of illiberal and tokenism (see John S above: liberalism is colour blind and doesn’t care what’s between your legs.) Can’t we move on from there and admit that the playing field needs levelling?
That said, I’m afraid there’s a lot of truth in what many posters are saying: there’s no substitute for simply starting early and working your backside off. The only reason I know half the names on the GLA ballot is because I used to work in the candidates’ office, not because we’ve ever seen them in SW London. Jonathan Fryer now, he comes to everything!
1st June 2007 at 3:20 pm
‘Well we could field more BME candidates at consitunency level? In places like the inner city boroughs, couldn’t we?’
Thus failing to address the point entirely, which is that the winnable seats on the list have exclusively white candidates.
1st June 2007 at 3:45 pm
Lovely: suits me. I’ve said far worse in public before.
Serena: apologies for putting Shas in North London; it does rather suggest that this list is even more South West-centric than I had originally thought though.
The point is not that your votes count for ‘more’ but that the membership is concentrated in the South West. The party has long recognised the perils of making the party too dominated by the areas where we have the most members; that’s why we have a degressive system for apportioning conference reps. All I’m arguing is that the same system which everyone accepts for conference should apply to candidate selection for regional lists.
The alternative is to wave a white flag in areas where we have very few members and say “we’re not interested in representing you.”
1st June 2007 at 3:48 pm
Perhaps one way round this problem would be for the next GLA group, whoever they may be, to allocate a ‘region’ of London for each member to be responsible for? That would perhaps go some way to ensuring that those members that do get elected are of benefit to the whole city, not just Richmond.
1st June 2007 at 3:53 pm
Meral,
I wrote and moved the diversity motion that came before the London Region Conference in Southwark in 2005 (and was attacked by Nasser for doing so), which was then debated in Harrogate in 2006. This led, in turn, to the leadership efforts to find a way to support BME and women candidates (I take no personal credit).
The precise timetable would have had little effect on the result, as I firmly believe, and have stated above, that building a presence and profile over years is the way to break through. In most successful selection campaigns for winnable seats, the candidate has worked the constituency for months, more often years, before winning the contest.
How many of the applicants could say that they were doing that? Not many, I’ll wager. As a result, armchair members will pick the safe option of picking people whose manifestos demonstrate years of holding positions in the Party or in local government and who have personally contacted them, either by telephone or in person.
It really isn’t rocket science. What it requires, unfortunately, is a single-minded commitment that not everyone can match, or is willing to.
You were the one who raised the Regional Executive of being all white. You are in a leadership role. If you use the influence that supposedly comes with it, then fine. But don’t blame a committee whose makeup is a reflection of those willing to stand, rather than some bias in the system.
We do agree about Operation Black Vote, however. Whilst I regret that they chose to attack us without any approach to find out what underlies the result, a worrying response from a self-proclaimed non-partisan voice, the list clearly isn’t representative of London’s diverse population.
Unfortunately, the problem is much more complex than it might appear to outsiders, who only see the result and not the process and philosophy which underpins it, let alone the internal dynamics.
1st June 2007 at 3:54 pm
What are the Rowntree people doing to influence how Hitchens spends their money?
Rowntree need to give something to OBV.
1st June 2007 at 4:30 pm
As a non-Londoner I can hardly claim any great knowledge of the details of the GLA selection, but as an outsider, there do seem to be a couple of obvious points here.
Inevitably, any democratic system is going to favour candidates from the areas where there are most voters. If certain of the stronger south / south-west London constituencies have got bigger memberships, it’s hardly surprising candidates from those areas are doing better. I suppose the obvious response is that there’s nothing stopping other constituencies going out and increasing their membership too.
In a postal ballot of all members, most people are going to vote for 1) people they know personally, and 2) people they have at least heard of on a fairly regular basis. As most members are not active outside their own local area, what this is likely to mean in practice is that a large proportion of voters are going to give their top preference(s) to people from their own constituency / borough, and those that don’t are likely to vote for candidates with “name recognition” factor, which probably means the incumbents and / or the “Party establishment” candidates.
The (sad?) fact is that no amount of tinkering with the rules is going to alter these basic facts. If you have a democratic selection process, with the membership profile that the Party (apparently) currently has in London, this is the sort of result you are going to get.
1st June 2007 at 4:57 pm
52 - James - the other alternative is for all the people who are moaning to organise better selection campaigns for the people they want to see selected.
1st June 2007 at 4:58 pm
One tactical error I made was to stop phone calls to members. I knocked on a lot of doors, and people were clearly fed up with the calls. I stopped for two reasons:
1. To be nice to members.
2. Because I thought it may be backfiring on those making them.
I note that some of those who have done well (better than would otherwise be expected?) were ones who made lots of calls.
I informed members by email I was stopping calls, and it was a very positive message on the doorstep, but of course there are a limited number of doorsteps you can get round…
1st June 2007 at 5:00 pm
1) If people are complaining about a bias toward the South West - instead of complaining - go out and recruit more members? I also know that a number of 1st preferences were split because a number of candidates were from the South West.
2) The fact that the South West Seat selection began earlier gave certain individuals a head start. There should have been no overlap or total overlap of seat selections with the list.
3) The list and SW Seat selection should never have taken place at the same time as local elections. The people who organised that should be taken out back and shot.
4) London activists were probably aware of the GLA selection - the general membership were not. No warning was given to the deluge of e-mails and phone calls that members recieved. At a time when the party is asking for more and more e-mail addresses to campaign with I’m sure we’ve lost a few hundred becuase of it.
6) Well done to those candidates who have been preparing to do this for a while (Caroline). A note to future candidates - there are by-elections in Havering, Haverstock and Hanworth Park. Who has been yet? Candidates who work hard all year, every year will win.
7) We shouldn’t be a party of positive discrimination. We should get the best candidates for the job. Poor candidates/elected reps do not do the party any good whatever colour/gender/sexuality/religion they are.
We need to increase training and mentoring as a party - but a note to future BME candidates - get training and mentoring from those who know how to win, not those who complain about discrimination all of the time.
There are plenty of people who can help or are willing to help potemtial candidates.
1st June 2007 at 5:02 pm
Looking at the detailed results it doesn’t look like there was a massive ‘SW London’ factor. The transfers split all over the place - there is certainly no clear SW London block vote.
1st June 2007 at 5:08 pm
Neil,
I don’t give two hoots about ‘fairness’. I care about the party looking like it isn’t interested in representing a significant portion of the London population.
If you think that having a degressive federal system is so unreasonable, why don’t you campaign to remove it from the party’s constitution?
1st June 2007 at 5:28 pm
James,
Calm, mon ami. Neil didn’t suggest that a degressive federal system is unreasonable, he offered a salient alternative, one which I fully support. That isn’t to say that it is the only element of a solution…
1st June 2007 at 5:57 pm
Eleanor says get training and mentoring from those who know how to win. I know how to get selected and win from nowhere, unknown and from North London - and it’s about blood, sweat and tears. The rules in the first ever selection were crafted to ensure that financial personal circumstances made no difference. I started two years out from the selection and built a team of 60 helpers to hand deliver (no posting allowed) my one permissable leaflet to the door of the 40% of London members I was targetting. Only the candidate was allowed to phone members - so I did - endlessly.
The silver lining is the quality and number of our BME candidates who came forward this time - and no doubt they will do well if they do more work next time.
But I feel that when the principles of liberalism in our party clash with our principles of equality - liberalism always wins.
WHen we lost the vote for (I can’t remember exactly now) zipping or clusters of women for Parliamentary seats at Eastbourne Conference some years back, I was so upset that afterwards in the hotel bar I was saying that I wanted to resign - that I couldn’t stay in a party that looked and was so unrepresentative.
Shirley Williams happened to be nearby and she said to me:”Miss Featherstone, it would be a great pity if you were to resign. Please think it over” Well - I did and am still here.
But I feel unhappy again today - not that the result wasn’t democratic but that we as a party dont have the guts to recognise that our commitment to liberalism is delivering an absence of equality - because there is not a level playing field to start with. History makes us white - only a jump start equaliser will change that in any sort of reasonable time frame
1st June 2007 at 6:15 pm
This problem is not confined to this selection though is it?
We have a Lib Dem councillor signing a BNP man’s nomination form, we have a candidate who became a councillor saying she wouldn’t mind if they won a few seats so she could debate them, we had a Lord Mayor cracking jokes about “coon jokes”, we have contrary mirroring leaflets for and against a mosque in Oldham East and S’worth, we had Chris Davies’ extraordinary outburst, we had an Asian Muslim Woman PPC who topped the swings in 2001 (and had also been candidate in 1997) being pushed aside to let John Leech in to what he proved was a winnable seat - much assisted by members of the same minorities as the sidelined candidate.
This is a huge problem striking at the core of Lib Dem “politics”. The party has a pitiful record on equality. Pitiful.
I don’t know which if any other minorities any of the top 6 or 7 candidates would put themselves in as I don’t know the LD scene in London. But are any of them gay? Disabled? Single parents? Particularly young? Particularly old? Middle class? Working Class? Idle rich? Left or right wingers in LD terms?
Can someone please provide some thumb nail sketches so we see just how closely these candidates “represent” London?
I think OBV was absolutely right to slam this selection. I hope they do it to the other parties and that the Fawcett Society or similar speak up too.
This seems bad enough to me to rip it up and start again.
1st June 2007 at 6:26 pm
One critic on the racial balance issue above writes:
“So all the white candidates were high calibre, hardworking and ran fabulous campaigns?”
Well, of the top five, basically yes (probably a slight exception in Geoff Pope, but he had the great advantage of incumbency - and I think I’d probably say that most of them ran ‘good strong’ campaigns, rather than ‘fabulous’ ones!)
OBV’s press release has helped me to understand that they are a fully paid-up section of the Labour party - I had previously assumed that they were genuinely cross-party, wrongly it now turns out. I mean which other organisation that claims to be cross-party would put out a press release containing just one quote from one person in one party which directly attacks both other parties? And the fact that they can wheel out Fiyaz Mughal - a man who will do anything in the media but wouldn’t know a hard day’s campaigning if it came and slapped him in the face - to support them certainly doesn’t change that.
But they had one line which had quite an insight.
“Not one BME candidate made it in the top eight of the Lib Dem London Assembly top up list.”
I actually do think that the party needs to think about changing its systems to facilitate more BME candidates. But can we just consider for a moment the possibility that if BME candidates didn’t do too well that they might actually bear some responsibility for that? Just a little bit? It might not (only) be the system - it might at least partly be the candidates as well?
As many have said above, there is a perfectly clear formula for what you have to do well in these selections - Hard Work.
Like I said before, you show me a BME Pidgeon or Fryer who hasn’t done well and I’ll accept your case that there is racism going on. Until then it’s just people whose capability and commitment and dedication to hard work aren’t in line with their own self-image of their own worth, whinging.
1st June 2007 at 6:46 pm
I am so fed up of hearing the same refrain from unsuccessful BME candidates. I am an ethnic minority woman myself and am 100% against positive discrimination. If the candidates are strong enough and run an excellent campaign (along the lines that Caroline Pidgeon did), they will get there. I’m sorry to say that most of those who kick up a fuss are just not very good. I was at the SW London hustings and was embarrassed by the two BME candidates’ performances, especially the one and only woman. I felt compelled to vote for a white middle class man - Stephen Knight - because he was the best of the bunch by a mile.
As Eleanor Hodges says, we need good mentoring and training for BME candidates, along the lines that GBTF gives. All BME shortlists and any other form of positive discrimination is insulting.
Given that Shas had no London profile and started her campaign really late, she did brilliantly to come 8th. She’s a BME candidate, she’s excellent and she doesn’t spend her time calling people racist when she doesn’t get what she wants. I’m sure she’ll be successful as a PPC or future GLA candidate.
And for the North London and SE London whingers - get off your backside and recruit some members. Oh, and Caroline is not from SW London and managed to come 3rd on the list.
1st June 2007 at 6:52 pm
I just spent long time reading all the comments above. I was referred to this discussion by Lester Holloway of Blink http://www.blink.org.uk (previously The Voice) this afternoon, who wanted a comment for his news report on the GLA results and in particular the press releases from OBV and Ken Livingston. I have copied my statement below for your information. Blink has not used it as yet.
I have just one or two responses to members who have mentioned me above.
Mark- I never attack you personally (you are a lovely harmless bloke but always take things too personally), but I did attack your ideas which I found characteristically bureaucratic and pedantic and lacking any realism or modesty.
The argument I had was not with you (Mark) but with a Returning Officer (Mark) for SE Euro election, who failed to oversee the selection rules which asked the selection panel to give due regard to ethnic candidates and your team for South East specifically excluded the only two ethnic candidates from the short list, who had put themselves forward for that Euro selection. Recently the English Candidates Committee took out this clause that required Selection Panels to give due regards to the ethnicity of the candidate and now there is no requirement for the selection panel to give this consideration even in areas of high BME populations.
Serena- You have quite rightly picked up results from South West as appalling indictment of South West White Middle Class let me give out the results. Steven Knight approx 400, Jeremy A Approx 300 Nasser and Norsheen Approx 30+ each. I had a different feed back from the Hustings, I was told Steve and I out performed the other two candidates partly because the other Two candidates read out their speech etc. In any case there were only 40 or so very old retired members in the Hustings! I also campaigned very hard to the point that some other candidate accused me of employing telephone staff, perhaps they thought a BME candidate was incapable of building a team of helpers in this Party!
Yellow Down – and anyone else who thinks that BME candidates do not do the work and have not been campaign or just turn up, I advise you to re-read Merel’s response and see my 15 years work for the Party on http://www.nasserbutt.com. If that’s not enough I can give you a long list of BME candidates with similar record of delivery for the Party and none of them have so far been in any winnable position thanks to our members.
The membership in this Party and particularly those who converted from Tories to Lib Dem will need more time to become Liberal!
May Statement to Blink
To answer the question: Has Sir Ming Campbell’s statements and efforts to get an BME MP for Liberal Democrats made any difference to getting a BME candidate likely to win any seats in the next Parliament? Nasser Butt who unsuccessfully contested GLA selection and a number of Parliamentary target seats over the last 12 months stated:
“Sir Ming’s Statements have changed nothing. There has been no effort from Ming’s appointed team to educate the membership or the party hierarchy, or the Candidates selection teams to do anything to help select a BME candidate. There has been no training provisions put in place like the Party had for the Women candidates, there has been no funding allocated to any effort to get a BME candidate selected to a winnable seat and as a result no BME candidate is in any more position to be in a winnable seat than they were in last General Election.
There are some very good BME candidates around but they are pioneers up against the British political culture that is pitched against them. The selection is controlled by white indigenous membership in all the three political parties and not enough of the Party membership are as yet prepared to give BME candidates enough first preferences and coming second in selection will not deliver a winnable seat to a BME candidate.
The BME candidates have always had to fend for themselves in a supposedly open competition, but it’s not open of course, as there is always hidden intentional or unintentional prejudice in all people that critically shows up particularly in politics. This prejudice will only be eradicated through education and the three main political parties do need to educate the general and in particular the active membership.”
1st June 2007 at 6:58 pm
[Quote]A good list. It paves the way for co-operation with the BNP. [/quote]
If that is the case then I am appalled and disguested with the Liberal Democrats. I thought that this party was about divesity but i was wrong. Yet another example of this party going backwards and is no suprise. If this is the way the party is going to go then I hope that it gets a damn good kicking at next year’s GLA Elections.
From a former party member
Paul Alan Seery
1st June 2007 at 7:33 pm
I hate to spoil everybodies fun but Dee Doocey is in fact Irish.
I don’t know what she’s ever done to you Dan but that sort of language is totally uncalled for.
If the campaign was hard on the canditdates spare a thought for the electors, scores of Emails, dozens of telephone calls (5 from one candidate alone). A prospectus with only one page for each candidate. All for a job that pitifully few members understand, and even less Londoners care about.
1st June 2007 at 7:53 pm
Angel. If “SE London whingers” is aimed at me, then here is my reply. I am not whingeing, I want to ensure that whatever poor sods go in for this next time get a level playing field. To aid this we need.
1. To stop SW London having their local selection EVERY time just before the list.
2. To clamp down abuse of the facility to contact members by incumbents.
3. To actually have the selection rules enforced by the Returning Officer.
Yes I agree with everybody that says it is about hard work. As those who follow these things know I said I would not be standing for the GLA at all this time, then changed my mind about the list. I gave my reasons. So yes, if I had started earlier I would probably have done better - I only have myself to blame. Although I do believe one out of the top six did no campaigning at all (or negligible) to get selected.
1st June 2007 at 7:57 pm
Duncan, Eleanor and others,
Actually, the original intention was to run all of the constituencies at the same time as the list. It didn’t work for reasons that will be come apparent. The fact that Local Parties failed to appoint selection committees and that there wasn’t a rush of applicants to contest ‘non-optimal’ seats probably contributed to this…
Optimism is a terrible burden sometimes.
1st June 2007 at 8:03 pm
I was told that the original intention was to run SW London and Lambeth & Southwark before the list
1st June 2007 at 8:23 pm
To ‘Yellow Dawn’ - when you have the guts and decency to let us know who you really are, then we can have a sensible debate. I can more than answer any of your questions about ‘profile’, and work and commitment for the Party.
In the meantime can I ask you to refrain from being so offensive to people.
Why don’t you come right out and tell it like it is - you find the whole issue of BME representation a nuisance and rather a distraction. You’re a disgrace!
1st June 2007 at 8:50 pm
I genuinely think we are being too suspicious of each other here.
I don’t think that BME candidates get the support they yet need, but equally feel strongly that the field has to be level and nothing else. I don’t think that anyone who is involved enough in this party to write on here is capable of racism. Maybe I’m naive, I don’t know.
There are issues with armchair memberships tending to be perhaps a little less liberal than us, but don’t think that this is enough of a factor that a BME candidate who ran a good selection campaign would run up against this as such.
We must continue to avoid tokenism, which is a far worse charge in my opinion than being, white, middle class and boring.
I have faith that this party will make a breakthrough with BME candidates one day soon.Fingers crossed and I hope some of the people writing here remember that we are all Liberal Democrats.
1st June 2007 at 8:53 pm
To 68 (Paul Seery) Paul, that comment you’ve replied to was a piece of external provocation. You’ve been a member of the Lib Dems, are clearly disgruntled for some reason, but even so - when you were a member did it strike you as being a party that had much in common with the BNP? Only the most comically distorted view of our party could lead to any conclusion of that nature.
1st June 2007 at 9:10 pm
In a perfect world, “positive discrimination” would be seen as undesirable and illiberal. This isn’t a perfect world. Whilst BME representation shouldn’t be an issue for us in 2007, it is. We have to face the reality that we are not reflecting London, either in our membership, or in our choice of GLA candidates. We aren’t going to deal with the membership issue until we address the GLA and PPC issue.
Nuisance or distraction, it is important. If we have to break this down into something that Yellow Dawn can understand, we are pissing off a significant proportion of the electorate and leaving ourselves open to ridicule as we can see above.
For those who have got past the first of Kohlberg’s stages of morality, we have a serious issue here. Simple voting isn’t getting us past the fact that we are looking at something that amounts to institutionalised racism. We need to formulate a way forward for next time, in my view preferably with zipping or the like for both BME and women candidates. Do we take this to the next London region conference or does it need to go to Brighton? I do worry though that these things are always looked at by national conference with a Westcountry/Scottish Highlands pair of pink sunglasses.
1st June 2007 at 9:30 pm
Mark, yes the one and only motion about increasing diversity came from London Region, and I supported it and spoke in favour of it at conference last year. We won the vote. It was great, and we all felt we had at last turned a corner. I give you credit for that.
This whole debate isn’t about simply BME representation. We are actually throwing up our hands and admitting defeat that we can ever have a Party that looks like the population that we seek to represent. If that is the case, why on earth would we expect that around 40% of Londoners would vote for us?
I have spent 10 years campaigning in London, mainly with the large Turkish/ Kurdish and Cypriot (all Muslim)communities in inner London (Hackney, Islington, Haringey, Southwark, Lewisham, Waltham Forest) many of whom switched to us for the first time. For me it was an achievement that 100s of people contacted me to say that they had voted for the first time! I have spent 10 years going round to every event in these communities, simply because for them, I am the politician with the highest profile from their own community, and I’m a Lib Dem. It means a lot to them that they have someone from their community in mainstream politics in this country. So for the ‘yellow pawns’ of this world, tell me where you have made an impact, and engaged with communities that have rarely engaged in political and public life in the UK? This is the value added that BME candidates can bring to any political party, and believe me the Labour Party, and in recent years the Tories, are doing precisely this. Not becaue they actually believe that BME communities need to be part of mainsteam public life in the UK, but because they know they cannot win elections without their support.
Lynne Featherstone, a successful and seasoned politician spoke great sense, because she knows that in a place like Hornsey & Wood Green, she couldn’t have won without significant numbers of BME communities switching to us from Labour. If we want to make real progress we have to wake up to some realities.
1st June 2007 at 9:36 pm
Actually, There were some serious proposals put to the regional and federal conference during the last two years. However, the Regional Executive under the guise of one Mark V. and the Party President recked these motions and we ended up with a motion from Simon Hughes which was no more than his usual non-quantifiable promise, that if not delivered there is nothing to hold him accountable for. But probably judged it right as the Members at the Federal Conference have been unwilling to take any positive actions to help equalize the BME deficit in the Party. I wait to see what report Simon presents at the conference? I would Also like to see Ming or Steve report back on progress on their promises with the £200k from the Rowntree money.
I wonder What progress reports Simon has been presenting to the Federal Executive on this? I know for a fact that there has been nothing delivered in terms of BME candidates or membership.
1st June 2007 at 9:37 pm
Eastender,
The London Selection Rules are entirely the property of the London Regional Party. Therefore, if we choose to alter them, we are thoroughly within our rights to do so.
Zipping works for one disadvantaged group, but is very tricky with two distinct groups, albeit with some crossover. And there are many, like myself, who are distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of quotas…
1st June 2007 at 9:47 pm
Nasser,
The Regional Executive took no view, formal or even organised, on the first motion (written and moved by the Party President you so enthuisiastically attack). Individuals, one of whom was me, spoke against it and it was defeated.
The second motion was drafted and proposed by me and overwhelmingly passed by the Regional Conference (yours was the only vote against, as I recall), before being submitted for debate at the Harrogate Conference last year.
The amendment from the Federal Executive was accepted by Navnit Dholakia on our behalf without consultation (I only found out that it was being accepted by him when I peered over his shoulder to see what he was planning to say in his summation).
Accuracy, my dear Nasser, is everything, and if you are planning to attack me, the Regional Executive or anyone else, you might have the decency to quote the facts rather than an imaginary set of circumstances only familiar to you.
If it looks like a conspiracy theory and sounds like a conspiracy theory, then it probably is a conspiracy theory.
1st June 2007 at 9:55 pm
zipping = bad, undemocratic, nasty, insulting, patronising. Thats my view.
There have to be better, more liberal ways.