Specualtion has been to rife as to all the opposition parties will nominate as their candidate for Mayor of London and take on Red Ken. The Tories are having a primary to consider the huge range heavy-hitters being touted, such as Nick Boles, Steve Morris and Iain Dale, while the Greens have just plumped for Sian Berry over veteran Green candidate David Icke.
But who will we Lib Dems field? One candidate mentioned in the Tory race as an outside possibility is none other than John Major. Oh yes. The former PM is enjoying a resurgance in popular support, as the public realise Blair wasn’t so much better than him after all, and that he wasn’t so boring as they imagined pre-Edwina.
There’s a grandee in our party who is rumoured to be interested in seeking the Lib Dem nomination, and I think he’s by far the best suggestion I’ve heard. We all know there are serious campaigns afoot to draft the likes of Navnit Dholakia, Lynne Featherstone and Pink Dog, and comedy campaigns to enlist Lembit Opik (campaign manager Mark Oaten, maybe?). But behind the scenes, PPCs, MPs and party grandees have been approaching a former member of the SDP’s gang-of-four to return to frontline politics.
At first readers will assume that this is Shirley Williams. But while Shirley does enjoy some degree of name recognition and popularity with our grassroots, she is heavily committed in the United States and would be unlikely to take the challenge on. Similarly, while Bill Rodgers would command public respect, he seems unwilling to return to the frontline.
No, the clear candidate to fly the bird-of-liberty’s flag at the London elections is Lord David Owen. He was leader of our party before the merger, a former Foreign Secretary and did more to put Limehouse on the map than anyone else alove. Since leaving frontline politics, he’s won plaudits as an impartial commentator on the world oil market and civil liberties in Russia.
As a long-term London resident and international politician, he is clearly qualified to lead us to the Olympics, economic prosperity and further success as a global city.
Yesterday Lib Dem Youth and Students supporters set up a Facebook group backing Dr. Owen as our mayoral candidate, and party grandees such as Archie Shatner and Neil Conan-Doyle have promised to fund his selection campaign.
“David is always very punctual. Many of us would welcome that,” said one Cowley Street insider who worked on the party’s 2004 Mayoral campaign.
In organisation and fundraising he’s clearly the Hillary Clinton of the mayoral selection race. But whether Owen can convince members that, at 66, he’s still young enough to lead the party’s campaign, is a different matter.
Paolo Fril is a London Lib Dem activist.
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23 Comments
Apparently David Steel is just about to appear on this morning’s Andrew Marr show. I reckon he’s going to announce the Two Davids are doing a reunion tour.
I imagine it as a bit like ‘History Today’: (Scottish lilt) “You see that Margaret Thatcher? She’s your mother, she is.”
Sorry to disagree about this Paolo, but we should be looking to the North (Scandinavia) not looking to the past.
Chris, I beg to differ.
According to some secret polling commissioned by the Campaigns Dept. (Fairo Poll, field dates 27-29th March), Owen scores well as a credible, serious, experienced alternative to Ken.
Owen is still fondly remembered by colleagues in the Campaigns Dept and I’m sure there would be a lot of support for his campaign.
You’ll be pleased to know that the team in the Innovations Dept have been working hard on the Owen4Mayor website. I had a bit of problem with the code as it kept going into a frail loop, but it seems OK now.
Neil is right. Clearly the Campaigns Department aren’t meant to come out for any candidate. But over a few drinks in the Bunch of Grapes in Narrow Street a Campaign Strategy for after his selection has been mapped out.
There is also talk of Bill Pitt rejoining the party to take on the task of David’s South London Tsar.
I can see the leaflets now. “Lord Owen pictured with party campaigns guru Peter Chegwyn” 🙂
(for those not in the know Peter Chegwyn once ran a photograph on a focus (in about 1994) of him with David Owen in the Alliance days captioned “Peter Chegwyn with UN Peace Envoy to Bosnia Lord Owen”!)
I understand that his policies will include a suggestion to separate London into several mini-cities to make it easier to administrate and lead. He, of course, will have the unswerving loyalty of one of these new mini-cities, provisionally named ‘David Owen’s House’.
Peter Chegwyn was the only radical Liberal to be a fan of David Owen. Probably a shared interest in the Royal Navy.
Is it just me, or is David Owen not actually a member of the Lib Dems? He refused to join the merged pary, sat briefly as an independent MP and now, as far as I’m aware, he’s a cross-bench peer.
Thank you for this Paolo Frill.
I almost mis-spelled your name in a rush of touch typing. I can’t imagine what anagram I would have come up with had I not been concentrating on this, the second day of April.
D’oh
Blimey! According to Angus Huck I was once a fan of David Owen’s. That’s news to me! Although I was grateful when he twice came to support my campaigns in Gosport in the 1980s… which was more than David Steel ever did.
Next thing I’ll be accused of being a fan of Tony Benn as I’m organising a concert for him in Portsmouth on May 5th (tickets now on sale from the New Theatre Royal, 023 9264 9000). 23 years ago I was agent against him in the Chesterfield by-election. I never thought that 23 years on I’d be organising music festivals and he’d be appearing at them.
P.S. For those of who have yet to see ‘The Writing on the Wall’ show featuring Tony Benn and socialist folk singer Roy Bailey, it’s a witty, perceptive and thought-provoking ‘Anthology of Dissent in Words & Music’. It starts with Tony Benn making “An announcement from the management… If there’s anyone here from New Labour by mistake, please leave by the exit on the far right”.
Peter, you definitely described him as a “radical politician”, some place, some time. I think it might even have been an article in “Liberal News”.
And I think you said that the decision of the SDP members to elect Jenkins, rather than Owen, as Leader in 1983 indicated that the SDP was not in fact “radical”.
Were you not interviewed at an ALC Conference somewhere by Newsnight? Or was it someone who looked like you?
My fondest memory of Owen is at the 1988 Sheffield “Special” Conference.
Owen, surrounded by reporters and camera crews, swanned into the bar area.
A member (now a councillor in the South-East) called out “there’s a smell of death in here”, well within Owen’s hearing.
Then the late Jim Daley denounced Owen as a “charlatan”. “Why doesn’t he talk to members? He’s a charlatan! He’s nothing more than Gary Hart!”
Owen held a “private” rally of his fan club at Sheffield. Those without tickets were ejected by heavies.
When the final vote was held, Tony Greaves (wearing his “Liberal Publications” hat) was standing near the doorway, expressionless and in silence, sporting an “I’ve no urge to merge” sticker.
Given the events of the previous few days, one couldn’t exactly blame him!
By the way, I consider Peter Chegwyn’s greatest achievement to be moving itno the 1984 Portsmouth South Byelection in the last week and rescuing the wooden SDP campaign. MOIK AHNCOCK, as the locals call him.
Not sure I’d consider that my greatest achievement but having spent the last three nights delivering local election leaflets in Portsmouth South (we’ve no elections in Gosport this May) it certainly brought back memories.
Give Mike Hancock his due. We would never have won Portsmouth South with any other candidate in 1984 and we wouldn’t be holding the seat now if it wasn’t for Mike’s record of service in Portsmouth stretching back to long before 1984.
On a personal note I’ve only recently discovered this forum and find it puzzling to see my name mentioned alongside David Owen and the like.
As it’s now 20+ years since I was involved in running by-elections or working for Party H.Q. I’d have thought I’d have been long forgotten by now.
David Owen burnt his bridges a long time ago as far as the Lib Dems are concerned.
Since then he has developed into a Neo-Con. We really shouldn’t touch him with a bargepole, and in any case I am sure from his point of view the feeling is mutual.
Thankfully David Owen is not eligible to stand in the party leadership contest this autumn. I don’t think anyone wants to see him involved again. But why hasn’t Cowley Street involved Peter Chegwyn again? The party could do with his leaflet-writing and election-winning skills right now.
I’ve just listened to Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg at the Regional Conference in Newbury. Both are obviously intelligent, articulate and able but has either the charisma to attract large numbers of voters back to our party, muscle-in on the Cameron v Brown media contest and give us a decent chance of holding most of our seats whenever the next election is called?
Not from what I saw today.
You might mock Owen now, but you won’t be laughing so hard when the number of votes cast for Paddick is announced.
Owen would have been an inspired choice as candidate for London Mayor, though as others have pointed out he would wish to be associated in no way with the Liberals. A shame you have not asked yourselves why a man of such undisputed talent and lightning intelligence would think that way…
What’s the position on 3 key transport issues that interest me and my neighbours:
1/. Motorcycles and bus lanes
2/. The ever declining number of motorcycle parking bays in central London
3/. Heathrow
I missed this article last year. Back in 2000, the student branch of LDYS at Hull University was run by a bunch of Owen fanatics. They made him their honorary president and invited him to meetings. And they were quite serious about it all.
James,
A couple of inaccuracies in your statement there:
The group that invited Lord Owen to speak was the Social Democratic Society. Owen was never invited to be honorary president.
It is true that this occurred in 2000 (how did you remember that?). Owen accepted an invitation to speak at the University on the subject of “Yes to Europe, No to the Euro”. A regional TV news team filmed the event, which was ticket only and filled the largest meeting venue on campus to capacity, and footage was used on regional TV that evening.
My colleague was the Chair of the Social Democrat Society, a fact we discussed only a few months ago (some 8 years later) so it is timely that you should bring it up.
It is true that we were perfectly serious about being supporters of Owen, and certainly I remain so to this day. In no way do I regret being associated with what turned out to be a hugely successful event.
Looks like I was right about the number of votes for Paddick – a very poor showing indeed.
You should have gone with Owen (if he would have ever accepted the nomination, which is doubtful), then you would have had the first LD Mayor by now.