Photo: David Ward MP, Jeanette Sunderland and police – Flickr.
Bradford Liberal Democrats have selected Jeanette Sunderland to be their candidate in the Bradford West by-election on 29 March.
The writ was moved yesterday for the by-election after Marsha Singh resigned, for health reasons.
Born and bred in Bradford, Jeanette has been a local councillor for 18 years. In that time she has built up a reputation for being a strong voice for Bradford, and is currently leader of the Lib Dem group on Bradford Council.
Following the announcement of her selection, Jeanette commented:
I am delighted to have been selected by local party members to fight this by-election for the Liberal Democrats.
For nearly forty years Bradford West has had Labour MPs who have failed to deliver fairer taxes for local people, failed to close the gap in health inequality in our city and failed to improve our city centre. I think Bradford deserves better. For too long local people have been neglected, by a Labour party that takes them for granted.
Labour held all three Bradford seats for over 20 years but their monopoly was broken in 2010, when Liberal Democrat David Ward stormed to victory in the neighbouring Bradford East constituency. Since then David has been raising the profile of Bradford in Westminster. David said:
I worked with Jeanette on Bradford Council for 16 years and I know there is no-one better at fighting for Bradford. Bradford needs another strong and independent-minded campaigner speaking up for our city in Parliament.
This by-election in Bradford West gives people a clear choice. Either they’ll get another Labour MP, who’ll take the area for granted, or they can back Jeanette and have a strong, local, positive voice, fighting for them at Westminster.
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21 Comments
I presume this is donkey with a red rosette territory?
It would be difficult to think of a better choice for this seat than Jeanette. David Ward has raised our profile in the city and Jeanette has a great record of fighting its corner.
I know that we’re third at the moment but it’s time we had a really rollicking good by-election.
What a great opportunity this would have been for a young Asian candidate?
A very difficult by-election to fight, but it is imperative that the LDs put forward a candidate. Good luck to Jeanette Sunderland and I hope she gets good support.
It is certainly absolutely essential that we fight all parliamentary elections. While a young Asian candidate might have had a deeper understanding of Asian culture and values, we should also remember that MPs address wider issues, including how different cultures interact. Jeanette has a long record of experience and service in Bradford, and will certainly be able to represent all cultures well. She has been chosen democratically, and I am sure that we all support her and wish her well.
I’m with Lester on this. Good opportunity to blood an Asian candidate. Whereas I don’t agree with positive discrimation and lists etc, I do believe we should be putting forward more BME candidates. We need them in the parliamentary party. Was there any in the frame?
Jeanette is fabulous – she will be a great candidate and would be a very good MP.
We should always choose the best candidate regardless of race, creed, gender, sexuality, class (we never seem to mention that!) or any other irrelevance. With Jeanette the local party has chosen a doughty fighter for Bradford who inspires my admiration. We should go out to win – however improbable that may seem to those who favour despair. Labour certainly isn’t taking this for granted otherwise they would not have called the by-election in this way.
In third place, the only way this can do us harm is if we sit around wringing our hands and agonising over ‘what ifs’ rather than getting out on the street, campaigning.
Richard Dean – It’s a given that candidates of all backgrounds represent everybody but that’s not the point. We need to show we are a diverse party, and the fact we haven’t got an Asian candidate in Bradford (Labour and the Tories have both fielded Asian candidates for at least the last two elections) reinforces an image to the public. The Tories used to say for years the best local candidate won, but now they have rising stars like Kwasi Kwarteng only the hardcore are complaining. Most are happy, or at the very least reconciled, to the increased racial diversity of their Commons team.
Good to see a good local candidate and especially good on Int Womens Day to see us putting another good female candidate forward.
@Lester Holloway – We are on the same page on this, very much so because getting elected is a major part of the process of effective politics. For this reason, as well as the excellence of Jeanette herself, and for reasons mentioned by Neil Bradbury and others, our task now is to focus on supporting ouyr chosen candidate.
Lester – it’s worth noting that we’ve had a Muslim candidate in 3 of the last 4 elections in Bradford West and the deputy leader of our council group is Muslim and so it’s not as if we don’t have Asians in prominent positions in the Liberal Democrats in Bradford.
However, Jeanette is one of the most formidable campaigners in the whole of the Liberal Democrats and is very well respected locally and nationally. Given the short time we have until polling day I think having someone who can hit the ground running and who is already high profile in the city is what we need to turn in a decent performance in this particular election. I understand, but I can’t say for certain, that there wasn’t a local Asian candidate interested in standing, although there may have been someone from elsewhere in the country.
@Lester – I agree we need to widen our representation, but picking individual selections and saying ‘we should have had a BME /woman/LGBT candidate’ isn’t the way to do it. Jeanette sounds eminently qualified (not to say that there weren’t equally qualified Asian candidates – I don’t know). Besides, if she’s elected she would help redress an imbalance almost as dire in parliamentary party – the lack of women MPs!
Interesting to bring up Kwasi Kwarteng > isn’t the lesson that EM candidates don’t need to be run in ‘ghettoes’ or ‘urban areas’ or any number of other weasel words for the same thing? A by-election like this, you need to hit the ground running with an experienced local campaigner, and in Bradford that’s Jeanette. Coupled with David’s campaigns on insurance and investing in Bradford this could be really interesting.
Disclaimer: i’m a former resident of Bradford West, was a candidate there last year, and do remember some great future candidates from the area who just aren’t available or ready yet.
@Robson – Indeed, I have been saying that BME candidates should not just run in areas of high BME populations for as long as I can remember. However, when a Commons team has remained all-white for 100 years (bar one year… 2004-2005) then there is a view that goes: “if we can’t get a BME candidate in a seat like this, where can we get one?” This is a perspective borne more from frustration / desperation to see change than logic, I admit. But for too long we’ve stuck BME candidates in development seats, only not the one’s being developed. The party is not selecting BME candidates in the sticks, like the Tories did last time around. I’m sure Jeanette is an excellent candidate, but that is not the point. BME communities have been told over and again that the best candidate won, who happens to be white. I’m talking selections across the three major parties. In some cases – and Bradford West may well be one – that is true. But every time? Every election? Isn’t something wrong there? If this line was true every time it was uttered, then white candidates must be innately superior.
@Lester. I agree that it does look like something;s wrong. There are other issues too. Elections don’t start and end in three weeks, getting elected is a five year process, at least. Every constiutuency should have a candidate in place now for the next election, and that candidate should be getting themselves known the voters now, writing newspaper artiles and appearing on Radio and TV and Internet, showing achievements if in power, otherwise showing how LibDems would have tackled the issues differently. That goes for your young Asian as much as for anyone else. One reason why Labour and Conservative dominate is that they are always in the local and national news. To challenge them, we have to be there too,.And all the time, not just for a few weeks around election time. But now IS election time, and I am sure you will agree that our way forward is to support Jeanette.
Richard, it is impossible to select candidates now because we do not know what the boundaries will be for the next general election. Those boundaries may be radically different from last time given the reduction in the number of MPs and the restrictions on size variation.
@Ed Maxfield. That is absolute nonsense, and is a sure way to get us defeated next time. You select candidates now for the constituencies as they are now. You campaign. If and when the constituencies change, you have an internal discussion about how we represent the new constituencies. You sort it out quickly and get campaigning again. You don’t wait till the election is announced! And anyway, most constituencies won’t change the huge amount you say.
Sorry Richard but the only thing your suggestion would achieve would be to lose a year in bitter selection appeals in a whole bunch of target seats once the new boundaries are announced.
There is no need to wait til you have a ppc to start campaigning – any area hoping to win in 2015 should already be campaigning hard.
And there is no need to wait til the election is announced – as I understand it the boundary review will have reached a point where we can start selecting candidates at the end of this year.
But you have to wait til it is constitutionally possible before the selections are made. It is, in any case, a rather academic debate because the national party wont let anyone start selecting now.
What a load of rubbish – for years we heard the moans and the whinges from the women gender purple army brigade demanding zipping and demanding all woman short list, demanding more women MPs and one’s that have a high profile and know how to win, (ignoring the fact that positive discrimination of any form is wrong in principal and illiberal) and when we select a woman, with a profile, a fantastic campaigner, who’s skills are legendary; one would expect that the pro-discrimination people would be happy but what do we hear – shouts from the hill tops “She is a woman – shame she isn’t Asian or a Muslim”.
This is a by-election that I would not have taken much notice of before – but the fact Jeanette is putting up is interesting thing here – the party clearly think she can win, they would not put up someone of her standing if they didn’t, which is the fascinating thing here – something has clearly happened since Bradford elected its first Lib Dem MP – clearly Bradford west have said in the party’s private polling they want another Liberal Democrat!
@Ed Maxfield. This is a party that does seem to like doing things the hard way! 🙂