As Helen reported earlier today, there is now a third person publicaly in the running to be the Liberal Democrat candidate for London Mayor – Jeremy Ambache.
With his Facebook page having only just gone up, it unsurprisingly only has 4 fans so far at the time of writing. Lembit Opik’s page is continuing to edge up – now at 225 fans – but, on Facebook at least, he’s been quickly and clearly overtaken by Duwayne Brooks who has 381 fans for his Mayoral bid.
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7 Comments
Is Baroness Florella Benjamin standing or not? She would make a good candidate,in my opinion.
I thought nominations closed last week.
Mym: Nominations have closed, but the shortlisted has not yet been published.
@mark – this is all rather odd. why havent the London party published the shortlist? Also why not publish the GLA candidates?
Jeremy would seen to have many advantages over the other two declared candidates as being a) not an embarrassment like LO and b) much more experienced than Duwayne.
@SMcG – Duwayne is perfectly well experience, I can remember his assured performance inthe by-election which saw him elected as a councillor – and he has since been re-elected I believe. But yes, this is the spin that opponents will put out against any young candidate.
@Patrick, I don’t think Floella is standing (though I could be wrong).
I am backing Duwayne who is experienced as a councillor in Lewisham, and would do an impressive job as candidate.
Perhaps I can help clarify (I’m on the London Regional Exec).
The deadline for Lib Dem Mayoral and GLA candidate applications was noon on Friday 24 September, but it didn’t end there.
The next stage, before producing a list of candidates to go on the ballot paper, is to interview the applicants and to check whether they are “Westminster approved” i.e. have passed the assessment day for Parliamentary candidates. Some applicants had not previously been Westminster approved and so an assessment day was arranged for them. There is also a London policy test. Interviews are taking place this week.
Some applicants prefer not to declare until the shortlists have been published – this could be for all sorts of reasons, including that they may not get approved or shortlisted. Candidates can declare themselves if they wish, but the Region won’t name anyone until the above processes are complete.
This job needs an experienced person who can deal with the media, knows the issues, comes across well on television and will not embarrass the party. I don’t know much about Jeremy Ambache, know too much about Lembit Opik and feel that good as he may be, Duwayne Brooks does not have the experience for this role.