Opinion – better to get the mayoral selection right than rush it

By | Wed 11th April 2007 - 10:00 am

Three men and one woman applied to be the party’s choice to take on Ken Livingstone – none were sitting MPs, MEPs, or Peers.  It seems that after consideration, the regional volunteers involved in shortlisting and running the process have decided not to announce a shortlist, and possibly to run a new round of applications.  The most plausible explanation I’ve heard for this is that those regional volunteers felt they couldn’t put a long enough shortlist (are you with me still?) to the selectorate, in this case every Lib Dem member in London.

As the Conservatives know only too well, it’s better to delay a selection process such as this to develop a strong field of candidates, rather than to rush it.  It would have helped our mayoral candidate’s profile to have been announced before the Tories, and that may yet happen.

Alongside the suggestion of running another round of applications, the idea has been floated that whoever finds themself at the top of our list of GLA candidates should also be invited to become the mayoral candidate – though that raises numerous practical difficulties.

We shouldn’t be dismayed that we didn’t find our candidate first time round, but nor should we hold out for a “celebrity” with “profile” – whoever stands will do so as our party’s candidate to run one of the world’s great cities. It’s not reality TV. A credible community politician (past or present) will be good enough.

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This entry was posted in Op-eds.
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4 Comments

  • It's a two-horse race 11th Apr '07 - 11:14am

    http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2007/04/libdems-delay-mayoral-selection.html#links

    Not looking good, is it? Trust Hughes to put his foot in it!

  • Bridget Fox 16th Apr '07 - 11:51am

    Worth reading Iain’s posting if only for the delightful contributions of Islington’s own Tory star, the charming and intelligent Paul Newman.

    Reminded by our own Meral Ece that his boast of standing in every ward in Islington last May is wrong (Tories failed to get their papers in for Mildmay), he replies “the denizens of Mildmay are almost bestially stupid . There is not a lot you can do with them…they live from road kill and sleep under Newspaper.”

    That will have paved the way nicely for a Tory comeback in Mildmay next time…..

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