Yesterday’s Sunday Times [paywall] reported that Patrick Streeter, one of the hopefuls for the Liberal Democrat London Mayoral candidacy, was not approved as a candidate and is now taking his case to the High Court.
…a potential candidate has taken the party to court after being dropped from the shortlist of five — and it’s not Opik.
Patrick Streeter, an Old Harrovian, red sock-wearing accountant, applied to the High Court last week for a stay of execution after being dropped at the interview stage last weekend.
He now expects the matter to be settled, but says: “The Labour vote is very soft in London. I shall be very cheesed off if I don’t get a crack of the whip.”
Streeter certainly has a touch of Boris Johnson about him. “I told a couple of jokes at the interview, and wonder if that counted against me,” he says. “They asked what I’ve done to combat crime. I said I’d chased down a burglar — and that my wife watches Crimewatch.”
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8 Comments
Those quotes alone ring alarm bells.
Patrick is a former Tower Hamlets councillor. Of all people I’d expect him to know that candidates taking their party to court over selection contests is not one of the ten habits of highly successful political campaigns. We should be leaving that sort of thing to Labour.
Even if he is successful in being approved, how many London members does he expect to vote for him to be our candidate after dragging the party – and presumably the campaign budget – through the courts?
My first thought was “who?”
And now I am thinking, why is this man wanting to force the party to pay for all these legal costs?
Next thought is along the lines of I wonder if he was planted in the party by either Labour or Tory?
Looks like the selection committee made the right choice.
Ridiculous.
I hope his legal grounds are better than the ones set out above!
I’m probably biassed because he spilled tomato juice over me and my laptop, but I can quite understand why he was deemed not to be mayor material.
Does anybody know when the actual shortlist will be published? Given the result is due to be announced at the conference in December, there is only a limited amount of time for hustings, etc.
I realised years ago that being an Old Harrovian with a plummy accent was an insuperable barrier to getting elected anywhere that I could afford to live or would want to represent.