Congratulations to Bridget Fox, re-selected to fight Islington South – Bridget came within 484 votes of taking the seat last time.
If you know of a selection I’ve missed, please give me a shout, and in addition the party maintains an official list of PPCs here.
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21 Comments
Was the selection “hard” fought? Is she really the best choice for the seat (after being voted out from the council last year in a big swing)?
Ah, btw, her website is not 100% accurate (being pedant): “we’ve made Islington South & Finsbury a winnable seat, the most marginal Labour-LibDem seat in the country”….erm, where does she leave Edinburgh South (405 votes majority, 0.9%)? or maybe Scotland is not in the “country” afterall (Salmond will be happy though š )
I think as a % Edinburgh has less voters so possibly as a % the Edinburgh margin is bigger.
Poisonous bile fromĀ a fantasistĀ who hasn’t yet come to terms with being expelled from the party – she’ll get over it in time.
“I think as a % Edinburgh has less voters so possibly as a % the Edinburgh margin is bigger”
not sure if I’ve followed you..do you mean the % on the whole electorate, not just people who voted?
(not that it’s a so crucial point for LD fortunes if the IS or ES has a bigger majority, even I raised it though)
Very good news. Bridget was a great candidate last time – and will be fully-focussed on the Parliamentary seat next time. I did some canvassing with Bridget in the General Elections and in the local elections. One of her attributes is a phenomenal memory for faces – definitely a “people person”!
“Poisonous bile from a fantasist who hasnāt yet come to terms with being expelled from the party – sheāll get over it in time. ”
well, in between the “poisonous bile”, she has also made a couple of good points (ok, maybe just 1 point)
Will her placards read: “Losing here”?
What do Lib Dems call opposition candidates who have stood on serveral occassions and lost? Recycled candidates?
“What do Lib Dems call opposition candidates who have stood on serveral occassions and lost? Recycled candidates? ”
I think that fielding the same candidate for more than 1 elections (after getting a good swing the previous time) actually help parties. The Libdems have made in the past in quite a good number of seats they finally gained in the end.
The only “negative” point about Fox is that she was quite strongly tied with an administration that wasn’t so popular with voters in the end (Ok, now she’ll fight a national election, so voters will be more in a “national” mood).
Labour will probably try to use it and I would expect some comments by Labour about her losing her seat as much as the Libdems in 2005 sometimes reminded that Thornberry was actually beaten by Fox in 2002 locals.
Leaving aside Rob’s sarcastic remarks about the subject (we all know he hasn’t got a good word to sat about her). She is still working hard for the party locally as a supporter. The only thing is they are not collecting her money as as member but in reality nothing much has changed.
The point of what she is saying has been picked up acurately by
Andrea Says:
February 3rd, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Yes, congrats to Bridget. But, I really do think that her Party’s nomination is the only thing she will win. I have helped to defeat Bridget twice in the last 2 years (at a time when Labour’s national standing was rock bottom). So, believe me, she will need a huge dose of immense good luck (mainly a Tory collapse) to prevent Emily Thornberry’s majority soaring back to the levels that Chris Smith achieved. Remember, Chris won in 1983 on a majority that was even more slender than Emily’s 2005 margin. Chris became one of the finest MPs I have ever known and his majority grew at every election to top 12,000 plus. And that’s the trajectory I am sure Emily is on now – no matter how hard some of your Party’s weasely operatives try and throw mud at her.
Delighted to see Bridget re-selected. She achieved the best ever Lib Dem result in the seat last time round and well deserves the chance to finish the job.
The 12% swing she obtained was more than we had in all but 3 of the seats we won from Labour last time and with a majority of only 484, it’s no wonder former Islington South Labour Chair Paul Convery is feeling pretty defensive (posting above).
As Paul well knows, comparing the 83 results with (say) 92 is missing what happened to the SDP, which was the big factor in George Cunningham’s near misses in the 1980s.
To be pedantic, Smith’s majority did not grow at every election; in fact it declined markedly from 97 to 01.
I do agree with Paul, though, that Chris was a fine constituency MP. To paraphrase from a US context, “I knew Chris Smith; Emily Thornberry is no Chris Smith”.
Be assured Canonbury Liberal (why do you lot hide behind pseudonyms?), as the current chair of Islington South & Finsbury Labour Party, I am not at all defensive. I am really looking forward to Bridget’s lame campaigning efforts because I know two things that are true: the Lib Dems on the Council are weak, inefectively led and remain a liability; Islington Labour has become immensely strengthened from the 2006 elections when your majority on the Council plunged from 24 seats to zero. Remember, Bridget was Steve Hitchen’s deputy and deeply implicated in all his discredited dealings and electorally catastrophic decisions. Labour on Islington Council made many mistakes in the 1990s (and hands up, I was one of the them). You Libbys got in on the rebound. But we have learned and changed. So now, for you, it’s over (nearly).
Delighted that Bridget will be our next MP. She’s extremely personable, bright and hard-working, and a very nice person to boot. If I remember rightly, the Independent newspaper once tipped her to be a future Cabinet Minister.
The complacency from Islington Labour is also encouraging š
“Delighted that Bridget will be our next MP….The complacency from Islington Labour is also encouraging ”
maybe matched by Libdem complacency š
With Bridget been selected this is great news for the Labour party. Emily is an excellent MP and a first class campaigner. With the new fresh councillors behind her she will increase her majority.
Thornberry is a pompous lump who’s about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
I sincerely hope anyone – just anyone (I’m not party-partisan) – displaces her next time.
ps – which Labour member was it who described Thornberry as “an uncharismatic version of neighbouring MP Jeremy Corbyn, but with horsey, jolly hockey-sticks presentation”??
Emma Thornberry will eat Bridget Fox alive.
Let the fight begin
Congratulations Bridget. You have taken the first step to ensuring I continue to be represented by a Labour MP.
Bridget is one of the most impressive Lib Dems I have ever met and once elected would get into the shadow cabinet very quickly indeed.
The problem locally is how you get reported in the local press. The local Lib Dems need to win the media war and there are a lot of people in the media who are determined that they do not do so.