Tag Archives: candidate selections

Callum Robertson

Candidates – a route to fixing a recurring problem

By Callum Robertson | Mon 13th January 2025 - 4:42 pm

The Farron Review is an excellent piece of work, the east option as a party would have been to paint a glowing image of success following our General Election. Yet the review does not shy away from asking some difficult questions of our structures and what we can improve going forward.

The main area singled out for criticism is our candidates process. At the moment, our candidates process is that people who wish to stand for any office above that of a local councillor, must attend and pass, an approval day (think grad scheme assessment day). Once they have done so they are on the list of approved candidates and can put their name forward for any seat that advertises.

In addition to this, if someone wishes to stand for a body such as the London Assembly, or as a Police and Crime Commissioner, they must first pass the Westminster approval day, then take a conversion test to become an approved candidate for that body.

In England, this entire process is run by the English Party, leading to an extraordinary concentration of power in the hands of very few people. In Scotland and Wales, the state parties have control over their selection processes particularly for Holyrood and Cardiff Bay.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | 8 Comments
Simon McGrath

London members vote to choose the top of the list for the Greater London Assembly

By Simon McGrath | Tue 18th April 2023 - 9:50 am

Ballot e-mails will be going out shortly for members in London to decide the order of our candidates for the List election for the Greater London Assembly in May 2024. The Assembly has fourteen constituency members and eleven elected on Party lists. So, if our share of the vote gives us four people to be elected on the List, the top four on our list will become Assembly members.

We currently have two GLA members – Caroline Pidgeon and Hina Bokhari, though Caroline has announced she is not standing again.

There are eleven members competing:

  • Chris Annous
  • Rob Blackie
  • Cllr Hina Bokhari
  • Michael

…

Continue reading »
Posted in London and Selection news | Also tagged | 6 Comments
Charley Hasted

Sarah Dyke Selected as Lib Dem Candidate for Somerset and Frome

By Charley Hasted | Sun 15th May 2022 - 6:00 pm

The Liberal Democrats have selected Cllr Sarah Dyke as their candidate for the Somerton and Frome constituency.

Sarah lives in the constituency and is from a Somerset farming family which can be traced back over 250 years to the local area. Sarah worked in the agricultural industry and is Portfolio Holder for the Environment on South Somerset District Council where she is spearheading rewilding programmes, investment in electric vehicle charging points and the council’s zero-carbon targets.

Last week Sarah was elected to Somerset County Council to represent Blackmoor Vale, beating the head of the Conservatives’ dedicated anti-Lib Dem unit.

Continue reading »
Posted in News and Press releases | Also tagged , and | 10 Comments
The Voice

15 March 2019 – yesterday’s press releases

By The Voice | Sat 16th March 2019 - 8:06 am

Lib Dems call on retailers to scrap the gender price gap

To mark World Consumers Rights Day, Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine has written to major cosmetic manufacturers and retailers across the UK as part of her campaign to scrap the gender price gap.

Commenting on her campaign, Ms Jardine said:

We are a quarter of the way through 2019 and still men and women pay different prices for the same basic products. This is entirely unacceptable.

For World Consumer Rights Day I am writing to the most prominent cosmetic manufacturers and retailers across the UK to ask them to change their outdated

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , , , , and | 1 Comment
Caron Lindsay

Candidate selections: How are we doing on diversity?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 28th April 2018 - 8:55 am

Not that brilliantly, to be honest. Of the fifteen seats we’ve selected so far, just 6 have selected women and 9 have selected men. When you add in the 4 women and 8 men who will be defending their seats, you get 10 women and 17 men. That’s not an impressive record.

More worryingly, there is only one non-white face in there.

Vince talked the other day of the importance of getting more BAME candidates not just selected but elected as MPs. He told The Muslim News:

Sir Vince Cable acknowledged that his party was not “yet fully representative of modern Britain.

…

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 16 Comments
Advert



Recent Comments

  • David Evans
    As a aside Tristan, I agree totally with you that as a nation we have to come to terms with the fact that we (or more correctly successive governments) have bee...
  • David Evans
    Hi Tristran, We all need to remember that the triple lock was introduced in the coalition in response to the fact that the UK state pension was just about th...
  • Tristan Ward
    @Cassie "Every few months when someone ignites the ‘we can’t afford the triple lock’ subject. " That's because the policy is expensive and funding i...
  • Craig Levene
    Hesgeth was very combatative, and impressed. Up against some tough questioning, & also some banal tabloid ones as well, he coped easily with both. Bondi al...
  • Nick Baird
    Russian hybrid warfare also includes GPS jamming and spoofing of civil aircraft navigation in the Baltic and now northern Norway. This and their other nefariou...