Tag Archives: liberal democrat candidates

Josh Babarinde selected as Lib Dem candidate for Eastbourne

Josh Babarinde OBE has been selected as the Lib Dem candidate for Eastbourne. This seat was held by Stephen Lloyd from 2010-2015 and 2017-2019 and had been a Lib Dem seat between 1990-92.

In an email to subscribers, former MP Stephen Lloyd praised Josh:

I’ve known Josh for well over a decade, first meeting him when he was Head Boy at Cavendish School in Old Town. Josh impressed me then and he’s impressed me even more over the ensuing years.

Josh is an accomplished entrepreneur. He founded and ran an award-winning social enterprise company in London, supporting gang members and ex-offenders out of crime and into work.

For those of you who won’t know Josh as well as I do, I’ve listed below just a few of the successes he’s already had in his career:

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Election countdown: Candidates selected in Scotland

Everyone is expecting a General Election in the next few months. Liberal Democrats have been preparing for this and have selected candidates in most seats. 

Here’s the current state of play in Scotland:

Held seats

Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross: Jamie Stone MP

East Dunbartonshire: Jo Swinson MP

Edinburgh West: Christine Jardine MP

Orkney and Shetland: Alistair Carmichael MP

Formerly held seats

Argyll and Bute: Alan Reid (former MP)

Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk: Jenny Marr

Dunfermline and West Fife: Rebecca Bell

Gordon: James Oates

Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey Denis Rixson

North East Fife: Wendy Chamberlain fights the most marginal seat in the country where the SNP and his wife make up the majority.

Ross, Skye and Lochaber: Craig Harrow

West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine: John Waddell

Elsewhere, the following candidates are now in place with other selections still to come.

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A candidate’s tale: Part 2

Today Richard continues his account of his campaign in Macclesfield in the General Election. You can read Part 1 here.

We planned a campaign to make maximum use of social media – the leafleting of the 21st Century. (Don’t worry. We had plenty of leaflets too!)

Having practiced our high-visibility public-facing events – canvassing and hustings – we captured them in photos and posted through Facebook and Twitter, so people could see we were out there talking to the voters, taking the campaign seriously. A weekend’s events could be spread …

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A candidate’s tale: Part 1

I was the Liberal Democrat candidate for Macclesfield in Cheshire at the June General Election.

Six weeks earlier, after Theresa May’s as-it-turned-out vainglorious decision to go to the country, Macclesfield Liberal Democrats had found themselves in need of a candidate. And I answered the call.

The last time Macclesfield elected a Liberal was William Brocklehurst (junior) in 1910, and for the last 100 years they have returned only Conservatives (or Unionists) to Westminster. Alas, I was not able to celebrate William’s centenary by retaking the seat.

But I did hold on to the lion share of our vote from two years ago, and held on to our deposit, in the face of a fierce squeeze from Labour backed up by the tactical voting sites and some pretty underhand use of questionable numbers.

And, in spite of being in safe Tory territory, I never felt it was a no-hope seat.

In fact, I remain convinced that a seat like Macclesfield is winnable by a Liberal candidate. Maybe more in five to ten years than five to ten weeks. Where the Tory MP gets 53% of the vote this time, same as last time, Labour’s surge mopping up UKIP votes isn’t ever going to be enough. To reach into that 53%, you need to put together a coalition that picks up not just the moderate Labour voters, but the centrist, Remain-inclined Conservatives too along with the core Liberal vote. And only a Lib Dem is going to do that.

I was incredibly lucky to have a local party who were full of enthusiasm, fired up to resist Brexit, absolutely certain that our message was the right one for Macclesfield – which it is. On top of that, we had a team full of the talents we needed: organising people; organising logistics; designing literature; running social media. No one expected us to be much more than a paper candidacy, but we were determined to be as much more than that as we could manage.

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What is it about the Lib Dems that appeals to physicists?

We were intrigued to be told this week that of the 32 candidates standing in the election who have a background in Physics, 12 of them are Liberal Democrats. A blog on Physicsworld.com reveals all:

In the last parliament (2010–2015), five members of the UK House of Commons held undergraduate degrees in physics: Tom Brake, Don Foster and John Hemming (Liberal Democrats), Andy Love(Labour) and Alok Sharma (Conservative). Foster and Love are retiring this year, but the other three are standing again. They face re-election battles of varying difficulty, but overall, their chances of continuing to represent the Physics Party in parliament look relatively good.

As for the 28 29 newcomers in the running, three of them – Heidi Allen, Kevin Hollinrake and Chris Philp – are Conservatives contesting seats considered “safe” for their party. A fourth, Carol Monaghan, is the Scottish National Party candidate for Glasgow North West, where the nationalists enjoy a commanding lead in the opinion polls. Hence, my informed guess is that on 8 May, the Physics Party will have increased its representation by 40%, from five seats to seven.

What about the other hopefuls? Well, one or two of them (including physics teacher Layla Moran, who is standing for the Liberal Democrats in the ultra-marginal Oxford West and Abingdon constituency) might just eke out narrow wins, but most are going to struggle.

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