Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Local Labour selection meetings
By the end of this evening our local Labour party will have selected who will represent us after the local body elections next year. I hear that it has been complete change in St Anns with Councillor Canver stepping down and Councillors Brabazon and Brown deselected. Will this be the end of the bollards in the gardens?
Any bets on whether or not they'll have a quorum at the Harringay ward selection meeting?
Tags for Forum Posts: election2014, labour
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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They may have selected their candidates but I believe the voters still have the right to pick who will represent them
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Yeah well spotted. I disagree with you. Unless something amazing happens Labour will win all six ward seats in Harringay.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Should we assume, John_M, that this is not Mystic McMullan's prognostication but that you're reading runes from national polling data? In which case I agree that electoral punishment for the LibDems currently looks like a good bet. (LibDems I know will smile tightly and say something like "their task is more challenging".)
But not every constituency and certainly not every local ward follows the trend in national polls. Nor, despite people telling me that issues of class and and Left/Right are now irrelevant, is that the way I see the borough of Haringey divided. Nor are those divisions static - especially with the "churn" of people and longer term demographic change.
Confidence is one thing; smug complacency quite another. Any candidate who takes people's votes for granted - no matter how "safe" their ward looks - deserves a good (electoral of course) kicking.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on
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I presume the Tories don't hold ward selection meetings to pick local Councillors to stand in Haringey's local council elections (due in May 2014), as they have had no luck getting elected to Haringey Council for decades now.
Do the Lib Dems have any ward selection meetings at all in the east of the borough, where the majority of the Councillors are elected? I presume that, once the deadline for putting candidates forward has passed, if the Lib Dems haven't bothered to put people up in the east, they'll have no chance of overturning the decades-long Labour majority on Haringey Council.
Nationally Barbara Roche (Lab) defeated the last Tory MP we hand in 1992 and stayed as our MP for 13 years until Lynne Featherstone (Lib Dem) took over in 2005. As Lynne is now up against Catherine West (Lab) the tradition of us being represented by women will continue for a third decade, helping right the gender imbalance of power. Someone told me that the Labour Party in Hornsey and Wood Green was the first in the UK to have women-only shortlists - can that be true? It certainly seems to have begun to work in Parliament, with even the Tories having a few women on board, although Labour have always maintained a clear lead, so much so that it looks like women may well make up the majority of Labour MPs in 2015 - hurray!
Locally the Lib Dems don't seem to have made a significant impact here in Haringey though. Can't think off the top of my head of anything they've actually done here, except phone up the Council and ask them to move the bus stop onto Muswell Hill roundabout, which is still controversial apparently. Must be hard to do much if you're an oppositoin who's never been in the majority locally - presumably any good ideas they come up with will be claimed by the other side- at least that's what the other side say about them :)
I used to think the 'Limp Dems' would take a big hit here, although the feeling that they would be wiped out for being treacherous seems to have diminished.
The others can't make the Lib Dems out to be too bad in case they need a few extra seats, so I suppose that means that some well-meaning people who might have voted against them will now vote along different lines as we all seem to have short memories when it comes to political track records. I see the Lib Dems just decided to get behind Nuclear power - what a turn around!
As the local elections are not being held on the same day as national elections, I guess that the turnout will be around 45%, probably less. It mystifies me as to how we can claim to live in a democracy when the majority do not vote. Parties elected this way simply have no mandate. Should any small group with, say, 25% of the vote, control the 75% who didn't elect them?
People don't seem to care about politics much these days so I suppose that means that there will be no 'protest' vote and it could be that the local vote will be even smaller.
Nationally, I know broadly what Labour and the Tories are about but I can't figure out what the Lib Dems will present themselves as - surely not as an alternative to the other two? I think UKIP will split the Tory vote, so it's only Labour who could win a majority.
Do you think we can get a reasoned, tempered debate here? With anyone being able to create a topic at any time, it seems that a site-wide discussion is almost impossible to achieve - what would cause people to exchange views and stay on topic? Even if they dfid, there'd be pages and pages of guff to read through. Maybe there could be a 'digest' read-only thread that reflected the debate and served to bring it all together?
How about a 'HoL' votes section where we have a mock election with the actual candidates, skewed by political affiliation? In other words, everyone to declare the ward they live in and their previous voting patterns, then we have a discussion and everyone gets to vote for the Councillor who is actually standing in their ward by using, say a site-wide poll?
Only those with real names allowed to vote. Anyone not using their real name would have to re-register with their real name and get validated by, say, three people publicly to prevent attempts to rig it. All votes to be public.
The result to be adjusted to reflect the fact that, say, in some wards there may be very few people casting their 'HoL' vote?
Then we compare it with the actual votes cast in May. Over the elections we could gradually refine it to be more of an accurate reflection and maybe even a predictor.
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Permalink Reply by Narendra Makanji on
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Prior to 1983 general election, Hornsey Labour Party agreed to have an All Women Shortlist (AWS).It was not party policy and was experimental attempt to boost the number of women representatives. Valerie Veness was Labour candidate against successful Tory candidate, Hugh Rossi.
Following boundary changes, the new Hornsey & Wood Green Labour Party also confirmed AWS and Barbara Roche was selected for 1987 election which was also won by Hugh Rossi. By this time AWS were being more widely accepted within Labour and there was an increasing push to select Black candidates in winnable seats.Tottenham selected Bernie Grant for a successful run in 1987.
Both local Labour Parties have,thus, contributed to this push to change the face of UK House of Commons.
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Thanks Narendra - it's lovely to be able to draw on previous experience. Wish more details of what happened in the past was available.
You don't happen to know why the Tories are so absent from Hornsey do you? Particularly in the better-off areas, I would have thought that the Tories might assume that, say, Highgate and parts of Crouch End were winnable.
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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The selection meetings are on a rolling programme across the wards, based on winnability of seats. Candidates can put in for more than one ward, then cancel later dates if they get selected. So a change at eg St Anns does not necessarily mean incumbents will not be selected on other wards.
Can't find any obvious source of info about results so far, except heresay.
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Nilgun Canver didn't "step down" John. As I thought was explained. My understanding is that Labour Party rules required that her membership was subject to an "administrative suspension". Which meant she was unable to be considered.
And of course they'll have a quorum at Labour's Harringay ward selection meeting. Which - with the agreement of everyone involved - has been re-scheduled for 7.30pm on Monday 30 September due to the sad death of Gina's husband who was in Cyprus.
It's a pity that a similar sensitivity was not shown to observant Jewish members of the Labour Party in respect of meetings scheduled on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Quorums don't seem to be a problem at all, there were loads of people at the TG selection meeting. I had met some of them before, too.
The Yom Kippur mistake is appalling, how did that happen? Who co-ordinates the calendar? Even as a fundamentalist atheist, I am aware of the holy days of the main religions.
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Ten hours ago you posted that you were "disappointed at the Tott Green selections".
Now you tell us you don't know?
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Candidates are selected by paid-up members of the local ward who turn up on the day. These are verified by being checked against membership lists. They have to have been members for x months first - a year? Six months? Someone will tell us. So you can't just arrive and vote.
From the eight people who put forward their names, five were shortlisted a month ago. One then gained a seat in Bruce Grove before the TG meeting, so we chose three from four. The meeting selected two incumbents - Isidoros Diakides and Bernice Vanier, and Makbule Gunes.
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>>thats the only meeting Bernice turns up to every 4 years?
You don't know which meetings she attends, nor how often.
This is another of your nasty slurs Billy - leave it out m8
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