East London News A Force for the community…
ELN: The local press would not have to mention former councillor Michael Keith so often if his name didn’t keep coming up in connection with the by-election in Weavers Ward due to be held on 3rd May.
Today’s news is that Labour has finally decided to exclude ward members from the selection process – contrary to practice across virtually the entire country, but in line with practice in Tower Hamlets over several years. It appears that local Labour leaders have decided that they will choose the by-election candidate rather than trust members in the ward to decide which candidate they will prefer.
Those due to select the “lucky” candidate include the local Party’s Chair and Vice-Chair and Leader of the Labour Group of Councillors Josh Peck. One local member has been brought forward to add a local view: none other than Councillor wannabe Graham Taylor. Clearly seen as a safe pair of hands by the local hierarchy, Taylor will be a controversial choice with local members who are still bemused over why he should be so adrift from local party policy that he pushed Bethnal Green Technology College to seek academy status. As the officials on selection duty are all men, a woman is likely to be found from somewhere to join the panel and provide diversity.
Over a dozen Tower Hamlets Labour Party members are said to be interested in running in Weavers. But whereas yesterday the news was that Labour was considering putting a local woman in the hotseat, today’s news is that Michael Keith has put himself firmly back in the frame. While even the Labour Party has to admit that a candidate who has been soundly rejected by the electorate three times in a row is a risky option, current thinking is that an increased turnout for Labour’s Ken Livingstone in the London Mayor election on that day will propel Keith into office as the electorate will not distinguish between the two Labour candidates standing on the same day. While some local members have been asking whether this is perhaps taking the local electorate for granted, they have been quietened by louder voices saying that after Bradford West, the Labour Party could do no such thing.
Fortunately a decision is to be made within a week, as clearly none of us could take this level of excitement too much longer.
The frequency to which Prof. Keith’s name pops up is just amazing surely you must be aware of some of the other names in the mix? It would be far more interesting to discuss some of those I think especially since some of them have just hatched out of an eggshell and will be up against Abjol Miah.
I just wanted to clear a few things up because over the last few days I don’t think Michael has been treated fairly in the press or within the Labour party. ‘Michael loses elections’ etc I think that’s a bit of an empty statement. You have to put those defeats into context. He lost in Shadwell, which is a particular type of ward after the Iraq war in 2006, he than had the personal integrity to stand again in the ward he used to represent unlike other people who have hopscotched from ward to ward changing their name in the process. He stood in St Katherine’s and Wapping in 2010 and lost by a small margin polling higher than our previous Labour candidate from 2006, Wapping is also awash with Conservatives and he had the option of standing in a far safer seat.
So yes he has ‘lost elections’ but I don’t think he lost any of them because of who he is but rather where he stood. I don’t think anybody else would have won in any of those circumstances either.
I’m not surprised that ward members aren’t allowed to select the candidate; we’ll have enough explaining to do regarding why the long list was opened up in this instance and not in Spittlefeilds without adding a member’s selection to the mix especially if we select someone who wasn’t on the original list or somebody who is non Bengali.
I think the view that residents in Weavers are so dimwitted that they couldn’t vote John Biggs, Ken Livingstone, Labour top up, then Abjol Miah is a bit insulting. All Labour candidates will benefit from an increase in Labour support and a collapse in Liberal support and perhaps turning a few conservatives at the prospect of a Respect Cllr. But if Labour wants to win in weavers they need to select a candidate that has added value someone who can bring in additional people to that by-election and perhaps more importantly retain a significant proportion of Bengali residents and I think panel members should seriously ask themselves whether any of the shiny new people they’re considering will be able to do that.