Croydon North byelection

[Deleted]

John, I can only apologise for failing again.

[Pete Whitehead]

I didn't have any p[roblem with the size of doktorb's image either here or at home. I did have an issue the other day with one of Al's maps which widened the page so much that on subsequent posts it was necessary to keep scrolling back and forth in order to be able to read the text. A solution I found to this problem was to right click on the offending image and block it using Adblock. Obviously it is necessary to have Adblock (or something similar) installed on one's machine in order to do this

[andrea]

Labour selection will take place on November 3th.

Croydon Advertiser have a piece on the selection mentioning that Cllr Louisa Woodley and Val Shawcross have applied as anticipated. Cllr Gerry Ryan (Croydon Central 2010 candidate) has also applied along with Lambeth Council Leader Steve Reed.
www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/Labour-hits-campaign-trail-Croydon-North-election/story-17149539-detail/story.html

[The Bishop]

So no November 15 poll here, it seems - then again, given that there are no police polls in London it is maybe less essential??

[johnloony]

Croydon Advertiser reports that Respect is "very likely" to stand, and it seems that George Galloway thinks that Bradford West will be repeated merely because Croydoon North has a lot of Asian voters. He obviously doesn't know Croydon very well.

Winston Mackenzie says that Conservative and Lib Dem have no chance, and thatt therefore it will be a two-way fight between Labour and UKIP.

CPB has selected Ben Stevenson as its candidate.

[johnloony]

I happened to meet Andrew Pelling on my way to the library about 20 minutes ago, and he says the BNP will *not* be standing in Croydon North.

Interesting fact: The last time the BNP and NF *both* stood against each other in a parliamentary by-election was Uxbridge in 1997, where:
(a) the OMRLP got more votes than BNP and NF combined;
(b) OMRLP got more than 10 times as many votes as UKIP.

[East Anglian Lefty]

The PCC elections mean that there's no benefit to having it on November 15th, but in addition it's worth considering the benefit to delaying it. There aren't good reasons to believe it'll be anything but a resounding Labour hold, so if it was held on the 15th it'd get very little mention. If it's held at a later date, it'll be one of the day's major stories, no matter how much or little effort other parties put in.

[iainbhx]

Oct 23, 2012 8:58:49 GMT johnloony said:

Croydon Advertiser reports that Respect is "very likely" to stand, and it seems that George Galloway thinks that Bradford West will be repeated merely because Croydoon North has a lot of Asian voters. He obviously doesn't know Croydon very well.

Wrong sort of Asians?

[Deleted]

Some people don't seem to realise Asian people could be Russian, Chinese or Papua New Guinean, not just from the Indian subcontinent.

[Deleted]

Croydon North

[johnloony]

Oct 23, 2012 17:28:16 GMT iainbhx said:

Oct 23, 2012 8:58:49 GMT johnloony said:

Croydon Advertiser reports that Respect is "very likely" to stand, and it seems that George Galloway thinks that Bradford West will be repeated merely because Croydoon North has a lot of Asian voters. He obviously doesn't know Croydon very well.

Wrong sort of Asians?

Yes. In places like Bradford, Burnley, Blackburn or various other northen towns there are community tensions and there are segregated streets and schools where one would find an almost entirely white neighbourhood in one place, and an almost entirely Asian neighbourhood a short distance away. This gives rise to the sort of tensions and fears which led to Galloway's victory in Bradford.

Croydon North on the other hand is well-mixed and well-integrated, with white, black and Asian people all mixed up together and living in relative harmony. If Galloway thinks that Bradford can be repeated in Croydon North (or inner London generally) then he is even more of a gallumphing skagglegak than I thought.

[johnloony]

The Green Party is selecting its candidate today. The deadline for votes to be received is 1pm today, so the votes will be counted this afternoon and the announcement made in due course. I asked the Croydon Green Party agent who had applied, or how many applicants there were, but she wasn't even allowed to tell me how many.

None of which changes the fact that the obvious favourite is Shasha Khan.

[Deleted]

Cheers for the updates, John.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Labour shortlist:

* Simon Burgess (Candidate for Brighton Kemptown in 2010)
* Faz Hakim (Adviser on politics and diversity to Tony Blair as Prime Minister, 1997-2000; adviser to Trevor Philips)
* Steve Reed (Leader of Lambeth Borough Council since 2006)
* Val Shawcross (Leader of Croydon Borough Council 1997-2000; Assembly Member for Lambeth and Southwark since 2000) i
* Louisa Woodley (Croydon Borough Councillor for Thornton Heath ward)

[Andrew_S]

My prediction is that Louisa Woodley will get the Labour nomination, (although most of my predictions recently have been pretty useless).

[Deleted]

Oct 24, 2012 14:58:38 GMT Andrew_S said:

My prediction is that Louisa Woodley will get the Labour nomination, (although most of my predictions recently have been pretty useless).

Labour list view of the candidates

labourlist.org/2012/10/croydon-north-selection-the-shortlist/

I think Steve Reed has to be a favourite here otherwise why would a council leader bother ?

[The Bishop]

Nope, its between Shawcross and Woodley IMO.

[Deleted]

Nice to see a competitive shortlist.

[Deleted]

Hardly a fix in a safe labour seat is it ?

great to see

[Andrew_S]

Oct 24, 2012 18:16:42 GMT @ianrobo said:

Hardly a fix in a safe labour seat is it ?

great to see

I think you normally get quite a competitive shortlist in Greater London, which isn't always the case in other parts of the country.