2024 Lewisham mayoral by-election

[timrollpickering]

Caused by the incumbent resigning to contest a parliamentary by-election. The date is not yet set:

[timrollpickering]

The Conservative candidate is Siama Qadir:

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Three candidates for the Labour nomination

Brenda Dacres, Deputy Mayor
Amanda De Ryk, Cabinet member for Finance and Strategy
Rudi Schmidt, Chair of Overview and Scrutiny

[finsobruce]

Jan 17, 2024 22:10:40 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Three candidates for the Labour nomination

Brenda Dacres, Deputy Mayor
Amanda De Ryk, Cabinet member for Finance and Strategy
Rudi Schmidt, Chair of Overview and Scrutiny

De Ryk looks a bit like Anneliese Dodds.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Labour have shortlisted only Dacres and De Ryk for the selection.

[olympian95]

Brenda Dacres selected

[carolus]

Will be on 7 March

[kevinf]

Independent candidate Nick Long, supported by the new Transform party. Presume that’s their first outing.

[Harry Hayfield]

Feb 10, 2024 17:47:51 GMT kevinf said:

Independent candidate Nick Long, supported by the new Transform party. Presume that’s their first outing.

(Source: Wikipedia) "The Transform Party (also known as Transform Politics, or simply Transform) is a political party active in Great Britain. A merger of four political groups, the Breakthrough Party, Left Unity, the Liverpool Community Independents and the People's Alliance of the Left, Transform aims to build a new left-wing political party to challenge both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party"

[Davıd Boothroyd]

It's far from Nick Long's first electoral outing, I think we should note.

[timrollpickering]

SOPN:

lewisham.gov.uk/-/media/0-mayor-and-council/elections/statement-of-persons-nominated-mayor-of-lewisham.ashx?la=en

Brenda Dacres Labour and Co-operative Party
John Nicholas Hamilton Workers Party of Britain
Michael Herron Green Party
Nick Long Independent
Chris Maines Liberal Democrats
Maureen Maud Martin Christian Peoples Alliance
Siama Qadar Local Conservatives

Dacres is the sitting councillor for Deptford since 2022 and previously sat for New Cross.

Hamilton and Long have both previous stood for People before Profit (Hamilton for Mayor in 2018 and the 2021 Bellingham by-election, Long for Lewisham East in the 2015 general election).

Herron appears to be a first time candidate or to have last stood long ago.

Maines is a regular Lib Dem candidate in Lewisham who has stood for council (Blackheath 2018, 2022), Mayor (2018, 2022) and London Assembly (List 2021 and will be again in May)

Martin is a regular CPA candidate in Lewisham who has stood for Parliament (Lewisham East 2015, 2017, 2018-by, 2019), the London Assembly (List 2016, 2021), council (Leo Green 2018, Catford South 2021-by, Leo Green 2022) and Mayor (2022).

Qadar stood for Deptford in the council by-election last year.

[iang]

Chris Maines was previously a Lib Dem councillor in Bromley I think

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Feb 12, 2024 14:05:32 GMT iang said:

Chris Maines was previously a Lib Dem councillor in Bromley I think

Orpington Central 1986-2002; Orpington 2002-2006.

[iang]

And the Parliamentary candidate when Orpington was a target ( in recent times that is, not in 1974!)

[timrollpickering]

Wasn't Orpington a permanent Lib Dem target right up until the Coalition? ISTR seeing tables that showed it usually had the best Lib Dem vote in London for a seat they didn't win.

[iang]

2001 was when it was ultra marginal. It was one of those seats which we "ought" to have won in 2005, but actually lost ground

[timrollpickering]

Poll added.

[phil156]

This one will be counting on Thursday

[johnloony]

Twitter tells me that George Galloway was in Lewisham the other day, talking to a rag-tag small crowd of assorted lefties campaigning for the WPB candidate. There was a counter-demonstration by a few Trotskyites holding up placards denouncing GG as a “Stalinist” and a supporter of Iran etc.

The bit which amused me was when Galloway said “If you vote for Labour or Conservative in Lewisham on Thursday, you * will * be voting for genocide”

because of course London Borough Councils have the powers and jurisdiction to build extermination camps to get rid of their own ethnic minorities.

[where2travel]

Feb 12, 2024 14:16:35 GMT timrollpickering said:

Wasn't Orpington a permanent Lib Dem target right up until the Coalition? ISTR seeing tables that showed it usually had the best Lib Dem vote in London for a seat they didn't win.

Didn't Orpington go from being the most marginal to the safest Tory seat in London very quickly?

I've compared Orpington to Hazel Grove before and they have quite similar characteristics. However, it's interesting to see from 1970 to around 2005 it behaved electorally far more similar to Cheadle (e.g. throughout the Thatcher years to 1992 with the Tories in the high 50s, the Lib Dems (and predecessors) in the 30s and Labour trailing a long way behind (often in single digits)). 1997 was also similar and, despite the Lib Dems winning Cheadle and Orpington remaining a Tory marginal their vote shares remained remarkably similar up to 2005. As you say from the Coalition onwards, the Tory strength in Orpington is better than it's been at any other time over this period, as more Remain and metropolitan Cheadle becomes increasingly difficult for the Tories again.