It would appear that an inquest is already underway into our disappointing result in London. So, I think to myself, perhaps a comment or two of my own is in order...
Picking our candidates earlier is indeed a good thing. We do it for Europe about eighteen months out, and we probably should have done for London. Perhaps the then Regional Candidates Chair should explain why we didn't...
The Mayoral candidate is a different question. A year ago, Ken looked pretty unassailable and both the Conservatives and ourselves were finding it difficult to attract 'sacrificial lambs' to run against him. In all honesty, had anyone known that Ken was going to implode so dramatically, I suspect that volunteers to take him on would have been much easier to find.
Indeed, the difficulty for Brian Paddick this time was that Boris's emergence as the Conservative candidate rather sucked the oxygen out of the other campaigns and a classic third (and for that matter, fourth) party squeeze ensued.
One interesting aspect was the result of the Greens on the Assembly relative to their Mayoral vote. They clearly managed to do much better on the Party top-up list than Sian Berry's vote would have implied. Perhaps our efforts to be seen as a serious party of government have damaged our ability to attract protest votes which have gone Green instead?
The Regional Candidates Committee will meet on Tuesday to continue their review of the GLA/Mayoral selection. Whilst I won't be there myself (romance 1, politics 0), I look forward with, until my return at least, vague interest as to their progress...
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