In case you missed it, David Lammy last week wrote in the Evening Standard about the need for Labour to hold open primaries to select their next Mayoral candidate. As well as Lammy’s original piece it’s worth reading Dave Hill’s response and the discussion at Liberal Conspiracy.
Personally I found Lammy’s article a lightweight, vacuous statement of the obvious. When he wrote:
“Our candidate must involve and inspire everyone — from the Dagenham cabbie to the Latin American stallholder in Elephant and Castle; someone who speaks to the concerns of the Redbridge commuter and the pensioners of Tottenham.”
did he really think he was saying something profound? Was there ever a time when parties didn’t select candidates in the hope that they’d inspire as many voters as possible? Hasn’t that always been how candidates become officeholders?
Am I alone in finding it odd that after praising the Tories for their open primary in Totnes Lammy then reveals that he’s spent the last six months
“visiting constituencies, talking to grassroots Labour Party members from across London”
Surely if you’re calling for a new form of politics in which everyone feels their voice counts it’d be better not to confine your homework to discussions with only those prepared to shell out for a party membership card?
But where this contribution to the debate on London’s political future and voter empowerment really fails is the total absence of any mention of the London Assembly. In his second paragraph Lammy predicts:
“We will see changes to how we select our councillors, MPs and — I hope — how we choose the next Mayor of London.”
which is nice, but it’s a pretty glaring oversight not to mention the people elected to oversee
“the second-most-powerful elected office in the land, with an annual budget of over £3 billion”
Not a single utterance on voter’s inability to reject a specific party placeman on the list of ‘top-up’ candidates while still supporting the party, not a word on increased powers for the Assembly so they can hold the Mayor to account, not a thought on ways to help voters understand how the various components of the Greater London Authority actually work, not a glance towards recall powers which would allow Londoners to hold future Mayors and AMs to account.
No, what apparently matters most to Londoners is that parties ape the X Factor and hold a series of beauty parade selection processes.
Lammy is an all-round lightweight – really superficial. Every time I hear him, whether at the dispatch box, or on the Today programme, or even on some silly Mastermind programme, he always seems completely out of his depth… probably because he is. Why anyone other than his mother would rate him, is one of life’s great mysteries.
As for the Assembly, it would indeed be more democratic to enhance its power, but only if the AMs would properly represent the interests and concerns of their constituents, which at present, it seems to me, they singularly fail to do, preferring instead to squabble like a bunch of old fish wives along incredibly tedious party lines.
I wonder how many Londoners could even name their constituency AM, or any AM. Not many I suspect.
Another problem, of course, with this idea of primaries is the cost. Anyone who has ever tried to mailshot every voter in just one constituency knows the £20k price tag. Indeed, you cannot actually do this during an election campaign itself because to do so would bust the amount you are allowed to spend as a candidate. All you get is the state censored ‘free’ mailshot on tired thin paper. To stage a London primary properly would cost a party about £3 million. In any event, the whole thing is a lightweight diversion from the real problems with the London Mayor and Assembly elections, which in all probability David Lammy would find difficult to understand. The issues of oversight mentioned by Appealing of Ealing are never tackled properly, and the fact that the London Assembly now has fewer actual powers relative to the centre than it had at its outset makes it difficult for members who are elected to it. As I repeatedly told the DCLG during the process of the review of powers: “Assembly Members are not even allowed access to any of the information which is crucial to enable them to hold the Mayor to account in the most crucial areas. They can try Freedom if Information but are then frustrated for months in getting anything: if and when it comes, most of the information is not there”. Can we any of us be serious about democracy if a supposed oversight body is simply denied access to all relevant information, then prevented from discussing that relevant information at Assembly Meetings if it has been passed to them from friendly outside sources? Material which can quite legally be printed in newspapers, or discussed on air? Just giving voters a list of a few approved party politicians to choose from will not re-engage them with the political process, I am afraid…