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Brian Paddick accuses of me of wanting the BNP re-elected to City Hall

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Yesterday Brian Paddick’s campaign team released a video talking up the diversity of their London Assembly slate.

As you can see below, it starts with Brian calling Ken and Boris “tired old men”and then pushes the message that the Liberal Democrats look like London.

I thought the mild agism it contains worthy of comment, as is the newfound Lib Dem commitment to a diverse Assembly team.

In 2004-08 the party had five all white Assembly Members, two of which were members of the House of Lords. Not much diversity there as I commented at the time.

Their current three AMs, all of whom I hold in very high regard, are also all white. As are the top three candidates on the London-wide list – the party would need to increase its vote share to get a single BME candidate elected.

This morning on Twitter I was engaged in what I thought was a good mannered discussion with Brian about the video and the diversity claims.

I even drew favourable comparisons between the way he engaged and the way Ken and Boris supporters claim bias when I criticise or question their candidate.

But I should have held off with the praise, because while Labour and Conservatives often accuse me of supporting the other team, neither have ever stooped so low as to suggest I support the BNP:

Comments

  1. I crunched the numbers on this claim that its either the BNP or Lib Dems. Leaving aside the fact that the BNP are very likely to dip in support by at least .3% and therefore will be off last timme rond of the 11 top up places the BNP were elected in the third slot, meaning the LDs wold have had to have had ten times the vote.

    If they had won one more seat it wold have been at the expense of the Tories not BNP. There is no factual basis for the claim that it’s lib dems or BNP what-so-ever. And I think they know it.

    http://www.bigsmoke.org.uk/?p=54849

  3. When parties are under serious threat they always retreat behind use of the bogey man. The LibDem candidate’s comment is frankly idiotic and betrays that he does not really understand the voting system, In the electoral system used, it is quite impossible to calculate (until you see everyone’s numbers and establish what seats they got in first-past-the-post) exactly how many seats you or your rivals will get, particularly when it comes to those last few places. The real key is the 5% threshold and once a party is over that, it is very likely to gain a seat or two (whatever anyone else does).

  4. Damian’s right that if you get 5% you’ll almost certainly get a seat. Which means voting for any party, even ones that win nothing, drives the turnout up and therefore the number of votes needed to cross that threshold. The Lib Dem vote has no more bearing on the number of BNP AMs than a vote for anyone else.

    I’m still disgusted at the way the Lib Dems are seeking to build the profile of the BNP at this election as if they are an election force to be worried about. This line of the Lib Dems is doing more to build the BNP than the BNP will be doing – they need to remember that when the BNP were a threat it was because people associated them with wanting to give people like Paddick a bloody nose.

  6. It is very interesting that not just the British National Party but also the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition and Independent are being excluded from hustings debates and some media interviews. There are seven candidates for Mayor but you would think there are only four. I hope that your site will interview all of the candidates.

  7. Pat Harrington – Trade Union and Socialist Coalition? Is that what Respect/Left List/SWP are calling themselves this year? They’ve not put up a candidate so it’s hardly surprising they’ve not been invited to speak.

    Siobhan Benita has had plenty of media coverage for someone who has no experience of politics other than as a civil servant and about as much chance of winning. The BNP candidate is a complete no-hoper, a Uruguayan who claimed to have volunteered to fight the British in the Falklands, who will simply not appeal to those who voted BNP last time. The LibDems will struggle to make 10% while the Greens and UKIP are unlikely to get more than that.

    Why waste time talking to the candidates that will struggle to get enough votes to warrant a seat in the Assembly?

  8. ASLEF shrugged – a couple of good points but Siobhan Benita has pointed out already that she is being denied access to tv by the BBC (and what I have already described elsewhere as its anti-democratic “editorial guidelines” which specifically act to bar candidates from our screens if they are in the “wrong class”). And tv is where it counts. The odd mention in the Standard is just not enough when faced with wall to wall endless advertorial tv coverage for the state’s favoured candidates and the bar on sending out your own leaflet to the electorate.

  9. DH – slightly odd as i saw Ms. Benita along with the UKIP and BNP candidates on BBC News last week, only a short piece admittedly but it even had a bit about Gus O’Donnell giving her his support.

    When Ken stood as an independent everybody knew who he was, when Ross Perot stood as a third candidate in the US presidential election he was well known and had been involved in politics for years.

    Ms. Benita’s main problem is that until she announced her candidacy no one had ever heard of her.

  10. Aslef shrugged. I should have been a bit more specific there! The rules create a situation where candidates in the ‘wrong class’ may only appear if they all appear in exactly the same way for the same amount of time. There is an effective bar on them appearing on tv in any meaningful sense as part of the real campaign. They are dumped together in a kind of afterthought and grudging advertorial style early in the campaign in short and tired little slots. The BBC rules also make it very difficult for independent broadcasters because of the differently tiered class system of coverage. As Nick Ferrari pointed out to me at the last election, it is crazy he could have me on his programme once I pulled out of the race (I had planned to stand until I saw these amazing guidelines on restricting my appearances and barring me from meaningful media, and I was an elected member of the London Assembly), but that it would have been very difficult for him to have had me on as an actual candidate because of the BBC’s guidelines (which apply to all broadcasters). He then added he could have the “main three” on for hours no problem. The rules do not actually ban candidates from tv – they so restrict their appearance (and usually only with the other “minor” candidates) that it is as if they are in a sad little campaign all of their own. It is honestly nothing to do with being unknown or independent. If you add up the hours already given to the main candidates against the time for the ‘others’, it is staggering and out of all proportion. A few seconds a week is just not enough, if you are also banned from sending out your own leaflet to your constituents, and banned from raising funds to counter the restrictions. Obama used all that lovely cash to advertise on tv. There is nowhere to go for the minor candidates and that means it is not a free or fair election, not really.

  11. btw the rules regarding Ross Perot were entirely different and based upon one thing – money. Had he not had millions and millions to advertise he would not have had a campaign. The USA is entirely different and I speak there a lot about this and audiences are amazed at the BBC’s lack of commitment to democracy through these use of rules restricting candidates’ rights. They would never tolerate restricting a candidate’s right to advertise on tv, and at the same time effectively bar him from the screens editorially. Ken Livingstone is an example of how the BBC altered the rules to actually include him as one of the favoured candidates in 2000. Had they chosen the other route, which they could have done, he would never have been seen. That is another problem – the state is choosing who should be allowed on tv and allowed to campaign by movable rules which depend upon secrecy and back door shadowy deals.

  12. Quite interesting that the State, which at the time had a Labour government, would allow someone who had deserted their ranks to set himself up in opposition to their chosen candidate so much TV access; perhaps the State and the BBC weren’t so much in cahoots 12 years ago. It’s not just the BBC that ignore the other candidates; go online, pick up a paper, almost everyone has this as a two horse race with everybody else as a side show

    The LibDems get as much time airtime as Labour or Conservatives and have never managed more than 15% of the 1st pref. vote, the Greens get a pretty fair shake of the stick and have never got above 5%. TV exposure hasn’t done them much good and I doubt if UKIP, BNP or an independent with no previous experience in an elected role would have much more success gaining what is possibly the most important position outside the House of Commons if they were on our screens more often.

    Ken was famous when he stood as an independent in 2000, Ms. Benita is unknown, standing for Mayor of London is overambitious to say the least and if she’s serious about entering politics then perhaps she should lower her expectations. Blaming the BBC is frankly rather naive.

  13. I think the point about the greens not having got 5% is quite instructive and actually illustrates why they are getting TV. The four parties that were on the Newsnight debate, for instance, are the parties elected to the Assembly and the Greens have always got *more* than 5% in that election. So what’s happening is that the parties that have consistently been elected in these elections are getting a slot.

    There will be three ballot papers in May, but we only ever really discuss the candidates on one of them (which puts TUSC at a real disadvantage for instance)

    It’s irritating or a couple of reasons. The over emphasis on the Mayor, in my opinion, distorts the Assembly vote and it creates a double burden for the smaller parties. Not only do they need to pursued people to vote for them for the first time, they are given precious little air time in which to make their case.

    I doubt if we were designing or political parties from scratch we’d end up with Labour, Tories and Lib Dems but they have the advantage of history and habit. I’d like to see that shaken up a bit – but without spaces for new voices it’s very difficult to break the suffocating hold of parties that, often, are pretty unrepresentative of public opinion.

  14. Interesting about 2000, ASLEF shrugged, but I point you to the actual BBC rules – the LibDem has only been given the same coverage in the past specifically because the BBC guidelines have stated that he (or she) must be given it! The Greens have now for this Mayor election been granted “favoured candidate” status by the BBC and are therefore being given coverage on a “class tier” which is the same as the LibDem. Last time they could only appear at the same time and in the same way as UKIP and BNP. It is all very carefully calculated. This time, the other 3 cannot appear other than in a segment effectively of their own in tiny numbers of seconds (the rules bar broadcasters from, say, having UKIP on a panel like the Newsnight one, and not Ms Benita or Mr Contiglia), all three or none at all). The coverage as a result is stilted and same-ish. I think that we must agree to disagree about the value of the hours and hours of coverage has for someone promoting their brand. Obama spent almost all of his millions and millions on tv advertising, and the main London Mayor candidates fight like crazy to get those minutes of tame advertorial coverage on the BBC and ITV. I assure you they are not wasting their time and I work with people who spend their entire time trying to get their brand before the public in the only media that matters – tv. Were all candidates to be genuinely given equal airtime, and not actively stopped from appearing on television, you would see a radical difference. Do not forget as well – the candidates are banned from sending out their own leaflet (even one) to their constituents (on spending grounds). I speak about these amazing rules in the USA and Canada and audiences gasp when I read them sections out which artfully stop meaningful challenge to the political class. Livingstone was in an entirely different position in 2000 – a new election and no full or tested rules at all up until the last minute. It has been carefully refined by state radio and television to make sure that no-one can break through, precisely because of that situation.

  15. Jim, that rationale is certainly part of the excuse for anti-democratic rules and restrictions on media, but the idea that the state through its broadcasting arm should actively suppress alternative voices, barring them from access to state media and then through its political wing barring them from sending out material to all their electorate through artful spending rules is shameful. These are the kind of reasons which are given by authoritarian regimes for suppressing oppositions (“there is no demand for the opposition’…). If you make your opposition invisible, then you create a situation in which it appears they do not really exist as an option. The Americans understand this, and of course allow advertising which acts as a check and balance on the possibility of state broadcasting in league with its paymasters who are the ‘main political parties’. Where else does one imagine all that Obama money went…?

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