Supporters of would-be Labour Mayor Christian Wolmar are pretty miffed at LBC for excluding him from tomorrow’s in-studio hustings.
His campaign have sent out a lengthy statement criticising the station’s decision and setting out how “disappointed” he is with Tessa Jowell, Diane Abbott, Sadiq Khan and David Lammy for agreeing to take part without him and Gareth Thomas.
I’m not getting involved with the spat between Wolmar and LBC, the station is clearly entitled to decide who it invites on and the number of Labour candidates makes it hard for everyone to make a meaningful contribution or be pushed on the detail of their policies.
But he does have some justification for feeling let down by Lammy and Khan.
This pair famously nominated Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership because – they’ve always claimed – it was important that his views were heard and played a part in shaping Labour’s future offer.
Wolmar seemingly expects them to take the same principled approach and back his participation in all Mayoral hustings – especially as both are keen to borrow his policies and praise his transport expertise whenever they think there’s some brownie points in it.
Sadly for both their ongoing public silence rather gives credence to those who’ve long suspected their motives for nominating Corbyn were not so much about ensuring that his views were heard as they were about picking up votes from his backers in a bid to overtake Jowell.
Update 20.18: Despite his campaign initially saying they didn’t wish to make a public comment on this issue, Sadiq Khan has now tweeted his support for Wolmar’s inclusion:
.@christianwolmar is absolutely right. He should be included in the @LBC hustings tomorrow. #TogetherWeKhan
— Sadiq Khan MP (@SadiqKhan) August 12, 2015
