Rob Fenwick posted an article about the websites of the various Lib Dem GLA wannabes on Lib Dem Voice. It’s worth reading, and Rob has included his working so you don’t have to take his view at face value.
Nasser Butt‘s website came bottom. Not entirely surprising since, apart from anything else, pretty much all the buttons on it come up with the response ‘not available at this present time’. Not exactly impressive. What did tickle me about this site is the bizarre heading on the welcome page:
Welcome to my online presence
It’s like he’s in the room with me!
As for how I’ll vote? I’m not at all sure yet. I’m torn between voting entirely on politically correct lines on the basis that the more diverse a group of people we have at the top of the list in terms of gender and ethnicity, the better it is for the party from a branding perspective, and the argument that if the biggest morons in the party get onto the GLA, they will be out of everyone else’s hair for four years. Either way, that doesn’t look good for sensible, white male candidates and it is sad that after 7 years of the GLA, I still can’t treat it as seriously as I would a Parliamentary or even local council selection. But then, I’ve written about this before.
James, trust your instincts! I won’t take offence at the ‘morons’ jibe…
The Greens have been very effective in using the GLA as a campaigning platform.
The gender issue is a red herring – there are gender provisions in the GLA selection rules:
The count for Constituencies shall be counted by STV, as described in the latest edition of the Electoral Reform Society’s booklet. The same method shall be used for the Top-Up list, except that it shall be modified in order to allow the ordering of the list of selected candidates and to ensure that at least one of the top three, at least two of the top five, at least three of the top eight and at least four of the eleven selected candidates shall be of each gender
Meral, I wasn’t calling all the candidates morons (and certainly not you), just observing that if the ones who are get on the GLA, they’ll have other things to do than to cause trouble inside the party (I have to confess to not being entirely serious here as I suspect such people would end up causing the party just as much trouble on the GLA – still, it’s tempting!). My instincts are telling me that this isn’t a particularly important selection.
Grace, gender is not a red herring. Just because the selection rules guarantees a certain proportion of each gender, it doesn’t mean I can’t vote to have as many women at the top as possible.