Another selection, another ethnic minority MP? The H&WG selection
2 05 2007The selection contest to become Labour’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate in the Hornsey and Wood Green (’H&WG’) constituency is hotting up. Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat MP, snatched the seat from Labour’s Barbara Roche with a slim 2,395 majority in May 2005. The seat will be high on Labour’s hit list next time round. Eight of the thirteen who have put themselves forward are ethnic minority candidates.
There is a strong and diverse field for members to choose from. TMP sources hear that Jan Etienne and Claudia Webbe, in particular, impressed at a recent hustings. The front runner appears to be the ever popular Leader of Islington Labour Group, Catherine West. Other notable candidates include the former head of the Department for Work and Pensions’ Ethnic Minority Employment Division, Afsana Shukur.
Four of the ten H&WG Labour Party branches will be nominating today; three more will be nominating on 9, 10 and 13 May respectively, with the last three nominating on 14 May. The shortlisting will take place on Friday 18 May.
Below is a brief profile of the runners and riders:
Catherine West: Current Leader Labour Group, Islington Council; Co-founder ‘Hotfoot’ magazine; former aide to David Lammy MP.
Jan Etienne: Lecturer; Parliamentary candidate (Southend West, 2005); Local Election Candidate (Brent, 2006); Former Brent Councillor; Black Socialist Society Executive member; BAME (“Black, Asian or minority ethnic candidate”).
Dr Anwara Ali: Current Tower Hamlets Councillor; GP; BAME.
Jayne Cecilia Buckland: Current Enfield Councillor.
Claudia Webb: Local Election Candidate (Islington, 2006); Former race advisor to the Mayor of London; Vice Chair, Trident Independent Advisory Group; BAME.
Shiria Khatun: Current Tower Hamlets Councillor; Project Manager, The Children’s Society; BAME.
Frances Crook: Director, Howard League for Penal Reform.
Afsana Shukur: Executive Director, Serco; Former Senior Civil Servant Dept. Work and Pensions: Labour Market Strategies; BAME.
Ayesha Chowdhury: Current Newham Councillor; Property Developer; BAME.
Mee-Kuen Chong: Wembley activist; BAME.
Tricia Clarke: Labour and CWU parliamentary panels member; British Telecom worker.
Nilgun Canver: Current Haringey councillor and Cabinet member for Crime and Community Safety; BAME.
There is one other candidate for whom we have no details.
Catherine West is an excellent candidate!
Tricia Clarke would make an excellent MP.
If Labour don’t pick a good black candidate for this seat, they are mad.
Mee-Kuen Chong? Please no…
Having attended my branch meeting and hearing results of nominations from other branches, I would say the favourites are Catherine West, Jan Etienne, Nilgun Canver and possibly Claudia Webb and a UNISON official called Karen Jennings.
Tricia Clarke is a local candidate - she is CLP Secretary for Islington North and lives in Archway N19
Catherine West gets my vote. Local candidate (Islington North) and knows her stuff. Can trounce the Lib Dems as she’s done in Islington. Not so sure that Karen Jennings is really one of us. I know that as a UNISON bod she has work to do, but some of her anti-government stuff is pretty hard core and don’t we get enough of that from the tories?
Given that Tony Blair has celebrated the election victories of Sarkozy and Aznar and is now supporting Aherne in Ireland I would hardly say that he is “one of us” either.
Catherine West is a policy-lite pavement politician. Not difficult to beat the Liberal Democrats at their own game when they’re in power, bit harder when their not and Labour still runs stuff locally. Apparently she lost the selection for Islington South to Emily Thornberry, so she can’t be that great a politician.
Don’t know enough about Karen Jennings but she seems to have some pretty heavyweight government backers so I don’t think that objection holds water. Nilgun Canver looks good.
I suspect that Karen Jennings has pretty heavy weight government objectors too given her professional stance! Catherine is hardly policy-lite as anyone who has spoken to her can confirm. Pavement politics counts as the Lib Dems can also confirm. They’ve bugger to them except for that and getting the anti-Labour vote in H&WG.
I found Catherine West pretty unimpressive when I spoke to her, and I undretsand her GC speech was utterly appalling - “read out her own name” was one description. A lot of talk about Labour values and not much substance.
Catherine West has wanted our seat for ages and she’s got precious little to say. If she wasn’t good enough for Islington South to select as their MP when she was Labour Group leader there why should we accept their castoff as our PPC? She’s putting stuff round saying she’s backed by Lord Chris Smith - precious lot of good that did her in Islington South & Finsbury.
Jan Etienne and Nilgun have been good and better on policy but from what I can gather from talking to others the candidate who is now set to do very well indeed is Karen Jennings. Haven’t spoken to her but she left a couple of messages on my home phone.
Pavement politics does count, but it’s not enough. Hornsey & Wood Green is not Birmingham Hodge Hill, and Labour controls the council in Haringey so she can’t run a simple “kick-em-out” campaign like the overrated 2006 Islington Labour approach.
Well, yesterday was the all-member hustings and I did think Karen Jennings was the most impressive candidate. She spoke very fluently and made a lot of sense. I think there were 284 votes cast and Karen won on the first round with about 154 votes putting her as first preference.
None of this is to say that the other candidates weren’t good. People like Jan and Nilgun did well though perhaps not so well in the questions. I liked Claudia Webb talking about imperialism, I wonder how that went down with Benski?
Understand Jennings did well on the postal votes. A lesson, perhaps, to other candidates!
“Understand Jennings did well on the postal votes. ”
Can you substantiate that at all Lester? I would be interested to know more about the result but at the meeting the Chair only gave the overall result for Jennings and nothing else
The results including the postal votes reflect that the unions are still a very powerful network within the Labour Party and nothing to do with the other candidates needing a lesson!!
The results only continue to confirm that “All women shortlists” only benefit white women as no Black/minority ethnic member of parliament has ever been elected from an “All women shortlist”
Nilgun Canver, Jan Etienne and Claudia Webbe should be proud of their powerful presentations, excellent speeches and positive contributions throughout the selection process
Lynne Featherstone IS an ethnic minority MP. She is Jewish. If being from an ethnic minority is a criterion for being an MP, be happy that Hornsey & Wood Green HAVE an ethnic minority MP.
Or do you not count us as an ethnic minority because of our skin tone?