The shortlist will be officially published shortly, but according to the
Grauniad there are four names on it and they are the only four who've
applied.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/d...date-shortlist

Three names have been discussed already on this thread: Lembit Öpik, Brian
Paddick and Mike Tuffrey. The fourth is Brian Haley, a former Haringey
councillor who defected to the Lib Dems in January 2010 after being
deselected by Labour and rejected by the Conservatives. He's very keen on
controlled parking zones, as are the Lib Dems in general (it's about their
one constant in local government).

http://www.haringeyindependent.co.uk...princi ples_/

The Lib Dems are currently in the process of hustings and balloting. All
four candidates have submitted a two-page manifesto to members, with the
full set available at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/60713785/l...manifestos2011
(Warning: BIG file)

Their transport pledges are as follows:

Brian Haley:

* Review all bus routes into London
* Reduce the number of large vehicles coming into the city *
* Bring canals back into use
* Make it easier to walk and cycle
* Wants to negotiate a no-strike deal with the unions

(* It's not clear in a number of candidates' material whether by "the
city"/"the City" they mean the Square Mile or the whole metropolis.)

Lembit Opik:

(Note - it's emerged that Opik didn't write this manifesto himself, and has
since pledged to sign off everything going out in his name. Given the
approach on some issues - particularly "explaining" why he lost
Montgomeryshire - I reckon the author is Ed Joyce, director of
Lembit4London.)

* Encourage working from home
* Run some tubes 24 hours, exploring all options, refusing to be "defeatist"
and making passengers pay for their journey

Brian Paddick:

* Hold down fares, to be financed by "scrapping Boris Johnson's vanity
projects"
* Maintain the bus fare subsidy
* A clean-air zone for central London with action on high-polluting vehicles
* Hand over some TfL land for affordable new homes

Mike Tuffrey:

Policy pledges are rather light on the manifesto but amongst the snippets we
get:

* Campaign to bring London's trains under the Mayor's power
* Fight for cleaner air

In message , at 14:39:25 on Wed, 27 Jul
2011, Tim Roll-Pickering remarked:

* Bring canals back into use

Which canals are not in use?

Actually, there's few in London, the longest of which by far seems to be
the Croydon Canal (closed 1836), but it hardly seems like a priority to
get it restored, especially as it would mean closing some railways which
have re-used parts of the alignment!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._Kingdom#Aband
oned_or_unnavigable_canals_in_England
--
Roland Perry

"Roland Perry" wrote:

In message , at 14:39:25 on Wed, 27 Jul
2011, Tim Roll-Pickering remarked:

* Bring canals back into use

Which canals are not in use?

Actually, there's few in London, the longest of which by far seems to be
the Croydon Canal (closed 1836), but it hardly seems like a priority to
get it restored, especially as it would mean closing some railways which
have re-used parts of the alignment!

That'd be the Brighton mainline which uses the Croydon Canal alignment
between New Cross and Croydon - not sure if rail passengers would really
welcome transferring to canal boats to cover this stretch!

The London Canals website is the 'go to' reference site:
http://www.londoncanals.co.uk/

For those who haven't yet seen the outcome, Brian Paddick has been selected
as the Liberal Democrat nominee for Mayor.

A reminder of his transport pledge from his two page manifesto:

* Hold down fares, to be financed by "scrapping Boris Johnson's vanity
projects"
* Maintain the bus fare subsidy
* A clean-air zone for central London with action on high-polluting
vehicles
* Hand over some TfL land for affordable new homes

The full figures, for those interested, we

First round
Brian Paddick 1,289 (42%)
Mike Tuffrey 1,232 (40%)
Brian Haley 316 (10%)
Lembit Opik 252 (8%)
Total valid votes: 3,089

Second round
Brian Paddick 1,567 (51%)
Mike Tuffrey 1,476 (49%)
Majority: 91 (2%)

So the Liberal Democrats, like Labour, have decided to make it easy for Boris Johnson to be re-elected. I am an early and severe critic of Boris but I will vote for him because he is at least tolerable. I am sure there are many other Londoners who will vote likewise for the same reason.

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 3 Sep 2011 01:27:32 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

For those who haven't yet seen the outcome, Brian Paddick has been
selected
as the Liberal Democrat nominee for Mayor.

A shame because he'll get squashed out of the way by Ken and Boris.

While Mr Tuffrey may have less of a profile than Mr Paddick I think he
would have placed both of the other candidates under a lot of scrutiny
about policy and delivery which is what is actually needed. We're not
holding a beauty parade

You may not be, but the majority of the electorate are

tim

Paul Corfield wrote:

While Mr Tuffrey may have less of a profile than Mr Paddick I think he
would have placed both of the other candidates under a lot of scrutiny
about policy and delivery which is what is actually needed. We're not
holding a beauty parade - it's an election where clear plans, good
ideas and proper scrutiny of delivery against their previously
declared commitments is required.

I'm afraid elected Mayors are not turning out quite the way people expected
(and hoped?) - I think the expectation was that the posts would attract new
talent, especially from industry, who would be interested in running for a
direct executive post but not in the street level work that councillors do
which is a pre-requisite to being a council leader. Unfortunately the UK
party system doesn't operate in such a way that such outsiders can dip in to
electoral politics. Ironically Paddick in 2008 is the nearest to a US style
candidate that any of the parties on the GLA have yet fielded and both he
and the Lib Dems found the experience an unhappy one (he says he's learnt
from the experience and certainly he's more experienced in Lib Dem
campaigning now).

The other problem is that elected Mayors are not seen as a stepping stone to
higher things because it's hard to know if one can return to the Commons, so
the ambitious are not drawn to the post (okay Lembit stood but... he's
Lembit). Here it will take time and precedents to change that to show the
talent can easily jump between venues.

I dread to think what will happen if we ever get regional government -
whatever one may think of special advisors going into safe Westminster seats
they do have political knowledge and talent but are unlikely to stand for
regional assemblies. Anyone fancy a chamber full of county councillors who
fancy a nice sinecure?

Months of political jamboree is going to be tedious in the extreme.
Recent skirmishes between Ken and Boris "supporters" fill me with
dread.

If you think Boris's supporters hate Livingstone, you should hear some of
the attitudes held about him in certain London Labour Parties.

In article ,
(Tim Roll-Pickering) wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:

While Mr Tuffrey may have less of a profile than Mr Paddick I think he
would have placed both of the other candidates under a lot of scrutiny
about policy and delivery which is what is actually needed. We're not
holding a beauty parade - it's an election where clear plans, good
ideas and proper scrutiny of delivery against their previously
declared commitments is required.

I'm afraid elected Mayors are not turning out quite the way people
expected (and hoped?) - I think the expectation was that the posts
would attract new talent, especially from industry, who would be
interested in running for a direct executive post but not in the
street level work that councillors do which is a pre-requisite to
being a council leader. Unfortunately the UK party system doesn't
operate in such a way that such outsiders can dip in to electoral
politics. Ironically Paddick in 2008 is the nearest to a US style
candidate that any of the parties on the GLA have yet fielded and
both he and the Lib Dems found the experience an unhappy one (he says
he's learnt from the experience and certainly he's more experienced
in Lib Dem campaigning now).

The other problem is that elected Mayors are not seen as a stepping
stone to higher things because it's hard to know if one can return to
the Commons, so the ambitious are not drawn to the post (okay Lembit
stood but... he's Lembit). Here it will take time and precedents to
change that to show the talent can easily jump between venues.

I dread to think what will happen if we ever get regional government
- whatever one may think of special advisors going into safe
Westminster seats they do have political knowledge and talent but are
unlikely to stand for regional assemblies. Anyone fancy a chamber
full of county councillors who fancy a nice sinecure?

Months of political jamboree is going to be tedious in the extreme.
Recent skirmishes between Ken and Boris "supporters" fill me with
dread.

If you think Boris's supporters hate Livingstone, you should hear
some of the attitudes held about him in certain London Labour
Parties.

Don't be quite so dismissive about councillors. Many MPs once had that role
and some in all parties are very good. My present MP was a County Councillor
until 2009. I'm sure he'll go far.

Some ex-councillor MPs may only make mediocre backbenchers but I wouldn't
accuse any of the former members of my council (Cambridge City) of that.
There are currently two and another two (both former council leaders)
retired in 2010.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

wrote:

I dread to think what will happen if we ever get regional government
- whatever one may think of special advisors going into safe
Westminster seats they do have political knowledge and talent but are
unlikely to stand for regional assemblies. Anyone fancy a chamber
full of county councillors who fancy a nice sinecure?

Don't be quite so dismissive about councillors. Many MPs once had that
role
and some in all parties are very good. My present MP was a County
Councillor
until 2009. I'm sure he'll go far.

There are good ones who are drawn to Westminster and good ones who are
unlikely to ever stand for it but the question I raised is would they be
drawn to devolved assemblies? It's a question that needs to be addressed
seriously (albeit rather OT for this newsgroup) before new bodies and
elections are held. When the London Mayoral referendum was held back in 1998
the party introducing it took the official line of "we are discussing
creating the post, not who will be our candidate for it" which in hindsight
has proved a mess because nobody was really stopping to ask just whether or
not the culture was there that would produce the kind of candidates
envisaged.

And then there are the devolved Parliaments and Assemblies, where a common
complaint is that the non-nationalist parties are generally sending their
high profile best talent to Westminster and, with some individual
exceptions, Holyrood and Cardiff Bay are left with B-list talent (or C-list
when they suffer a reversal that replaces a load of constituency members
with listers). English regional assemblies would be even less attractive.