Camden: Fortune Green by-election
Well it's now official Lib Dems pick black candidate for Camden'sFortune Green ward by-election set for Thursday 21st February. She is Nancy Jirira originally from Zimbabwe.
The party considers Fortune Green as a safe ward so Nancy is set to become the first Black, Afro Caribbean councillor in Camden.
A smart move. Had to smile when I read, Privately, some members are said to have noticed how their ranks, which swelled at the time of the party’s election success in May 2006, are dominated by white men in their 20s and 30s. Somebody forgot to mention the fact they are also mainly gay. Of the party’s 22 seats on the council, one is held by a councillor from an ethnic minority. Only four Lib Dem councillors are women.
Many people have wondered when Camden LibDems would wake up and started looking at the ethnic mix of the borough when selecting candidates in the future.
The only other ethnic minority LibDem councillor is Kentish Town ward councillor Faruque Ansari of Bengali origin. It was a hard slog getting him selected then eventually elected.
Nancy is health care worker who lives in Sarre Road in the middle of the ward. Had to laugh when I also read that she gets on well with the formidable Flick Rae a long time councillor in the same ward and considered by some as the founder of modern LibDems in Camden. Nancy has no choice if she wants to do well. Flick is the original mother hen - however most people try and avoid being at the end of her sharp tongue.
posted by Suz @ 10:51 PM
5 Comments:
At January 25, 2008 4:42 PM,
Theo Blackwell's blog said…
Great that the Lib Dems are slightly more diverse, but it's poor form for Flick Rea to crow on about how they'd reached diversity nirvana in the local press.
Needless to saw they will bang on about how this is a major achievement, when they fare so badly on this locally, regionally and nationally.
At January 29, 2008 3:34 PM,
Anonymous said…
Also disappointing that Flick can only point to her colour rather than record as a community activist. She has no record of being involved in WHAT or any of the other local groups and therefore does seems a strange choice and Flick didn't appear to have anything positive to say about her other than that she was a black woman.
The Conservative candidate, Heather, is far more well known that Nancy - which says a great deal.
Am sure that Nancy will probably win, but suspect that the Tories and Labour will do better. Labour's candidate is a feisty young local woman.
Ultimately whoever is elected for the Lib Dems will have to justify their agenda in the Town Hall, which seems to be right wing very much masterminded by the brains of the council (aka the Conservative group).
At January 30, 2008 12:00 AM,
Robin Young said…
Pity Conservative Heather isn't well known to the returning officer, then, who seems to think her name is Helen (see Notification of persons nominated on the Camden council website). Heather Downham is an actress (allegedly). Google her and you won't find much evidence of local campaigning - but she does appear to have been in 2001: A Space Odyssey. One of the apes?
At February 01, 2008 11:50 PM,
Robin Young said…
Sadly returning officer Moira Gibb, or a minion, has finally woken up to the fact that the Conservative candidate had been given the wrong name in the official Statement of Persons Nominated for the Fortune Green by-election. Heather Downham it is. A pity. I was hoping to have Helen Downham for personation if, by any sad mischance, she had happened to win.
At February 22, 2008 12:52 AM,
Anonymous said…
Nancy has duly been elected with a thumping majority on a 30 per cent poll, actually managing to garner more votes than her predecessor, the much loved and lamented late Jane Schopflin, scored in 2006. The finishing order was as before, Conservative second, Labour third and Green fourth. I do, though, owe Tory candidate Heather Downham an apology. She was a rather glamorous "space hostess" in Stanley Kubrick's 2001 - and not one of the apes in the famous opening sequence. Robin Young.
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