Campaigning in what ought to be a ‘winnable’ parliamentary seat has been dogged by controversies and challenges, reports BELLE MONT
With a General Election getting ever closer, the Liberal Democrats, already in complete disarray over who should be their candidate for the winnable, target seat of Sutton and Cheam, have been forced to cancel a selection meeting due to be held tonight after complaints from applicants who did not make it on to the party’s very short shortlist.
Last week, Inside Sutton reported that just Luke Taylor and Luisa Porritt had been put forward for a members’ selection meeting tonight, from a set of 16 applicants who included former BBC reporter John “Foghorn” Sweeney. The crucial selection meeting was due to be held tonight.
But political journalist Michael Crick has tweeted that “the hustings have been postponed because two complaints were received, and the source suggests John Sweeney and Trish Fivey may now have been added to the shortlist”.
Sutton and Cheam, previously a LibDem stronghold, has been held since 2015 by Tory MP Paul Scully. The constituency was already a target for the FibDems, but with Scully standing down before the General Election, it appeared to offer a realistically winnable parliamentary seat.
Back in contention?: broadcaster John Sweeney
But two years after they thought they had selected their candidate, in David Campanale, giving them plenty of time to establish him a viable option with the voting public, the party’s failures to properly vet their applicant’s background had led to dispute, counter-dispute and legal threats.
There were serious complications when Campanale’s background as founder of the Christian Peoples Alliance Party became common knowledge. It has only been in the past few days that Campanale has dropped references to his being a parliamentary candidate, and a LibDem, from his social media profiles.
Given that the administrative wheels of the Liberal Democrats grind exceedingly slowly, there’s a remote chance that they might actually have a replacement candidate in place for Sutton and Cheam after the General Election is called…
The possible reinstatement on to the candidate shortlist of Sweeney won’t please Sutton Tories, who selected Tom Drummond, the leader of their opposition group on the local council, as their candidate. Sweeney, after many years as a high-profile TV reporter, would provide a robust challenge to the tail-spinning Conservatives after 14 years of misgovernment.
The possible late inclusion of Sutton South councillor Trish Fivey on the parliamentary shortlist, however, has caused some degree of bemusement among sources who inhabit the corridors of Sutton’s Civic Centre.
Shallow: Trish Fivey
Nominally, Fivey is already in an election campaign, as her party’s candidate for the Croydon and Sutton London Assembly seat. But Fivey’s campaign is very much notional – a “paper candidate”, meaning a candidate in name only.
There has been virtually zero LibDem campaigning in Croydon, for instance, ahead of the London elections on May 2. The LibDems have been directing their precious campaign resources elsewhere.
“She’s so shallow, she’d drown in a puddle on Sutton High Street,” one underwhelmed source said of Northern Ireland-born Fivey, 62, who was the ceremonial mayor of Sutton until May 2023.
“What makes her think she has the capacity to be a parliamentary candidate, and one who might win Sutton and Cheam, is anyone’s guess.”
Having to re-boot the selection process won’t help any LibDem candidate, and certainly won’t please political tourist Taylor, who has stood in local and general elections four times (at least) before he was elected a councillor in the Sutton West and East Cheam in 2022.
He stood in 2015 in Battersea, getting a walloping from Tory Jane Ellison and just 4.4% of the vote, losing his deposit. In 2019 in Mitcham and Morden Taylor got 8%, losing to Labour’s Siobhain McDonagh. He stood for Wandsworth Council in 2010, and for Merton Council in 2018, but never got elected.
Wandsworth, Merton, Sutton…: Taylor’s been around the block a bit in pursuit of his personal political ambitions
Porritt, 36, only joined the LibDems in 2016, after the Brexit vote.
She was propelled into the relatively high-profile position as the LibDems’ London Mayoral candidate in 2021 almost by accident, after previous candidates stood down or were caught out for a dodgy past (detect a theme developing here?).
The Camden councillor was found to be significantly out of her depth with the step up to prominence in the capital. Porritt managed to lose the LibDems their deposit, winning just 4.4% of the vote.
The LibDem selection process can be long and convoluted, and candidates commonly produce detailed literature, websites and promotional videos within their campaigns. With an election possible as soon as July, the chosen candidate will have little time to bed in or establish themselves with potential voters – potentially handing to the Tories a parliamentary seat that they have done little or nothing to deserve.
Read more: After ‘El bow’, MP Scully takes aim at Conservative ‘bell ends’
Read more: Ex-BBC broadcaster in running for Sutton LibDem selection
Read more: Scully and Sutton Tories sent scrambling over St Helier plans
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