There is a real surprise….
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Two weeks in and things certainly haven’t been boring. Rather than narrowing, the polls seem to be widening, Ed Davey appears to be auditioning for a Last of the Summer Wine reboot and Farage, never-knowingly happy to be sidelined, has joined in. Meanwhile I’ve been busy on Canva showing why I got a G at GCSE Art.
But let’s make like Rishi and head back home.
At 4pm on Friday, inconveniently at the exact time I had to collect my son from school -for not the first time during this campaign, I come to suspect Sunak has structured the whole thing to/ inconvenience me – the ability to stand for election in Broxtowe closed. Each candidate gathered ten signatures of locals, paid a possibly unreturnable £500 and got themselves into the race.
My job now is to have a look at them all, and try and make as much sense of it as I can so you can vote in an informed manner. This is with the coda that if you are purely using me to base your vote on, I’m flattered while convinced you probably should have the vote withdrawn from you.
I’ll put the self-deprecatory tone aside -I’m crap at it anyway, and cut to the chase.
Here are your candidates.
JULIET CAMPBELL, LABOUR:
If she doesn’t win, the concept of numbers has to be revised and anyone suspected of psephology will be treated as those dabbling in homoeopathy. Yet an internecine war within local Labour rages about her selection, and after casting out for thoughts on this I have been inundated with info and opinions: once I’ve found a coherent and engaging narrative in them, I will try and present a coherent and engaging narrative to you. But as a general rule of thumb writing about Labour – a party driven by huge scaffolds of intellectual ideology, opposed to writing about the Tories -a party driven by huge reactivity and instinctive ideology, I often feel a little depressed. The Left are the political equivalent of Zeno’s Paradox while the Right are lizard brain, unbound by anything other than a desire for power…with a smattering of ideology, for taste.
DARREN HENRY, CONSERVATIVE
The incumbent, and a guy who has left an impression on Broxtowe so light sniffer-dogs would struggle to ever register his presence (they’d have better luck in Wiltshire). Henry has been a trailblazer: he is the first black MP in Broxtowe, and it is almost guaranteed that the next MP will be also black. He is a parent to two children with complex needs, and I admire how he has had to balance that while holding one of the 650 most political jobs in the UK. I also think he has done a sturdy job in pushing through unfashionable legislation (he has been excellent on compassionate leave) and, despite his support for Truss hasn’t used Broxtowe as a stepladder to bang out career-advancing rhetoric.
Has he been an effective local MP? I come with evident and admitted biases, but can’t help thinking he has been lacking,. Pushing back into history here, Soubry (Conservative, TIG) was effective as long as you could catch her eye; (Labour) Nick Palmer was so locally inclined he is a rare example of an MP castigated for being too neglectful nationally. His predecessor, Conservative Jim Lester, was much the same, an MP who could easily be mistaken as a Parish Councillor rather than a ideologically driven and/ or careerist.
His wife, the speedy Caroline, has had more of an impact on local politics than he has and is standing for the Tories in the new Nottm North & Kimberley constituency. Yet it feels off to use her as a stick to beat Darren with, despite their ambitions being so intertwined when I met them both before the 2019 I came away with the impression that Caroline was the candidate and Darren was a Dennis Thatcher-esque character, happy to sit quietly in the corner and let her get on with stuff.
Overall, he has been an abject failure, entirely out of his depth and unable to connect with Broxtowe whatsoever. The chances of him retaining his seat are next to nothing: while polls at a local level often have to focus on the incumbency factor, with Darren there is little or none at all. After his eye-watering expense claim – the county’s highest at the time – his timidity has hardly been matched with parsimony. https://www.darrenhenry.org.uk/
JAMES COLLIS, LIB DEM
While the Lib Dems do reasonably well at Council level here, they are often squeezed out at the General, to such a point last election they didn’t stand a candidate to ensure the pro-EU centralism of the doomed Independent Group / Change UK stood a chance (spoiler: didn’t).
Meeting their candidate should have been a formality with little worth, but when I did get the chance to have a coffee with Collis I was surprisingly impressed. He’s a man who wears his ideology lightly, but has some seriously good ideas about electoral reform, local representation and so on that that might make him an interesting part of the local conversation once the dust settles on the election. As a new politics takes hold under a Labour government, a greater sense of how we can reform a clearly knackered system will become clear. This will require grassroot, local input, and Collis might be a name that transcends his (statistically doomed) candidacy. https://www.broxtowelibdems.org.uk/parliamentary-candidate
TERESA NEEDHAM, GREEN
As I’ve mentioned before, I have known Teresa since our teens when we both worked at Stapleford Co-op. That store is long gone, and Teresa’s journey to politics was not something I would have expected even a decade ago. But in a place where Richard Macrae – who lived a few doors down when I was growing up, and was a hip-hop obsessed tearaway – becomes a beloved local figure fighting for Stapleford with more energy than a busy week at Ratcliffe on Soar, anything can happen.
Well, not anything. She can’t win, but with the fight less a marginal scrap than a coronation she might grab a decent whack of disaffected progressive votes, and put down a marker for the Greens to start making local headway. This would be no bad thing: Teresa, like Macrae, are the type of people we need more of in politics. https://www.facebook.com/BroxtoweGreens
JOSEPH OAKLEY, REFORM
A substitute for the previously selected Andrew Medley (who I have no info on why he was deselected, if anyone has the story -email me!) Joseph Oakley is an unknown to me, and looking into who he is brought up either a much-accredited pharmacist, a Britain’s Got Talent contestant or a convicted domestic abuser. I’m sure he’s none of these (his address is given as a hall on the University of Nottingham campus) so if you’re out there Joseph, I’d be keen to hear more about you, and will update this page when I have more. https://www.reformparty.uk/broxtowe-constituency
MAQSOOD SYED: WORKERS PARTY OF BRITAIN.
While George Galloway pulled of a victory in the Rochdale by-election, it’s doubtful that will repeated across the country, and definitely not in Broxtowe. People do have understandable concerns about Gaza, but coalescing behind Galloway, a nasty bigot in a hat, is perhaps the worst way to effect change. I’m sure Syed will pick up some votes, and perhaps Labour need their conscience pricking on this issue, but if Syed retains his deposit I’ll be surprised. https://workerspartybritain.org/general-election-2024/
DR JOHN DODDY, INDEPENDENT
Just when it was starting to look like a quite dull race, a surprise. Conservative – or rather, former conservative, as he surely will be thrown out now – County Councillor and Stapleford GP Dr John Doddy has chucked his hat into the ring.
Doddy has been a controversial figure in the local Tories for years, with accusations about how he runs his GP practice / used staff to distribute leaflets for him have been documented here – though to date no police action has been taken into the matters described.
He also went to war with Darren Henry’s predecessor, Anna Soubry, in 2018 by launching a questionnaire to all fellow Conservative members simply asking ‘ Are you happy with your MP? / Are you not happy with your MP?”. This might have been OK if he was just a local activist canvassing for opinion, but not so much when you consider that he was Chair of Broxtowe Conservatives at the time.
He was subsequently forced to resign after a no confidence vote of 6-0 went against him, but when Soubry flounced off to form her own party the following year, and Darren Henry subsequently won the election, the assumption was he’d be readmitted into the fold and perhaps seen as having had some valuable foresight.
Alas, it seems something elsehas happened: I’m reliably told it surprised his own party and local activists – even the aforementioned Richard Macrae, who has his ear so close to the ground in Stabbo he can hear a pothole form from 600 yards couldn’t offer any light on the matter. If anyone can, then please get in touch.
However, another theory has come to light, and I think it’s not too rabbit-hole bat-shit to share.
On Friday, Rishi Sunak was out campaigning and was haragued by a frustrated former GP. When an off-camera heckler shouts “”most GPs spend more time on holiday than in the surgery, love”, Sunak laughs, displaying the political nous that has served him so well this campaign:
Could it be that watching that live on telly, Doddy grabbed a £500 deposit and a bunch of signatures and had himself added to the ballot? If anyone knows, let me know please, at lordmattbeestonia@gmail.com.
That’s your candidates; you can meet them in the flesh at 3pm on Saturday at the Stapleford Hustings, St. Helen’s Church: details here: https://www.staplefordcommunitygroup.org.uk/2024/05/27/stapleford-community-group-hosts-general-election-hustings-for-broxtowe-borough/
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Beestonia 
Good summary of the runners and riders. This could possibly be the dullest GE campaign Broxtowe has ever known, unless a few electoral grenades get thrown into the arena…..
Agreed Pete. Nothing inspiring so far from anyone.
Thanks for the mentions.