Friday 1 March 2013

Dismore 4 Hendon! And a proper fire service for London!

Andrew Dismore, the former Labour MP for Hendon, lost his seat narrowly to Conservative Matthew Offord in 2010. Dismore has now told Labour Party members in Hendon that he will put his name forward in the selection procedure to be Labour's candidate at the next election.

Dismore is currently the representative for Barnet and Camden on the Greater London Assembly (GLA). Dismore won all seven Hendon wards in the GLA election 2012 and almost 60% of the constituency vote. This was a better vote than he achieved in 1997, when he first won the seat.

Obviously, a big factor in Dismore's great GLA score was the Conservative candidate he unseated: Brian Coleman. To some extent it was an Anyone But Coleman vote. But it was not just that. Dismore's personal reputation was good (not spotless but good). Dismore's defeat in Hendon was a shock; part of the reason he lost was a vicious campaign waged against him during the election period by an Islamist organisation called the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPACUK).

In the next election his likely opponent, the incumbent Matthew Offord, while not as notorious and unpopular as Brian Coleman, is certainly not Mr Charisma or Mr Industry. (Take a look at Offord's website, for example. It doesn't bowl you over, does it?) Whereas Dismore has always been very active, and, moreover, seen to be very active.

He has just helped to achieve the staving off of Boris Johnson's planned cuts to fire stations and personnel in London for a year, in order for a proper public consultation to go ahead. Dismore's very busy website brings this excellent piece of news.
Today Boris Johnson’s plans to close 12 fire stations and axe 18 fire engines [and 520 firefighters] were set back. The move came after members of the London Fire Authority accepted that the 2013/14 budget will not include cuts to frontline services. A motion proposed by Labour Assembly Member Andrew Dismore, and passed by today’s London Fire Authority meeting, asked that no frontline cuts are in the 2013/14 budget. There will now be time for a full and wide ranging consultation with Londoners.

2 comments:

Moaneybat said...

Dismore for Hendon? Why?

has he turned from the left to the right to the Centre righrt and now sound out the Middleband, he's turned again to some kind of Lefty. It was 1997 and the parallel with 2012 is ? You know, come on, you do know.

Get around the West Hendon estate, Maybe ask JB of Unison how Didmore and not a lot, was inconsistent in supporting or not, at the creation of Barnet Honmes, you know that private quango. Can't say how many Labour voters turned away from Blue Labour,and the chancer. What achance 2012 provided?

Convince some of us in the constituency why we should switch from the left to what is Left of Labour and renew membership and singout loud with Middleband and his Middlebrand. Cant' say labour would not be doing the same within two years of being elected andHendon being represented by somebody without good grace to have retired in 2012 and allowed another from this borough throw out Mofford.

Hats off to Dismore's motion but also, Hats off to the members of the LFA for doing what is right, and hope they would do the same had it been a Labour type of Mayor

Anonymous said...

Council officers knew him as "Andrew Dismal" because of his lack of vision and charisma.