Bermondsey and Old Southwark Liberal Democrats held a celebration for Simon Hughes on Saturday, celebrating 25 years as Bermondsey's MP. Around 300 people were in attendance, just a small selection of the thousands who have either been involved in Simon's local campaigns or helped by his office.
The event, which lasted well over 6 hours, was a fantastic piece of organisation so well done to Riverside's new Councillor Anood Al Samerai, Party Chair Sally Burnell and the team.
It is fair to say a good time was had by all and a very high bar has been set for the 30-year celebration in 2013...
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Simon Hughes 25 years
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4 comments:
Pity the lib dems don't have the courage of their convictions and allow the voters the refernda on Europe.
If we really want to be democratic, we have to trust the electorate and let them exercise choice on the issues.
A bad day for democracy.
Pity Simon didn't vote for the choice
Pardon me saying this - I wasn't even born at the time, and can't really judge - but is the 1983 Bermondsey by-election really something we should be celebrating or making a fuss about?
The event in question was celebrating the entire 25 years of Simon's time as an MP including 6 General Election victories. I think that's worth celebrating and making a fuss about.
In respect of how we should remember the Bermondsey by-election the Wikipedia has a very balanced summary of the context and content of the campaigns by all parties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermondsey_by-election,_1983
It remains the largest swing in history in any UK parliamentary election and was as notable for the commentary it made on the state of Labour at the time, homophobia in society, as well as amongst some campaigners.
That Hughes has apologised to Tatchell for what he experienced suggests there is a case to answer that elements of Liberal campaign were unsavoury. In particular the 'Straight Choice' leaflets(although actual intent there is genuinely debatable given it was a common strapline at the time) and badges worn by Liberal Gay Action Group. However these were quite small errors of judgement, compared to the up front bigotry displayed by the Real Bermondsey Labour candidate and his team (which Queen will you vote for leaflets, and an anti-gay parade), and by some ordinary members of the public who assaulted Tatchell.
The winning candidate certainly benefitted from homophobia, but it is entirely wrong to suggest, as some embittered Labour activists continue to do, that he personally instigated it, or downplay how much damage Tatchell did to himself through prior involvement in extremist groups.
It is hard to imagine any hard-left Labour candidate winning that by-election and the bulk of Hughes campaign involved standard community politics and highlighting Labour's extremism compared to the Liberals broad moderate appeal.
In that regard I personally delight in reminding Simon that he came into Parliament as a moderniser.
I take the view, as I believe do all serious liberals, that hate campaigning of all forms is wrong. Whether that's gay-hate, race-hate or class-hate. It is regretable that we have campaigners in any party who regard winning as so important that they are prepared to engage in misrepresentation and pander to ignorant prejudices.
In extreme misrepresentation cases, such as Miranda Grell, there now exists the facility to remove those people from office. O'Grady might well have been guilty of an offense of misrepresentation. The Liberal element who caused offence were not, and Simon Hughes certainly wasn't...
Otherwise it's a matter of internal party discipline and the jury of public opinion.
On the first point should Simon have been disciplined by the party, well no, he didn't encourage or engage in the tactics that caused offence. It's hard to see what charge, under what rule, in any party, could be levelled against him. And it's certainly irrelevant now.
On the second, Simon Hughes record is extremely impressive. And that has everything to do with his own values and personal commitment to the people of Bermondsey, not his first election campaign 25 years ago. That record I feel is worth celebrating.
Congratulations to Simon - he was clearly the straight choice for Bermondsey.
Pity he will never achieve any office of note as he clearly has talent and could have had a proper job as cabinet minister or similar if he had joined labour
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