Thursday, 15 January 2015

Who is the Labour candidate for South Cambs?


I was looking for any declared candidates for the General Election on 7th May 2015 for the South Cambridgeshire which includes part of Cambridge covering the Queen Edith's ward. On the Labour website it says the candidate is: Sue Birtles. (As seen below)


The only problem with this is Sue Birtles isn't the candidate. In fact Sue resigned as a Councillor on Cambridge City Council way back in September 2014 having been selected in April 2014. In an article in the Cambridge News it is stated: "Sue Birtles has recently resigned from her role as both a city councillor for Queen Edith’s and parliamentary candidate for South Cambridgeshire."

Further: "Cllr Herbert added that a fresh selection was now underway to fill the parliamentary candidate seat."

Sue gave the reason for resigning as: 

But Ms Birtles told the News: “The decision partly revolved around Queen Edith’s particular position, because it’s not in the parliamentary Cambridge seat, so I never received the support.

I would have left in May, but the party were very concerned they might have a small majority - I was put under quite a lot of pressure to stay, basically.

“There were various issues in the Labour group which I raised with the party leadership, and in my view they were not adequately addressed. I also raised it higher up in the Labour party chain, where I would say there was also not an adequate response.

“I was never on an equal status with the other councillors and for various reasons I felt I was marginalised. The main priority for all the parties is the parliamentary seat, and there was very little interest in addressing the problems in Queen Edith’s.”

Ron says: Sue Birtles misses the point of being a Labour Parliamentary candidate for South Cambs. Labour will never win in South Cambs so Sue was just a "paper candidate". Minimal resources and minimal help. The Cambridge constituency is where the fight is. Queen Edith's ward is at the bottom of the list.

What I don't understand is Sue was looking to leave in May 2014 having been selected only in April 2014.



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