#Manchester Local Elections – who is standing? Who is CEM endorsing? (spoilers: no-one). Hustings Mon 19th!

Local authority elections are happening at last. On Thursday 6th May, people will vote for who our new insect overlords will be in the coming years.

All this in the UK’s patented and patently-absurd “first past the post” system.

At the same time, the delayed elections for Greater Manchester Mayor are also taking place. The excitement is killing us, and you two probably. Radical change is on the way.

The first thing you should know is that next Monday, 19th April, from 7.45pm to 9pm there is a climate hustings (a hustings is an event where various candidates who are up for election give speeches/answer questions).  It’s organised by us, Climate Emergency Manchester.  Please

a) register

b) tell your friends and family  (here’s a tweet)

c) come up with questions for the candidates.

Second, you’ll be wanting to know who, in the local and mayoral elections Climate Emergency Manchester thinks you should vote for. Well, CEM will be endorsing… no-one. Not any party, not any individual candidates.

Why? This is not because we think they’re all the same (they’re not). It’s not because we’re divided politically among ourselves (fun fact – of the six members of the core group, only one of us is a member of a political party – and that’s Labour).

It’s because we think you as individual voters need to make your own judgements. We will be looking at the manifestos of the parties, and pointing out what we think is good, bad and mediocre. We will be pointing out where recycling (of previous promises, unkept) has taken place.  We will be pointing to what has and has not been done by Manchester City Council. But we will not be saying “if you live in ward x, then candidate y is the best.”

Third, here’s a bit of additional info that will help you orientate to what is going on.

 Manchester City Council’s elections are taking place in all 32 wards (each ward has about 15 thousand voters). 

In 2 wards (Clayton and Openshaw, Brooklands)  there are two seats up for grabs, because of a death and a resignation.

There are a 149 candidates all up for these 34 seats.

The big four parties (Labour, Lib Dem, Greens, Conservatives) are standing full slates, i.e. 34 candidates each. (1)

4 x 34 = 136 candidates.

That leaves 13 other candidates. These candidates come from either four parties – Womens’ Equality, Monster Raving Loony Party, Reform UK and Communist- with a smattering of independents.

 Women’s Equality Party (3)

Ward	Name
Chorlton	Jo Heathcote
Deansgate	Samantha Days
Didsbury West	Sarika Paul

 

Official Monster Raving Looney Party (2,but the chap in Northenden, Sir Oink A-LOT,  is probably one.)

Ward	Name
Baguley	Merv The Karaoke Kid
Brooklands	Lord Cam

 

Reform UK (2)

Ward	Name
Charlestown	Martin Power
Miles Platting and Newton Heath	Derek Brocklehurst

 

Communist Party (1)

Ward	Name
Longsight	Aaron Andrew

 

Various Independents (5)

Ward	Name
Burnage	Andrea Timoney
Higher Blackley	Stephen Moran
Levenshulme	Jeremy Hoad
Moston	Hugo Wils
Northenden	Sir Oink A-Lot (but with that name and that location, possibly OMRLP)

Footnotes

(1) Of course, most of these are “paper” candidates in most wards – everyone knows the Labour incumbent/candidate is going to get up – in some wards they metaphorically weigh the votes rather than count them. Interestingly though, there has been no standing aside by any parties in any other party’s “target” wards.