Post in Young Mayor For Newham: Democracy in action or more bread and circuses?
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Young Mayor For Newham: Democracy in action or more bread and circuses? From: David Padua Date: 2007 Sep 24 23:11 UTC Short link
if thats the case, then it makes a mockery of the whole process and it would be
insult to have this as the showpiece in the so-called "democracy week"
----- Original Message ---- From: Mike Law <mikelaw_per@yahoo.co.uk> To: Newham Issues Forum <newham-issues@forums.e-democracy.org> Sent: Monday, 24 September, 2007 2:06:01 PM Subject: Re: [Newham] Young Mayor For Newham: Democracy in action or more bread and circuses? A young person who participated in the young mayor for Newham event (but was unsuccessful in their bid to become one of the 15 candidates) has informed me of what happened over the weekend. It seems there were 56 original prospective candidates and these were whittled down to 15. Of those final 15, 10 are from St Bonaventures and St Angela's Ursuline: I was told that there was an element of collusion between the two schools, which is understandable considering their close proximity etc. So there is a good chance that the young mayor will be from one of these schools. However (and this is news to me), there is a plan to have a youth council to support the young mayor and this will consist of the 14 remaining candidates who do not become Newham's young mayor. This youth council is to replace the youth parliament - a democratic body made up of around 200 young people from across the borough replaced with a self-selecting group of 14. As a brief note on the youth parliament: while I was a Labour councillor it was clear that the mayor was no great fan of this body. I asked one of his special advisors (one who is now on the higher rate of special responsibility allowance) why this was the case. I was told that the mayor had reservations about the ethnic and gender mix of the youth parliament; apparently, there were too many young black women on the parliament. I understand that young black women will constitute over 50% of the new youth council. In any event, it seems that even though the council is keen to prevent the young mayor from representing a political party, community organisation or faith group, the young people of Newham have established their own get-around by organising in such a way as to ensure that a small group of friends and associates get selected for office where have I come across this before? Good to see democracy in action in Newham! Oh and I was told that our young friend Awais has successfully gone through to the next round... well done! Michael Law North Woolwich, Newham Info about Mike Law: http://forums.e-democracy.org/contacts/michaellaw This topic's messages may be viewed at: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/4fewrjkYfwVQkaeZ97pLrw ----------------------------------------- To post, send your message to: <email obscured> To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on," in subject line and send to: <email obscured> More info about Newham Issues Forum: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/newham-issues E-Democracy.Org rules: http://e-democracy.org/rules ----------------------------------------- Technical assistance thanks to our friends at http://OnlineGroups.Net ___________________________________________________________ Nervous about who has your email address? Protect yourself with AddressGuard, new from Yahoo! Mail. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail/addressguard.html