Although perhaps it was partly reading alarming stories about this or that Labour figure which made me spend all afternoon at the hustings to select the new Parliamentary Candidate, I certainly didn’t hear any extreme or (notably) unwelcome views aired. But it was an interesting experience. More than one candidate spoke of the need to avoid factionalism, and generally they did not seem interested in defining with any great precision exactly where they stood on the political spectrum.
Overall audience and candidates seemed to be united by a whole range of concerns – cuts (of course), inequality more generally, pensions, education, housing and transport all loomed large in the discussion, as did Cambridge’s quite complex demographics. I ended up feeling I had a good sense of the candidates’ individual campaigning interests – the importance of securing fair pension arrangements for women with interrupted careers, for example, or innovative schemes to engage young people in politics. Foreign policy was mentioned only in the most fleeting way.
Labour held Cambridge until 2005, and so the winning candidate Daniel Zeichner, who spoke, and responded to questions extremely well, has an excellent chance of unseating Lib Dem Julian Huppert next time round.
