No one cares more about this city and its cultural, social and environmental health than Time Out readers, the most informed, vibrant and adventurous of Londoners. All the candidates for London Mayor know this and are desperate to get your vote, but what if you said: No thanks, my vote isn’t for taking? What if you had your own candidate?
Help us write a manifesto
Join our campaign
Because that is exactly what we plan to do in the run-up to the May elections – give you your own Time Out candidate for the Mayor of London, and in doing it we aim to unleash your intelligence, concern and understanding on London’s behalf.
We will also be standing against the Mayoral election system itself. In order to stand for Mayor of London each candidate is obliged to put down a deposit of £10,000. Apart from being vast amount of money to the majority of Londoners this deposit is only refundable if the candidate achieves more than five per cent of the first choice votes in the Mayoral election’s proportional representation system.
Feature continues
We believe this is far too high a threshold and it effectively denies those Londoners who are not backed by trade unions, big business or foreign capital the chance to stand in their own city. Effectively it silences independent London voices.
Further to that, although unlike the deposit it is not obligatory, if a candidate wishes to be included in the GLA campaign booklet, which will be delivered to all 5.5 million registered voters in London, a further £10,000 must be paid. This figure is not returnable and again denies ordinary Londoners a fair chance in the election.
Our first and perhaps greatest challenge then, is to raise £10,000. If elected, one of the policies of Time Out's candidate will be to lower the threshold to £2,500 and reduce the charge for being included in the election booklet to £1,000. He will also ban any foreign donations in future elections – Japanese property developers should not have a say in how London is governed.
|
|
|
|
