The Forest Hill Society and the Sydenham Society are organising an election hustings for candidates for our next MP on Tuesday, 23rd May from 7:30pm at JK Banqueting Hall at 15 Perry Vale, SE23 2NE, in the centre of Forest Hill.
Candidates invited to attend are:
Shaun Bailey - Conservatives
Ellie Reeves - Labour
John Russell - Liberal Democrats
Karen Wheller - Green Party
Hoong-Wai Cheah - UKIP
Great! Any indication as yet as to whether and which candidates will accept the invitation?
We have three out of five confirmations but I have only just emailed the UKIP candidate as I didn’t know who it would be until this evening.
Brilliant, thank you! Looking forward to it!
Will we need to book or just show up?
The meeting is open to all booking is not necessary but the first 100 people get chairs 
Efforts much appreciated, thank you @Michael and others 
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Looking forward to attending the hustings, and it will be good to hear more about this event as it comes together.
On a separate note - there was some confusion on other forums about local organisations, and I want to make it clear that SE23.life is not affiliated with any political party or candidate. We are also unaffiliated with the Forest Hill Society. We share a sincere concern for the local area, but our organisations are entirely separate. SE23.life is also unrelated to the Community Library, much as we love it.
Best get there early then to save my old legs 
Excellent news. Thanks to the FH and Sydenham societies for organising.
What is the format for questions? Will there be questions from the audience and would they need to be submitted in advance?
There will definitely be questions from the audience. I won’t comment further on the structure of the hustings as we still have to decide on that and confirm with the candidates.
Chris, you missed out religion. You probably need to let them know that SE23.life is not affiliated to any religion as well before they spread that rumour about you trying to kill their four legged higher being?
I can confirm that the four candidates (Shaun Bailey - Conservatives, Ellie Reeves - Labour, John Russell - Liberal Democrats, Karen Wheller - Green Party) have all agreed to attend. The UKIP candidate was invited, unfortunately he can’t make it.
If anybody wishes to help out tomorrow evening, please come along at 7pm to help put out chairs and direct people to the hall.
After short introductions from each of the candidates we will be taking as many questions as we can from the floor. We will be finishing at 9:30pm
Everybody is welcome to attend and the event is free, however, we may ask for voluntary donations to the Forest Hill and Sydenham Societies at the end, as the hall isn’t cheap to hire.
A post was merged into an existing topic: Election 2017 Candidates - John Russell (Lib Dem)
In the interests of balance, have any other local traders been interviewed for the websites of any of the other parties? If not, we’ll have to redact that post, @Pauline.
Not sure @RachaelDunlop
Due to the horrific incident in Manchester last night and the suspension of election campaigning today, we have decided to cancel the hustings that was due to take place this evening.
We are looking to see if it would be possible to rearrange prior to the election and will keep you informed.
I see on the Sydenham forum that the hustings have been rescheduled for 1st June at a different location:
Lewisham West and Penge:
38 Degrees hustings, Wesley Halls Methodist Church, 211-213 Sydenham Road, SE26 5HF, Thursday 1st June at 7pm
I think that’s a different group? N’est-ce pas?
The Forest Hill Society and the Sydenham Society have rearranged the election hustings for candidates for our next MP on Tuesday, 6th June from 7:30pm at JK Banqueting Hall at 15 Perry Vale, SE23 2NE, in the centre of Forest Hill.
We have confirmation from all four candidates mentioned above.
Fantastic news Michael. I can do that night. I’ll try and get home early so I can come and help set up.
I wondered that. Clearly two different events. Sorry.
Any chance the UKIP candidate might make this one?
You planning on taking him a cream pie?
I can confirm that Hoong-Wai Cheah from UKIP is also available, so we will have candidates from all of the five main parties.
Ah that’s handy, ta
Sadly the 38degrees hustings tomorrow has been cancelled, but the Forest Hill and Sydenham Societies’ hustings is still on next Tuesday with five candidates to question on local, national, or international issues.
Not all of the candidates were invited so these hustings are unrepresentative.
Who were you hoping would also be there?
The hustings organised by the Forest Hill Society and Sydenham Society have invited candidates from the five largest parties based on their share of the vote in the 2015 general election in the constituency, we are very pleased that all have been able to confirm their attendance.
The decision to choose five was based on a 1% cut off. No other party got more than 1%. By limiting the number of candidates we maximise time given to the audience to ask questions of the five candidates most likely to be the next MP.
I did check with the electoral commission in 2015 that the criteria used to invite candidates was acceptable and not politically biased.
Thanks for reiterating those very clear and fair selection criteria, @Michael.
Being ‘representative’ does not mean ‘including everyone’. To say so is to misunderstand the term.
As the leader of the Populst Party I’m guessing him?
Whilst the hustings event may not include all candidates (and I sympathise with the reasoning), you are very welcome to introduce your candidate here on SE23.life and respond to questions that local people have.
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Am I right in thinking it’s this?
ETA @Russell_White
Hi Michael. I’ve never been to one of these before, and will hopefully make this one. How do the questions work - do they need to be submitted in advance or is it just hands up and questions asked, as decided by whoever the chair is? Thanks.
We’re going for the hands-in-the-air method rather than pre-selecting questions.
I’m a hands in the air type person, but will be coming to help set up & clear up afterwards on this occasion & just listen
I may ask a few questions though 
Who’s chairing?
The hustings will be chaired by Nigel Desborough.
Nigel is in his late 50s. He was born in Southwark, then moved to Lewisham 23 years ago. He lives in Forest Hill, and is the manager of the Here For Good Centre on Sydenham Road. He chairs a number of local voluntary organisations such as Lewisham Foodbank.
A good choice. I know him quite well and am sure he will be a fair and unbiased moderator.
then it stands to reason that he must be a splendid chap
Nice of you to say so.
Anybody want to be the chief tweeter or report all the hustings on this forum?
Always interesting to hear what was said afterwards and for those that can’t make it.
I have quite a few twitter accounts and will report on one or another afterwards 
I’ll have my iPad with me tomorrow
Maybe agree a hashtag and post it here before the hustings so you can collate tweets and reactions afterwards?
Good idea, maybe #SE23Hustings might be a good hashtag
Any suggestions on a sensible hashtag?
" #Lewishamwest & #penge seem to be used but it would be nice to have something catchy
.#LewWestHustings
Are you saying mine was not sensible @Michael I’m always sensible sometimes
I’m sure I can thing of some fun ones tomorrow if you like
Got it #FoHoHustings 
It needs to be accurate to the constituency. It’s not just SE23 or Forest Hill.
I’m happy to update the forum live from tonight’s event. If anyone else there has a laptop and are willing to split the typing with me, they’re free to piggyback on my mobile broadband.
I’ll bring my IPad
Im trying to up the Tory count in the audience. Said right winger is asking me what time it’ll finish?
9.30pm
Is there a hashtag?
. #lwphustings
Thanks!
Thanks to FHSoc/SydSoc for organising this. I sort of enjoyed it, but could have done with a bit more passion from the audience and a bit more and cut and thrust between the candidates, who all seemed boringly nice. (We weren’t allowed to boo, but I didn’t actually want to boo anyone, much to my disappointment - even the UKIP guy seemed alarmingly reasonable and affable.) Too much time spent in the candidates reading out extracts from their party manifestoes, which we can read online if we want to. In sum, the event felt like a sort of ritual which had to be gone through, rather than real politics. What an odd election this is.
Didn’t anyone check the PA system in advance?
It was a great turn out with about 350 people present and i think people were impressed by the quality of the candidates.
The only disappointment was the PA system. I understand it was working a couple of weeks ago when we booked the hall, but the acoustics of the hall meant that it wasn’t too difficult to hear the candidates (but i was sitting in the front row when i wasn’t putting out extra chairs).
The turnout was massive and the candidates came across very well, all of them, I thought.
Yes; the PA system was a disappointment but luckily the curved roof helped amplify the candidates voices and everything came across loud and clear, no microphone required.
Taking part in politics is an important part of living in civil society - thank you to the Forest Hill Society and Sydenham Society for making this so accessible to us all and for putting on an enjoyable event.
Thanks also to @AllInnOne for patiently hosting the bawdy political after-party, late into the night 
I thought it was a great turn out too, thanks FH & Sydenham Soc for organising
Ditto on the PA System & putting out chairs
Great info from @anon5422159 here. I thought he done a brilliant neutral summary
A very good summary from @robin.orton. regardless a great event that has helped to solidify my vote Thursday but also three up a couple of surprises with the candidates. As in good ones. Sorry I missed the after event.
Ha, you didn’t miss anything Jason - I told everyone off for talking Politicos & @Michael said something about unicorns - I liked that
Me & @JohnRussell just ate all the twigletts on the table
I see I’m not allowed to express my appreciation of Chris’s splendid summary of the Q & As on the relevant thread, so I’ll do so here.
Thanks Robin. By the way, the notes topic was closed to avoid it hosting multiple tangential debates on the political issues. Best that members create individual new topics to discuss issues further.
Labour won.
Like most of us, I have been following the appalling disaster at Grenfell Tower.
I fear there is much more bad news to emerge. The collective response of London’s community to provide meaningful assistance is hugely impressive.
However as an almost aside note I was astonished to see Shaun Bailey appear on BBC’s Newsnight this evening.
For those who did not attend the hustings Shaun presented himself as the Conservative candidate.
However it is not my recall that Shaun presented himself thus:
Shaun Bailey stood for the London constituency of Hammersmith as a Conservative at the 2010 general election, and served as the Prime Minister’s Special Adviser on Youth and Crime from 2010-2013. In 2016, he was elected as a list candidate for the Conservative Party for the London Assembly. Wikipedia
Newsnight in their piece about the tower disaster also labelled Shaun as a member of the London Assembly.
Has Shaun been guilty of under-representation of his candidacy ?
I must immediately say there was nothing controversial in his statements on Newsnight about the disaster.
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