Delicious LiveJournal Links for 4-25-2008

[matgb]

• Sky One to resurrect Blake's 7? | The Register
  It'll either be great or awful. But I do want to know who'll play Servalan.
  (tags: TV Blake's+7)
• Masturbation may prevent prostate cancer - Yahoo! News
  See, it is good for you: Studies on animals have shown that carcinogens like 3-methylchloranthrene can be harbored in the prostate. Frequent ejaculation encourages the cancer-inducing fluids to \"flush out.\"
  (tags: sex research science masturbation)
• davegodfrey: Dial \"S\" for Steampunk
  Lunatic is modding his PC. Looks quite cool though
  (tags: computers modifications steampunk)
• Brian Paddick: Hope can conquer fear | The Guardian
  I keep telling people to never read the CiF comments, but I break my own rules every so often. Mines not published yet, but even so. I see no reason at all to not give Brian first pref if you live in London, he's definitely better than the other two fro
• publicansdecoy: Kang vs Kodos (London mayoralty electoral system)
  Linking and storing because a huge chunk of it is rewrites of discussions in the comments there involving me, it's a very good post and I want to reference it.
  (tags: london election mayoralty voting+systems)
• Stop Boris blog » The psephologistâ™s guide to stopping Boris
  An excellent examination of the London voting system and how to use it to stop Boris, equally applies if you stop Ken. The \"excellent\" bit may be related to the bits they've quoted from an \"expert psephologist\". I'm an expert. Weird.
  (tags: london voting+systems mayoralty election Boris+Johnson brian+paddick)
• Vincent Cable: Don't be fooled... the banks aren't victims of bad luck
  Vince on the banks and money markets. Looks like a sound analysis to me
  (tags: Vince+Cable banks Credit+crunch economics)
• The Yorksher Gob - London Mayoral Election
  Jennie writes the post I've been meaning to for ages about Brian and the voting system
  (tags: voting+systems london mayoralty election)
• American Book Review :: 100 Best First Lines from Novels
  Some good stuff in here, alongside the incredibly predictable. Two Cities should be much higher but you can't have everything
  (tags: books funny quotes)
• timjr: A Straight Geek Male's Guide to Interaction with Females
  Annoyingly, some of this stuff still needs to be said to some people (from Debi)
  (tags: social+mores behaviour equality)

Comments

[matgb]

Of the three that put themselves forward, he was by far the best, Chamali came second and was impressive but had zero experience really.

I actually think he's OK and would do well, I just don't think he's a great candidate, not assured enough, needed more media training :-(

[srk1.livejournal.com]

Definitely with the media training. But we shouldn't be in a position where our nominee for Mayor of London needs media training.

He'd be a good MPA chair, mind you.

[matgb]

Once the decision was taken to avoid running an MP they had to cast around to get someone. I believe Paddick was specifically recruited (and I think the Tories asked him as well but I can't source that).

IT's the perpetual lack-of-people-wanting-to-run problem writ large, the number of approved candidates for MP/PPC is barely over 1000 last I looked, that gives most constituencies no choice. To get someone that's able to take London, and battle through the media "two horse race" falsehood, is pretty much impossible.

Ah well.

[srk1.livejournal.com]

He confirmed on QT that the Tories had asked him. He claimed that at that point he was already a member of the LDs but did suggest he had thought about taking up the Cons' offer.

Perhaps the type of campaign that the mayoralty demands is just not something the LDs are suited to. If so, it's another good argument against having mayors in the first place...