Thanks to the organisers of the Mayoral Hustings held at the Salvation Army on Brownhill Road.

Topics discussed included the role of the church in local government, how local assemblies could be improved, the future of Forest Hill pools and how the candidates would handle what the questioner described as "inevitable" cuts. John outlined various policies including a 1930's style "new deal" programme including council house building.

Chris Maines (Lib Dem), Dean Walton (Green) and John Hamilton all spoke in favour of a referendum to abolish the directly elected Mayoral system. In an interesting twist, the chair conducted a straw poll of the audience on a number of issues and it was agreed that the link between councillors and the wards they represented was one of the issues people felt most strongly about. 

We couldn't agree more.

The following article entitled "Alternatives to the mainstream parties" was published in the South London Press on Tuesday 20th April 2010

VOTERS turned off by the four main parties have no shortage of choice in the local elections.

If you don't want to put your X against Labour, Lib Dem, Tory or Green, 12 other parties and 11 independents are looking for your vote.

That's a total of 57 candidates across Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark.

The strongest challenge to the mainstream is in Lewisham. A coalition of activists is putting up 21 candidates for the council. The coalition is also fighting to take the mayor's office. Its candidates will appear under several party labels on the ballot paper, but all will have the logo, Lewisham People Before Profit.

The coalition's mayoral candidate, John Hamilton, said Lewisham residents were rebelling against the privatisation of council services by Labour Mayor Sir Steve Bullock and Tory-backed Labour control of the council.

Mr Hamilton, an engineer, said: "We think council services should be for residents, not for private companies to make money".

"We are not a traditional political party. I wouldn't take the mayor's wage of £78,000,1 would be happy to work for the Lewisham average of about £25,000. "With the difference I could run two toddlers' clubs. There used to be 11 in the borough - now there are five. That's an example of how Bullock, hasn't cared. "We do expect to win some seats, especially in New Cross and Evelyn, which have been neglected by Labour for years."

Despite very short notice, we managed to get 17 out of 23 of our candidates in one place at the same time for a group photo.

Ladywell Village Improvement Group hosted a hustings for the Ladywell ward candidates on 21st April 2010. Our candidate – Helen Mercer – spoke and answered questions from local residents and the audience.

Below is the text of her two minute description of the policies of Lewisham People Before Profit and her answers to the questions.

As our candidates for the local elections are standing under a variety of descriptions on the ballot papers, there has been some confusion about the actual party name. In fact one caller to our offices today actually refused to accept that we really are a genuine political party.

To set the record straight we wanted to use the name "Lewisham People Before Profit"as our official party name. Unfortunately, there is already another party called the "Democratic Socialist Alliance - People Before Profit" based in Stockport and the Electoral Commission ruled that our proposed name was too similar to this existing party's name.

This information can be found on the Electoral Commissions website at the following links

Register of Political Parties

and

On 23 March, a packed meeting of local residents at the 2000 Community Centre heard and discussed the report that Labour Lewisham tried to keep secret from local residents, until it was leaked to Lewisham People Before Profit.

The 56 page report detailed 18 serious concerns that would affect local residents, including water contamination, poisoning from arsenic and asbestos, loss of natural light, and impaired TV reception.

 A group from Lewisham People Before Profit attended the National Pensioners' Convention rally in support of public services and the welfare state in London on Saturday afternoon.