Sheffield Central Labour Candidate - Abtisam Mohamed vs Eddie Izzard

[fromorbit]

If you are based in Sheffield please lend your support to Abtisam Mohamed a strong local woman candidate, a solicitor of Yemeni descent and longstanding Labour Councillor who has done valuable local work for the community including on nurseries. Sheffield Central is a safe Labour seat so whoever is selected is going to Parliament. Eddie Izzard has also launched a campaign but besides being a celebrity, has more glitz than steel, hasn't lived in Sheffield since being a student, plus as we all know is unclear about who they are.

Mohamed has an inspiring story, worked her way up to get a great career going and is focused on getting practical stuff done. She will make a great MP.

Abtisam Mohamed interview
www.thestar.co.uk/news/politics/sheffield-councillor-launches-her-bid-to-become-a-city-mp-3871921

Abtisam Mohamed Campaign page including a great video lots on her local concerns for the city:
abtisammohamed.com/

In contrast Izzard's campaign, getting loads of press coverage, is thin on detail:
www.eddieizzard.uk/

The local paper talked to people who questioned Izzard's chance of winning a few months back:

"In contrast, Jane Armstrong questioned her claim to run in the city.

She wrote: “I had heard this for a while and if she is fancying Central I know a lot of Labour members in that area who are really hostile to having her as a candidate. Not because she isn't nice person, but because people do not like celebrities being parachuted into wards above local candidates."
www.thestar.co.uk/news/politics/eddie-izzard-sheffield-readers-share-their-thoughts-on-comedians-bid-to-be-city-centrals-next-mp-3821984?itm_source=parsely-api

Apparently several other councillors may be standing as well so it should be an interesting contest.

I am not sure when the cut off point if you join Labour locally you will get to vote on who the candidate is. The actual contest has not yet begun yet but if I were local I would be signing up.

Fascinating. One is a politician who is focused on Sheffield's needs and one is a narcissist who is focused on himself and absolutely desperate to list all his faint connections with Sheffield. He's run in nearby hills. He used to get the bus outta there to Edinburgh! Wow. Makes me long for him to lead the town. Whadda gal he is.

I have never forgiven The Guardian for running his front page piece boasting about how he loves to turn off his womanhood and turn on his masculinity if he is approached by blokes in the street - how he loves how well he can terrify them – on the very same front page as Sarah Everard. She should have just switched to her man self and all would have been fine.

And ever since reading that fucking piece of garbage about how being a woman is a lovely fun choice for Eddie (while Sarah got murdered for stupidly being a woman 24/7 - my words, not his) I have just despised the man. Utterly despised him.He is the walking definition of check your privilege before you open your big butch square-jawed gob.

To whom is EI going to be spreading this supercharged knowledge of Sheffield though? Is EI planning on doing films and tellies and associated press tours while serving as an MP? I mean, surely time will be split between parliament and the constituency, both of which kinda know where Sheffield is...

Great article in The Sunday Times on the contest featuring quotes from major players. Abitsam comes off well, Izzard doesn't.

"Izzard and Mason are attracting all the headlines, but these starry names are lagging behind Mohamed, a 42-year-old local councillor and lawyer who has attracted major union endorsements and the coveted Blomfield endorsement. Her particular focus is on youth investment and the climate agenda.
Mohamed moved to Yorkshire from Yemen with her family as a young girl. “This is my home,” she says. “You can only be a good constituency MP if you have a good grasp of what’s going on locally. I have a real understanding of what Sheffield needs.”
Labour has moved towards selecting more local candidates in recent years, and the Sheffield members I spoke to weren’t sold on Izzard or Mason. “I don’t agree with helicoptering people in,” says Rachel McLafferty, 40, a college administrator who is backing Mohamed. “My opinion is that MPs should be drawn from the local community,” she added.
Labour members in the city’s large student community tended to agree. “I’m a fan of Eddie Izzard as a person, but personally I like candidates who have been on the local council,” said Winko Kyawoo, 20, a molecular biology student at Sheffield University. “Being an MP isn’t the glitz and glamour. It’s about the day-to-day office work, and making sure vulnerable people get the advice they need.”

Eddie Izzard the joker takes on Paul Mason the firebrand. But Sheffield just wants a local
archive.ph/SfluJ

The first three ward branch meetings of local Labour party branches met tonight to decide on two people from the longlist they are nominating. This is not the final vote this will indicate who will go through to shortlist, but it is a strong indication of levels of support locally and who is likely to win in the end.

Results so far:
Manor Castle: Eddie Izzard, Abtisam Mohamed
City: Mike Buckley, Rizwana Lala
Walkely: Rizwana Lala, Abtisam Mohamed

Abtisam and Rizwana are ahead with 2 nominations each. So looking like locals are ahead.

Broomhill & Sharrow Vale meet tomorrow, Nether Edge next Tuesday.

So far so good. Thank you for the update.

Broomhill & Sharrow Vale branch went for Dr Rizwana Lala and
Abtisam Mohamed.

Abtisam and Rizwana are ahead with 3 nominations each. Izzard and Mike Buckley have 1. Reminder this just shows local support before shortlisting.

Jayne Dunn has a bunch of local union endorsements which are also important.

Owen Jones has endorsed Dr Rizwana Lala as the "best candidate" over the more centrist Izzard. Jones doesn't generally get involved in these local selections so interesting.
twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1588295570036527104

Thank you for the updates, I am following with fascination

Councilor Jayne Dunne has successfully passed a motion for a Period Equality Charter for Sheffield which also provide support for women having the menopause

twitter.com/JaynePDunn/status/1587867136357285888
More background on this:
www.thestar.co.uk/news/politics/calls-for-free-period-products-across-sheffield-as-one-in-five-young-women-cannot-afford-them-3894848

Jayne has picked up support from a whole bunch of unions. Useful if she makes shortlist. Thread here:
twitter.com/JaynePDunn/status/1588133902694088704

Neil Kinnock President of Labour Labour Movement for Europe endorses Abtisam Mohamed
twitter.com/Abtisam_Mohamed/status/1588453625499729921
Kinnock also earlier endorsed Mike Buckley
twitter.com/mdbuckley/status/1587386682848038913

Dr Lala has raised the plight of Asylum Seekers locally:
www.thestar.co.uk/news/politics/asylum-seekers-left-to-starve-and-eat-food-chewed-by-relative-in-sheffield-housing-3905654

She also picked up an endorsement from Aslef union who previously also endorsed Jayne Dunne.

Meanwhile Paul Mason has had the honour of being attacked by the Morning Star with Andrew Murray picking icely at the keys for "Sheffield Central, beware". Murray, a hardcore Corbynite and former communist doesn't have much time for Mason's brand of leftism a "weary trudge from orthodox Trotskyism to hard-line Starmerism". Which of Mason's many crimes backing Trotsky, Starmer, Ukraine, NATO or being anti Brexit upsets Murray the most is difficult to say.
morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/sheffield-central-beware

Thank you for the updates!

The last branch ward meeting Nether Edge and Sharrow Ward has nominated Rizwana Lala & Abtisam Mohamed

Here are the results from all wards:

Broomhill & Sharrow Vale: Rizwana Lala, Abtisam Mohamed
City: Mike Buckley, Rizwana Lala
Nether Edge and Sharrow Ward: Rizwana Lala, Abtisam Mohamed
Manor Castle: Eddie Izzard, Abtisam Mohamed
Walkely: Rizwana Lala, Abtisam Mohamed

So with all 5 in Abtisam and Rizwana are ahead with 4 nominations each. Izzard and Mike Buckley have 1. Reminder this just shows local support before shortlisting.

The shortlisting for the MP candidate selection is happening sometime this week. Rizwana Lala, Abtisam Mohamed should be certain to go through. Councilor Jayne Dunne has a tonne of union support so she is also likely to make a shortlist if they go for three.

It seems Mason has no hope. The question is whether the committee decide to put Izzard or Buckley on the list. Even if they do the overwhelming support for Abtisam and Rizwana at branch level means any 4th selection would be a token candidate who would have little chance of winning.

The big surprise looking from outside is the lack of support for Jayne Dunn at party branch level. She has a pretty impressive record as a councillor. twitter.com/JaynePDunn/status/1590021551403184129

Eddie Izzard has now been interviewed by New Statesman despite the fact they are no hopers for securing the seat.
archive.ph/kq4DA

Apparently Izzard can't solve the debate over single sex spaces and thinks it is nothing to do with them. :
"When we move on to discuss how self-ID reforms would affect women-only spaces she becomes impatient at being seen as the spokesperson for the trans movement. “I don’t have all the answers,” she says. “I happen to be trans. All I can do is say how it is for me. I can’t come in and wave a magic wand and solve all the problems, because some people are very entrenched.”

Also he seems happy on Rosie Duffield being in the party, just thinks she should change her opinion.

I have never forgiven The Guardian for running his front page piece boasting about how he loves to turn off his womanhood and turn on his masculinity if he is approached by blokes in the street - how he loves how well he can terrify them – on the very same front page as Sarah Everard. She should have just switched to her man self and all would have been fine.

I had totally forgotten this but yes I felt the same way.

Thanks for the updates OP.

Considering how Izzard has chosen to publicly discuss and highlight Izzard's invasion of female spaces and Izzard's derisive and intimidating behaviour towards females who dare to show Izzard anything but delight and applause for doing so, I don't think Izzard gets to opt out of having to state the quiet bits out loud when Izzard is expecting people to vote for Izzard. Particularly when half of Izzard's voters are female and will include many females being fucked over in the exact way Izzard has chosen to demonstrate.

Quite.

"When we move on to discuss how self-ID reforms would affect women-only spaces she becomes impatient at being seen as the spokesperson for the trans movement. “I don’t have all the answers,”

No shit. That means you can't justify using the women's toilets on the basis of anything other than, I want to.

Which, in a completely predictable twist, IS the bloody answer from everyone who does it.

And it's noted that Izzard is getting 'impatient' with being asked these questions.

Well, the questions aren't going to stop, so better get used to it.

It's almost like choosing to talk publicly about being male or female depending what's convenient and intimidating teenage girls in bogs has consequences.

Leaving the egotistical antics of Izzard aside, it is heartening to read about the other candidates-proper old-school ones with quantifiable service to local services who have a stake in the community. These are the kind of people who should be politicians.

I have to say that in the 30+ years I've lived here, Sheffield has had a good history of selecting solid constituency MPs (with a couple of dishonourable exceptions!)

OK, I'm nit-picking. But I've just looked at that EI interview (link above). If you were standing for selection in a parliamentary constituency, and were giving interviews based on that, wouldn't you get the photographer to take a picture of you somewhere in that constituency?

The photo of EI shows him on the coast, and there's no coast in Sheffield!

Ok, nitpicking -- but really, isn't this part of showing your commitment to the constituency, rather than your commitment to furthering your own publicity?

Izzard's previous interviews have not helped the campaign at times especially where he seemed to be arguing at times he was going to be putting Sheffield on the map. This one had some of that, but not as bad.

It clearly hasn't impressed branch members anyway. I don't think Izzard really understands local roots - with his background makes sense, but you can learn to do it, to understand its significance. Sunak definitely knows how to Yorkshire stuff up and he had no connection to the area.

What interviewers fail to add is:

Does this mean you are not aware of or simply do not care about females from these at risk groups, who can't use any other space and will just have to be excluded so that you can do what you want?

Maybe not 'all the answers' but 'an answer' would be a start.

Quite. If MPs had proper answers to every problem then we'd have solved everything by now and I do feel that any 'poster person' for any issue probably gets a bit fed up with it. But EI (and the Greens for that matter - a single issue party who don't seem to be talking about their single issue any more either) needs to have a clear line to take, even if it's not a line we on this board would agree with.

@fromorbit thanks for your updates, to my shame I don't know much about this part of the political process. It's fascinating.

@Beowulfa
Exactly. Very inspiring and reassuring that the front runners appear to be dedicated to serving their community and the wider public.
There really is no excuse to parachute a candidate in.

@SocialConnotations Not sure why Izzard is bothering with a campaign - can't he/she just self-identify as Sheffield's MP?

😂😂

I can’t come in and wave a magic wand and solve all the problems, because some people are very entrenched

I prefer politicians to keep their magic wands to themselves, thanks.