Labour pick candidate for Norwich South
Clive Lewis has been chosen as the next parliamentary candidate for Norwich South, following a hustings held at City of Norwich School.
The BBC politics reporter beat off competition from a local councillor and the former drummer from Blur.
Members of the Labour party in Norwich South have just elected the reporter for BBC East to be their prospective parliamentary candidate.
Clive Lewis will fight to win the Norwich South seat from Simon Wright MP, who gained the constituency for the Liberal Democrats in the 2010 general election. Simon Wright won the seat by a narrow margin of 310 seats. Labour see the seat as a key marginal, which is why the selection process for the 2015 election has got underway so early.
At this afternoon’s hustings, the four shortlisted candidates each addressed the audience before answering questions from the floor in a session lasting over 4 hours.
Clive Lewis lives in Norwich and is a BBC political journalist based at The Forum. He’s been a party member all his adult life, arguing Norwich needs “a candidate who will help build the local party, fight for the city, its interests and its people.” His role as political reporter has given him an insider view of Westminster politics and its relationship with the media. He was an officer in the British Army, deployed to Afghanistan in 2009. He became one of the Labour Party’s 20 National Black Role Models, working in schools and community groups.
His strategy to win Norwich South centres on rebuilding grass-roots support, knowing the Labour vote has halved in the constituency since 1997. Speaking after the hustings, he said the key is to show that the party is progressive: “Look at me. I’m potentially the first black MP in Norfolk. I want to reconnect with those voters who’ve become disillusioned with Labour.”
He added: “We’ve taken a beating in terms of what happened to Charles Clarke, Ian Gibson… it knocked our confidence. We need to re-invigorate the Party, offer leadership and a face and voice which leads from the front.”
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