London mayoral elections

So this week London decides who will be Mayor for the next 4 years. I lost my voting cherry in the first Mayoral elections and to be honest I have a much keener interest in who wins this
election than the national one (I have issues with the parliamentary system but I'll leave that for another post).
The polls suggest that this election is quite tight with Boris and Ken with a lead (exactly who is leading varies dependent on the papers political leanings) of about 2 points.

I urge anyone who is eligible to vote to do sonmainly because I believe it's your civic duty and unless your planning some other form of legal protest, this is more or less the biggest opportunity you have to influence a change in policy. I'm not naive enough to believe that it will make a significant difference but if you're not trying to get your voice heard you can't complain.

Anyway as part of my journey to find out more about the candidates I recently attended a hustings for the BME community. Now if you are unaware I'm not a fan of events like this. My general view is that black people are a diverse group with different concerns and having a hustings especially focused on 'black issues' suggests that the subjects that will be tabled are not concerns for Londoners as a whole. But trying not to be defeatist after debating the issue for a while I decide to go and dragged a friend along.

I'm not going to comment on the late running of the event. I would just suggest that there are lots of very good event mangers out there and it's always worthwhile to use professionals to do the job they are experienced in but I digress.

I'm sure or I hope, some of you watched the debate on tv and are aware of the policy areas that were discussed. At the time I was dismayed to think that although we have very high unemployment rates in London, the average price for a house is unaffordable for many on the national average wage in this city, schools are oversubscribed, the EMA has been abolished, a two stop return tube journey (without an Oyster) costs £7 (personal gripe) etc all that anyone in the audience wanted to talk about was stop and search. Now I'm not saying that stop and search isn't in important issue, but when we are in economic turmoil and things are becoming ever more expensive and with the likelihood you're more likely to be unemployed if you are black (breathe girl) I was very perplexed by the repetition of questions in this area.

Once I'd returned home I started to talk to friends and family about the event and it all became clear. As people with or starting families we were interested In increasing house prices, a lack of good schools and high unemployment rates. We wanted to know how they planned to prevent another riot as we didn't want to see our home city torched and looted. We wanted to know why we had spent large sums on a bike scheme when the price of public transport rose and why promises of Olympic tickets for children hadn't been kept. We questioned if Boris really thinks anyone would vote for him whilst he thought his place was to stay on holiday when the city he holds political office for was under threat.

And it was then that I remembered why I still believe black people aren't homogenous and why I'll be sticking to reading manifestos and watching/attending more inclusive events in the future.

If you disagree and think we need more BME political events I'd be interested to read your views?

Also to those who organised the event I would like to say I celebrate your endeavours to get all involved in the political process.