The hustings that weren’t - time for mayoral candidates to come out

Last night’s event on winning London in 2015 at the House of Commons organised by Progress was a strange event. It was according to the organisers not billed as a hustings for the mayoralty which is why, according to Progress, I was not invited to be on the panel. Yet, the make up of the panel with Lord Adonis, Tessa Jowell, David Lammy and Diane Abbott was a roll call of those who had expressed an interest in the mayoralty with the exception of me and, oddly, Sadiq Khan who was billed to come but did not show.
Despite Tessa Jowell emphasising that it was not supposed to be a hustings, Abott and Lammy clearly saw it as such and focussed on mayoral issues. David Lammy even at one stage said he will increase the precept to pay for the return of community policing, a rare case of a Labour politician talking of increasing taxes which was refreshing. Adonis was very detailed in his ideas and used lots of statistics, Jowell was rather stilted with a speech she read while Abott was her normal passionate and articulate self. There was, though, little fresh and almost nothing that offered a vision of a different London. There was no mention of the environment, of clean air, very little of the private rented sector and nothing about the travails of the Met.
From the very full attendance, it was clear that there was a real thirst for this type of debate in the London Labour Party. Indeed, as the guy I was sitting next to said, there had never been an inquest into why Labour lost in 2012 and there certainly should be.
It is very clear that those who are really interested in being mayor should come out now and say so in order to ensure that this debate takes place. If they wait till 2015, then the opportunity will be lost