Dominic Lawson: Presidential Candidate

[John Upham]

As at the 1.30pm deadline today ECF Council has the choice of Dominic Lawson or "None of the Above" as President.

In 2011 BCM interviewed Dominic and published the result in the April 2011 issue.

Here is the interview in full

[Jonathan Rogers]

He was also interviewed in CHESS some twenty and more years ago, I think by Cathy Forbes.

[Martin Regan]

I should have thought that Mr Lawson would be seen as almost the perfect candidate for the position. Not only is he an advocate of chess, he has the political and business contacts that chess so badly needs (as ex editor of the Spectator and Sunday Telegraph and son of a former chancellor) If he could persuade his sister Nigella to turn up at events, he would, in addition, be marketing gold.

Against that - he knows RDK (who in the chess world doesn't?) and is a conservative (shock, horror) . Someone referred to his alleged sexism and anti-abortion stance. The sexism is imagined - he was arguing that anti-discrimination should work both ways (as indeed the law argues) and his position on abortion is - and I do not speak for him - presumably based on the fact that he has brought up and loved a severely disabled child when all the advice was to abort.

In short, a man of substance. Not remotely to be compared to CJ

If we choose NOTA in his place then we are simply mad.

[JustinHorton]

Everybody's a perfect candidate until we start looking at the objections to them.

Of course, what would have been nice would have been a proper election, instead of The Board's Sole Candidate versus None Of The Above. This isn't great at the best of times. When you have a candidate who is going to seriously divide opinion, it's a particularly bad idea. Every effort should have been made to have a contested election rather than avoid one.

[Roger de Coverly]

When you have a candidate who is going to seriously divide opinion, it's a particularly bad idea.

Why do think opinion will be seriously divided? Not everyone is in love with football, particularly match captains who have players who prefer watching it to playing chess.

Context is that DL wrote a piece recently which was hostile to football. ejh at the Streatham blog objects.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Whilst it's unhelpful just to say that "DL knows Ray Keene and who doesn't?" - their relationship is 10 x longer and deeper than that sort of statement implies - I still find myself tending to side with Martin, subject to the caveats that we really have to know what DL might do as President and how much he will be overseen by the Board. There are certainly a lot of positives out there, much more than ever there were for CJ (although funnily I don't remember Martin criticising CJ as president before) and I don't think anyone would have stood a chance against him in an election.

Plus, I didn't know before today about DL's personal contributions to CSC. Although I think that Martin is dreaming if he hopes that Nigella will start hanging around the chess world!

[IM Jack Rudd]

Whether or not anyone would have stood a chance against him in an election - and I'm not sure I share Jonathan's conviction that he is the Condorcet winner out of all possible candidates - it would have been better for this theory to actually be tested.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

It really belongs in this thread (which hadn't been started at the time it was posted), so here is Dominic Lawson's election statement from the 'ECF Elections' thread:

DOMINIC LAWSON STATEMENT FOR ECF FORUM:

"The President of the English Chess Federation should not only be a figurehead. He should have high level contacts both in business and politics, and use those to further the interests of all chessplayers, from club to national level.

I have those contacts and have used them to great effect in the past.

In 1983, after the FIDE Candidate semi-finals matches (Korchnoi-Kasparov and Smyslov-Ribli) were thrown into confusion by the refusal of the Soviets to let Kasparov play in the designated venue of Pasadena, I contacted Acorn Computers and persuaded them at very short notice to put up the necessary prize fund of 200,000 Sw Fr to hold the match in London. This was (at that time) the most important FIDE event ever to be held in the UK.

A few years later, I used my contacts to persuade the insurance company Eagle Star to pay a substantial annual stipend to finance Nigel Short’s training and chess development. This, in a sense, was the model for the later highly successful funding of British Olympic athletes, though that used Lottery funds.

At the political level I have also been successful in utilizing top-level contacts. I persuaded George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to make the state rooms of 11 Downing Street available for the closing ceremony of the 2013 London Candidates Tournament. This accolade was highly appreciated not just by the FIDE officials, but also by the players themselves.

My political contacts are on both sides: Rachel Reeves, the Labour shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, joined me as opponent/interviewee in my radio series Across the Board. The BBC approached me in the first place to devise this series, the first broadcast chess programmes since the sad demise of The Mastergame and the first chess series on radio for over half a century. It was highly successful and the BBC have invited me to record a second series--which will be broadcast next month.

These radio programmes are part of my long-held aspiration to bring chess to a mass audience: it is an essential requirement for any President of the ECF to be able to increase public interest in chess. It is for the same reason that once a month that for the past six years I have contributed a full page about chess for the political and cultural magazine Standpoint.

Of course this wider public engagement with chess should start at grass roots and junior level. Hence I am part of the Chess in Schools and Communities programme, as one of a number of players from Pimlico chess club who have signed up to teach the game at a local school. ECF members will be reassured to learn that I received a clean DBS check! I also introduced to Chess in Schools and Communities an American financier friend resident in the UK; as a result he has now agreed to fund this in schools in Hastings--which has been so associated with chess historically, and which cries out for revival.

Finally, as you all are, I am active at club level--representing Lewes in the Mid-Sussex League and Pimlico in the Central London League. Over the past two years I have also travelled abroad to take part in the Gibraltar Open and the Thai Open, demonstrating my continued deep passion for the game we all love."

[Roger de Coverly]

I am active at club level--representing Lewes in the Mid-Sussex League and Pimlico in the Central London League.

It's an interesting contrast. Neither league supports adjournment, but whilst the Central London League almost exclusively uses increments (as far as I am aware), the Mid-Sussex League is one of the remaining bastions of adjudication. It's a cheeky and mundane question, but were the ECF or factions within the ECF Council or Board to propose the abolition of adjudication, as President, where would he stand?

[Roger de Coverly]

and I don't think anyone would have stood a chance against him in an election.

The ECF has an increasingly ageing set of Grandmasters and International Masters. Were any of them prepared to state an ambition to be ECF President, even at the level of just being on the headed notepaper, I would have thought a certain amount of support could be guaranteed or organised. For ECF President an ability to be invited to appear on the Today programme or just Radio 4 and be credible is one of the desired skills.

[John McKenna]

"If we choose NOTA in his place then we are simply mad."

Pass the out the straitjackets... feels like another zany ECF election coming up.

Here's another trick question -

if a geodesic were drawn between Ilyumshinov and Kasparov where would he place himself?

[NickFaulks]

I always assumed, on the basis of no knowledge at all, that Jon Speelman would have walked in if he had shown any interest in the post. He is impatient with nonsense, which might be a drawback.

[Roger de Coverly]

I always assumed, on the basis of no knowledge at all, that Jon Speelman would have walked in if he had shown any interest in the post. He is impatient with nonsense, which might be a drawback.

You could plausibly argue a three way choice

"Eminent Grandmaster"
Jon Speelman as above, Stuart Conquest as advocated a couple of years ago, or others. That hasn't been tested in practice.

"Reasonably strong player but eminent in other fields, also media personality"

CJ de Mooi and Dominic Lawson. Possibly also (female Labour) politicians.

"Long standing arbiter and organiser"

Gerry Walsh and Roger Edwards.

Gerry Walsh outstayed his term of office by several years, breaking a post 1945 convention of a maximum of three or four years as President.

I'm not sure how to categorise AP. FIDE stooge perhaps.

[Jonathan Bryant]

"... feels like another zany ECF election coming up.

Really? I wouldn’t worry.

I’ve been trying to imagine what DL would have to do to not be elected. I don’t think there’s anything.

The fact that he is ardently supported by erstwhile ardent supporters of CJ and AP is certainly not going to harm him.

[Roger de Coverly]

I’ve been trying to imagine what DL would have to do to not be elected. I don’t think there’s anything.

It would be necessary to find convincing reasons for a majority of the voting membership at the AGM not to support him and to prefer a wild card choice by the Board. That does happen, for example when Malcolm Pein stood for non-executive director. Finding DL guilty of not liking football or insulting Campomanes isn't going to do it. In Malcolm's case it was because he gave the impression that he would treat the position as mostly honorary, with one of his employees deputising most of the time and the President (CJ as it then was) deciding what Board papers would be passed on.