Answering The Wrong Question

Keith Vaz has done a good job of coming back from his former troubles, and his current support for an old-fashioned trade union approach to an old-fashioned public sector pay dispute is more than admirable. But he is just plain wrong to call for all-ethnic-minority shortlists for parliamentary candidates.

As much as anything else, he appeals to the experience of all-women shortlists. I have never met a woman who was in favour of this device to hand safe seats over to upper-middle-class, London-based, "ex"-Marxist apparatchiki who just happen to be women.

Is Vaz looking for device to hand safe seats over to upper-middle-class, London-based, "ex"-Marxist apparatchiki who just happen to be dark-skinned? I fear so. Yet we had thought that he had moved on from New Labour.

If he has, then he should reconsider urgently, and start asking the real question: why are so many MPs and PPCs (by no means only on the Labour side) upper-middle-class, London-based, "ex"-Marxist apparatchiki?