Saturday 16 January 2010

Little Local Difficulties

Given the consensus (unfair in one case, though not in the others) that any Labour candidate selected from an all-women shortlist will lose North West Durham, how might each individual shortlisted woman do?

Liz Twist, third;
Anna Turley, third;
Ann Pettifor, third, unless we put the word out that she is a Livingstone groupie who tried to merge the Trotskyist IMG with the Communist Party while the Soviet Union still existed, in which case last out of however many;
Lisa Homan, third or below;
Lauren Todd, last out of however many; and
Pat Glass, second, but she is the only one who could actually win, depending on who the other candidates were.

7 comments:

  1. Promise me you'll run against anyone but Pat. I know some pre-pubescents who don't understand fundraising in grown up politics make a nuissance of themsleves on here, but the rest of us know that if you keep it up then you can easily raise the cash. Pat has only been shortlisted to stop you, her Catholic moral views disqualify her from being on an AWS.

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  2. If money is a problem David I'll wager you £100 that Labour will not lose North West Durham in a national election. With no great local issue (the Academy only effects the town of Consett - at most 25% of the constituencies population) there is no pre-cedent for you to win.

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  3. There is no doubt at all here. The sheer rage about the AWS is greater than anyone I know can remember on any issue.

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  4. Pat can win if David doesn't stand so I hope he won't if she is the nominee. Catholics are not allowed on all-women shortlists so she was only shortlisted to keep him off and her selection would be a very sweet victory for all of us.

    None of the rest can win this seat, they are either not local or not born. And David is right, people are angrier about this than about anything else ever. The pits, the steel works, the poll tax, Iraq, anything.

    Blaenau Gwent was lost on the AWS issue and nothing else, to a candidate whose views were very similar to David's and whose agent turned successor's are even more so. That successor is universally expected to be re-elected this year.

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  5. Pat is the only one to have said she doesn't agree with all-woman but only ever wants to be MP for this seat so she has to make the best of it. She is also the only one not doing it for the money. Could even David say that?

    But sticks have you ever met David Lindsay? "If money is a problem", I don't think so! Though you can never have too much money if you have the most beautifully refined taste.

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  6. He'd beat Pettifor, Homan or Todd hands down. What happened to the CLP I knew when David was on it? It would never have short-listed those three, Pettifor for being crazy Left, Homan for being non-local streetliner, Todd for the inexperience David didn't have at that age.

    This post doesn't say that he would win, it says that other people would come in certain positions if nominated. The only exception hinted is that Glass could win if he didn't split her vote. All of this is right.

    Personally I think nominating anyone but Glass makes the seat a straight fight between Watts Stelling and Owen Temple. I suspect David thinks the same but is determined to get enough votes that Labour would have come first or second without him. He will definitely get mine.

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  7. They can always give the losing Labour candidate a peerage, that was what they did with the Blaenau Gwent one.

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