I have it on excellent authority that if the North West Durham CLP selects the only credible shortlisted candidate (who would then become the only candidate on the ballot paper to be facing a reduction in salary if elected), then the radical feminist lobby will put up someone against her, since, as a good Catholic, she was never eligible to be on an all-women shortlist in the first place, but no one who was not a good Catholic, and local, could have held this seat for Labour this time.
That other candidate might be a Green or some such, apparently. But her main plank will be furious opposition to the usual Catholic teachings. Beatrix Campbell is already standing elsewhere, so it won't be her. Anyway, she is from Tyneside, so knows better than to treat Tyneside and County Durham as if they were the same place. But this candidate will not only be anti-life and anti-marriage, but also ferociously hostile to the whole concept of the secure, well-paid, heavily unionised working-class male employment that, itself guaranteed by State action, in turn guarantees national sovereignty and paternal authority. Bring her on.
And all because Labour had to have a candidate both local and Catholic. Why...?
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You could still cost them the seat if you wanted to. Question is whether you'd be prepared to give the seat to Watts Stelling, a Peter Hitchens type but more populist economically. Or to Owen Temple, a Lib Dem. With your intervention it could go either way, with a Lib Dem MP a serious possibility. FFS, you don't want that.
ReplyDeleteAs you undoubtedly know Pat is broadly leftish but in the Catholic way, just like you. That sort of cancels out the fact that her husband was a policeman during the miners' strike. You have won. You have forced them to disregard their own rules and shortlist a candidate just like you. She still has to be selected but most people expect she will be, the other local candidate is only 23.
So are you prepared to take the risk of putting in a Lib Dem instead? Or are you going to bask in victory rather than snatching defeat from its jaws?
I know you are smug about this and I suppose I don't blame but many of us are disenfranchised. There were several strong local applicants but the only two short listed were a slip of a girl and a first term member of the Parish Council you have been on for 10 years.
ReplyDeleteSo that second one was bound to win. Not only from Lanchester but from the soft left and a practising Catholic. How many soft left candidates are short listed anywhere these days never mind in the ex chief whip's constituency? You correctly say that opponents of abortion are not supposed to be on AWS's at all. What about stem cells, gay adoption and everything else?
Thanks to you we are going to get an MP who will nominate Jon Cruddas for leader. Cruddas, the union backed, soft left weekly Mass goer whose party Rod Liddle says he would re-join. We get someone like that just to keep you off the ballot paper. Good luck to this rebel candidate, I am a Blairite but I could well vote for her.
Making them select a Cruddasite successor to Hilary Armstrong, we who suffered at the hands of her whips office take our hats off to you Mr L.
ReplyDeleteJon Cruddas needs to sort himself out on moral issues.
ReplyDeleteSo get some people in to make him, as the price of their otherwise assured support.
ReplyDeleteMPs are not the only people with chief whips are they, David? And chief whips have some sway over shortlisting don't they, David?
You are talking like this is a done deal. Watch this space, seriously.
ReplyDeleteWhat, Pat for candidate, or Jon Cruddas for Leader? Possibly both...
ReplyDeleteI probably shouldn't tell you this, but [fill in the blanks, I think you know] will and do audibly assure me in public houses that if there isn't a local candidate, then Labour will lose this seat. There are only two local candidates, and one of them is a 23-year-old who has only been a party member for eight months.
Anyway, as people have said, the very shortlisting is a victory.
Three non-local party/union hacks, a councillor from London, a schoolgirl and Pat. If it's not a done deal then it bloody well should be. This seat has always had a local MP. The Independent and Lib Dem candidates are prominent local figures. Labour either selects Pat or loses this seat. Simple as.
ReplyDeleteAnn Pettifor is way out on the Far Left, a former adviser to Ken Livingstone when he was GLC Leader and to the recently deceased Frances Morrell (day job as political adviser to Tony Benn) when she was Leader of ILEA.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, indeed. When Redomnd O'Neill, key Livingstone staff member and head of Socialist Action (which the International Marxist Group became when it decided to inflitrate the Labour Party), died in October, notice of his funeral appeared here:
ReplyDeletehttp://thefriendlylefty.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/red
mond-oneill-obituaries/
Under which, a comment was posted by one Ann Pettifor, linking to her organisation:
"Like the site….and the writing…mourning Redmond.
Surprised that Andrew Murray’s obit comes quite close to capturing the man’s spirit….surprised because worked with Redmond to build the abortive alliance with the Morning Star….’twas not their finest hour."
Or yours, Ann. Or yours...