A fascinating exchange with an old friend who until very recently was one of the most powerful political figures for miles around, and who still enjoys considerable influence. To my utter astonishment, he maintains that he wouldn't vote at all this time if it weren't for me. I am talking about the sort of person who always votes.
But he is far, far, far indeed from the first person to mention to me that another candidate's very agent has known me for 28 years and her for three, has been a Parish Councillor with me for nearly four times as long as he has been a Parish Councillor with her, was a school governor with me for eight years, was District Labour Group Secretary when I was District Labour Party Secretary and a Group Observer, was devoted to my late father, received (in a District Council by-election) the first vote that I ever cast, and so on, and on, and on. You know what I'm saying. My interlocutor said it in so many words.
As my friend put it to me, entirely seriously and while stone cold sober, the election of either me or Neil Fleming - either would have done - to the District Council in 2003 would have meant that whichever of us it was would by now so obviously have been the Heir Apparent that an all-women shortlist really could have been prevented. Well, I was given no opportunity to be elected in 2003. As for Neil, is he really going to vote for someone with vastly less than his experience either of public office or of party service, and who is the beneficiary of the device that sent the last 10 years of his life down the pan? It is just a pity that, with his employment, he cannot be my agent.
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This could be any of half a dozen people but if it's the one I'm thinking of, he still hasn't met the Labour candidate and possibly never will.
ReplyDeleteYou are the old Labour machine's candidate here, the regional party can take whoever they like hostage and make him agent but it doesn't matter. The movers and shakers here owe nothing to the people who abolished their council seats.
I would be highly surprised if no one ever had said that to you before. If Lanchester had returned either you or Neil in 03 then no way would we have had a woman only list this year.
ReplyDeleteBut you had two Labour councillors seeking reelection so only one other place to fill. Your then county councillor and those two district councillors picked the wrong one out of you and Neil, lost that seat, lost one of their own seats to go with it and condemned us all to this.
Should have been you in 03, should be you now.
It was pure vanity of Neil to seek that seat in 2003. He knew you were otherwise a shoo-in but he could pull rank and insist on himself because he worked for Hilary. He lost us the seat and look at the long term result of that loss. Go for it, David. I have always wanted you. We all have.
ReplyDeletePraise the Lord for his servant david Lindsay! The entire Church has its eyes on this fight against atheism, relatvism and debauchery.
ReplyDelete"As my friend put it to me, entirely seriously and while stone cold sober, the election of either me or Neil Fleming - either would have done - to the District Council in 2003 would have meant that whichever of us it was would by now so obviously have been the Heir Apparent that an all-women shortlist really could have been prevented."
ReplyDeleteBut of course, even if you had been elected to the District Council in 2003 you would still certainly not have had the opportunity to be the Labour candidate now, because you would still have left the Labour Party. After all, you left because you could no longer support their policies, and not for any other reason. However much they wanted you, your conscience would not allow you to be a Labour candidate. So your friend is obviously mistaken.
Why? I don't follow that one at all. You strike as quite beyond naive.
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that you would have stayed in the Labour Party if you had been elected to the District Council in 2003?
ReplyDeleteI was not a candidate for the District Council in 2003.
ReplyDeleteBut you would have liked to have been. Wouldn't you?
ReplyDeleteDavid parted company with Labour because he made it clear that he was going to fight this seat on these principles this time, and everybody could see that there was going to be a woman only short list.
ReplyDeleteWithout that he would have stood a very good chance of being selected as the Labour candidate and so guaranteeing anothor generation of those principles in the Commons after the tiny number of current Labour MPs holding them have retired at the election in 2014 or 2015.
If David had been a councillor above parish level, as desired by the old district leadership but blocked by Lanchester to suck up to Hilary Armstrong's office boy who lost them the seat anyhow, he would have been such an obvious candidate that the woman only short list could have been prevented.
David believes in getting what he stands for, what most people in this area think they are voting for by voting Labour, onto the green benches for decades to come. I hope he succeeds, a lot of people do. The party re-alignment is coming anyway and we need somebody young and articulate to make sure that it includes a voice for those principles, a voice for us.
I would have liked to have been a lot of things in my time, Scepo. When you grow up, then you might come to understand that.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Anonymous. Quite so. Yes, I have been saying for many years that the realignment (to put it no more dramatically than that) was coming, as it now surely is. Our voice must be heard within it, and I have always been determined to ensure that it was.
The Labour nomination here this time would have been a means to that end. But it was never the only such means imaginable. And I have always known that, for chromosomal reasons, it was always most unlikely to be available. Once that unavailability had been confirmed definitively, then I began to make alternative arrangements.
A party is a machine for securing the election of people, not for themselves, but for their principles and for the policies following from those principles. A party is not an end in itself. Again, Scepo, when you grow up, then you might come to understand that.
People like Scepo understand perfectly that parties are electoral machines, it's the bit about principles or policies that they don't understand. They don't have any and they don't know anyone who does.
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