Refounding Labour

You, or your parents, will still be allowed to pay nine thousand pounds upfront to a university at the start of each academic year. That is a lot less than the fees for the grandest schools. And it would, on the basis of parental wealth, avoid the above-inflation, profiteering interest payable by those who will have to wait until after they themselves have graduated and established themselves in careers. How about something on that, Ed?

Ignore any opinion poll confirming the commissioning media outlet's position that "Labour chose the wrong Miliband". No one has been polled in order to produce such a result. It has literally been made up out of thin air in order to protect "political journalists" who are terrified that they might have to write about politics, a subject about which they know and care absolutely nothing, rather than being able to presuppose that all parties were equally committed to the grind 'em down domestic policy and the blow 'em up foreign policy of those privatising, union-busting war criminals, torturers, and persecutors of the sick and disabled, Tony Blair, David Cameron and David Miliband.

Having just listened to the "debate" on Refounding Labour, every speech except Dave Anderson's was enough to deprive any normal person of the will to live, and the whole thing seemed to be about how "We are not interested in politics, honestly we are not, so why not come along to our many and varied social events?" I find it horrifying that such pride is taken in having discontinued General Management Committees in favour of middle-class discussion groups in which those who can shout loudest or hold the floor for longest are completely dominant, but at which no actual decision can ever be taken.

As for registered supporters, I could see the point if they were to be given the penultimate say in whittling down to two the Electoral College's or the General Management Committee's shortlist of three for Leader at national level or for Prospective Parliamentary Candidate at constituency level, with those two names to be submitted to a final ballot of the entire electorate. But that would still seem like an unnecessary middle-man stage, crying out to be cut out. Indeed, what role are registered supporters to have at all, not in the Simon Cowell nonsense of Leadership Elections, but in the grown-up and serious business of candidate selection? If none, or if not enough, then there is absolutely no point in becoming one.