Jim Murphy is an odd one. At university for years on end, he never took a degree. But he did become President of the NUS, setting it down the long road that can only end in wholesale abandonment of the principle of higher education as a public good to be paid for out of the public purse, thereby in turn conferring moral responsibilities upon the beneficiaries towards the polity as a whole.
Unexpectedly elected in 1997 at only just 30, yet still only one year out of the NUS, he has held on partly through the power of the Catholic Church within the Labour Party in the West of Scotland, but at least as much very largely by courting a sizeable section of his constituents on the basis of their apparently overriding allegiance to a foreign power. A power, moreover, which is not exactly favourable towards his fellow-Catholics within its own indigenous population.
But even this Blairite ultra may speak truer than he knows when it comes to the laziness of a Labour Party now on course for a majority of over 80, with UKIP quite capable of handing scores of Conservative seats to the Lib Dems, to the extent that the Miliband Government might grant the two Con Dem parties parity in the House of Commons, with equal representation on committees, the same number of Prime Minister's Questions for their respective Leaders, and so on. Who, then, is being selected as Labour candidates? And how?
But even this Blairite ultra may speak truer than he knows when it comes to the laziness of a Labour Party now on course for a majority of over 80, with UKIP quite capable of handing scores of Conservative seats to the Lib Dems, to the extent that the Miliband Government might grant the two Con Dem parties parity in the House of Commons, with equal representation on committees, the same number of Prime Minister's Questions for their respective Leaders, and so on. Who, then, is being selected as Labour candidates? And how?
Where Labour is in third place or below unless it adopts this approach, and certainly where it is in a distant second place, then it
should
dispense with any requirement that its prospective nominees be party
members
(although they would of course have to join if they were selected),
provided
that they had been registered voters within the constituency's then
boundaries
for at least 15 years, and provided that they were recommended to the
Constituency Labour Party by the public signatures of at least five per
cent of
the voters.
If affordable, the Constituency Labour Party General Committee's shortlist of two such applicants should be submitted to an independent, binding ballot of the entire constituency electorate. Such submission of the two-name shortlist, drawn both from such nominees and from people nominated by branches or affiliates in the usual manner, ought certainly to be made in safe Labour seats where the sitting MP is retiring, and in safe new seats or newly safe seats created by boundary changes.
Had something like this been applied at Eastleigh, then the seat could and would have been taken. If his retweeting is anything to go by, then Danny Stupple, top of the rest, would be open to the possibility in 2015. Meanwhile, I do not know which constituencies contain the wards of Labour's Councillor Mark Kirk of North Lincolnshire, and of the Independent Councillors Mary Robinson of Eden, Julian German of Cornwall, and Richard Kemp of Babergh.
But I do know this: assuming that those constituencies are not already Labour-held, then those committee members of SPARSE, the coalition of mostly Tory councils against the cuts and preparing to take Eric Pickles to judicial review, ought to be the candidates there, or else their nominees, even if the price is that Labour formally stands aside while pouring union and other money into the contest. (SPARSE is chaired by Councillor Rogy Begy of Rutland, a Conservative who ought to be invited to address the People's Assembly Against Austerity. The main concern in selecting a candidate at Rutland and Melton ought to be ensuring one as reliably Arabist as the sitting MP, Alan Duncan.)
Labour should undertake to meet maximum election expenditure in every constituency. The unions are loaded, but not all of them are, or need necessarily become, affiliated to the Labour Party. The RMT and the FBU both no longer are although the RMT's cheque is returned uncashed every year. But they both retain membership of the Labour Representation Committee chaired by John McDonnell, and that Committee is constitutionally committed to the election of a Labour Government. Bob Crow was on the platform last summer when Ed Miliband addressed one hundred thousand people and the television cameras.
50 per cent of Labour Party members are also members of the technically unaffiliated teachers' unions, the non-fan clubs of Michael Gove. There is the Unison General Political Fund. And so on. Immense possibilities, if one knows where and how to look. The Labour Party has people who are employed to know here and how to look, just as it has to know in which parliamentary constituencies particular council wards are located. Or are they just too lazy?
If affordable, the Constituency Labour Party General Committee's shortlist of two such applicants should be submitted to an independent, binding ballot of the entire constituency electorate. Such submission of the two-name shortlist, drawn both from such nominees and from people nominated by branches or affiliates in the usual manner, ought certainly to be made in safe Labour seats where the sitting MP is retiring, and in safe new seats or newly safe seats created by boundary changes.
Had something like this been applied at Eastleigh, then the seat could and would have been taken. If his retweeting is anything to go by, then Danny Stupple, top of the rest, would be open to the possibility in 2015. Meanwhile, I do not know which constituencies contain the wards of Labour's Councillor Mark Kirk of North Lincolnshire, and of the Independent Councillors Mary Robinson of Eden, Julian German of Cornwall, and Richard Kemp of Babergh.
But I do know this: assuming that those constituencies are not already Labour-held, then those committee members of SPARSE, the coalition of mostly Tory councils against the cuts and preparing to take Eric Pickles to judicial review, ought to be the candidates there, or else their nominees, even if the price is that Labour formally stands aside while pouring union and other money into the contest. (SPARSE is chaired by Councillor Rogy Begy of Rutland, a Conservative who ought to be invited to address the People's Assembly Against Austerity. The main concern in selecting a candidate at Rutland and Melton ought to be ensuring one as reliably Arabist as the sitting MP, Alan Duncan.)
Labour should undertake to meet maximum election expenditure in every constituency. The unions are loaded, but not all of them are, or need necessarily become, affiliated to the Labour Party. The RMT and the FBU both no longer are although the RMT's cheque is returned uncashed every year. But they both retain membership of the Labour Representation Committee chaired by John McDonnell, and that Committee is constitutionally committed to the election of a Labour Government. Bob Crow was on the platform last summer when Ed Miliband addressed one hundred thousand people and the television cameras.
50 per cent of Labour Party members are also members of the technically unaffiliated teachers' unions, the non-fan clubs of Michael Gove. There is the Unison General Political Fund. And so on. Immense possibilities, if one knows where and how to look. The Labour Party has people who are employed to know here and how to look, just as it has to know in which parliamentary constituencies particular council wards are located. Or are they just too lazy?
But instead of you, we have to make do with Harriet Bloody Harman as Deputy Leader and the great but highly tribal Tom Watson as Election Co-ordinator.
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