And They'll None Of 'Em Be Missed?

Although BAME was not the term when it first started doing this, the Conservative Party has had all-BAME shortlists for decades. Openly, publicly, formally, and as a matter of policy. I do not agree with the practice, but in its own terms it has been a roaring success.

That party also pioneered all-women shortlists, to which I have always been strongly opposed, but which Labour is going to keep and expand in order to keep out the kind of young men who had at least initially accrued to Jeremy Corbyn.

Specifically, all-women shortlists were pioneered to the benefit of Margaret Thatcher. She was selected for the safe seat of Finchley because Central Office had made it its business to secure more women MPs. She was made a Minister when Harold Macmillan was determined to have at least three women in his Government, at a time when there were only 25 women MPs at all. By 1970, even Ted Heath had had to promise one woman in his Cabinet, and she was simply the only credible candidate.

If the Conservative Party really wanted to smash what remained of the Labour Party, then it would decree, and the mere word of the Leader would suffice, that its candidate wherever Labour had held on in 2019, or wherever the sitting Conservative MP was not going to be the Conservative candidate, would have to have lived in the constituency for 10 years, and would have to meet at least one of three criteria: an annual income of less than £12,500; living in rented accommodation; and no university degree or equivalent qualification taken before the age of 25, if at all.

Moreover, wherever the Labour MP was a woman, or wherever Labour had imposed an all-woman shortlist and the sitting Conservative MP seeking reelection was not a woman, then the Conservative candidate would be male both biologically and in terms of self-identification. And for the 30 least white seats with a white Labour MP, the Conservative candidate would be BAME. Wherever Labour had held on in 2019, or wherever the sitting Conservative MP was not going to be the Conservative candidate, then the Conservative Party, as rich as Croesus, would be spending to the limit, just as it would be wherever it had picked up the seat last time.

Apart from that last part, do I approve of this kind of politics? Well, I can see the point of the first part, of bringing the local working class into politics. But on sex and race, no, I do not. If, however, I were running the Conservative Party, then this is what I would do. To win. To win big. To wipe the Labour Party off the map. 

And amusing though we all find the suggestion of my running the Conservative Party, if by some distance the most right-wing section of British politics can run the Labour Party, then why not? Not me personally, of course. But if Dominic Cummings and the Revolutionary Communist Party can make it, then so can we.