Selection Box Ticking

Why did Slasher Forbes, the King of Cuts, need to face a selection meeting at all? A Labour member of Durham County Council is reselected on the spot merely by saying so and by being signed off by the Chief Whip. Those are the only requirements even if that Councillor is the Chief Whip.

Slasher is from Weardale originally, but his base is on Tyneside, where the Labour Right is if anything even less prone to outbursts of democracy. Many years ago, a friend from South Shields reacted in stunned disbelief when I casually mentioned selection meetings. All Labour council candidates in David Miliband's constituency were handpicked by the Great Man's London office. For all I know, they are being chosen from New York to this day. Then again, South Shields was historically part of County Durham.

Here in Lanchester, there was a selection meeting around this time last year, to choose the two ultimately unsuccessful Labour candidates for Durham County Council. It was the first to have been held here since 1997, when the then sitting County Councillor was deselected. When the new County Councillor died the following year, then his successor was simply appointed by one of the District Councillors, who had himself been selected unopposed, thereby setting the pattern for every vacancy for a Labour candidate until that District and then County Councillor retired voluntarily last year after 25 years in office.

All in all, Nick Forbes might find a return to County Durham rather convivial. He should seek the Labour nomination for the parliamentary seat of North West Durham. No one else wants it. I look forward to facing him on the stump.