Following the appointment of two Tory MPs and a Lib Dem MP to the Ministerial office in all but name and salary, we are once again being assured that this is about constructing "a government of all the talents". That was what was said when such office was conferred on Lib Dem peers, and when people were raised to the peerage specifically in order to be made Ministers in name and salary without having to join the Labour Party.
For Labour Party members, please note, do not have "talents", according to Gordon Brown. Consider, say, Kevan Jones MP. Whatever else one might say about him, he is certainly not without gifts. He has devoted his entire adult life to Labour and the GMB. He signed the "Blair Must Go" gizzajob letter.
And for what? Lib Dems and now Tories have been preferred to him. People who have never stood for election, or even exhibited any political tendencies in the ordinary sense, have been wafted into the parliamentary process and straight into government. And poor Kevan is not so much as a PPS or an Assistant Whip.
One example among so very, very many.
Those of you reading this and still in the Labour Party: WHY?
Um... maybe because we didn't join it just because we wanted a job? It's not all about personal self-aggrandizement for everyone, you know.
ReplyDeleteMaybe not, but he certainly did! And why not? Somebody has to be these things. But it can't be him, or scores like him, precisely because they are Labour MPs rather than "talents" - mutually exclusive categories, apparently.
ReplyDeleteIt's all their own fault, of course: they failed to ensure a contest for Leader.