And So To Beds?

The New Statesman's article on the rise of Evangelical churches as local voting blocs that Labour needs to mobilise, not news to longstanding readers of this site, is not yet online.

But its account of the remarkable manner in which the unexpected selection of Gavin Shuker as the Labour candidate at Luton South led to the unexpected Labour retention of that seat, both due to the activities of his congregants, ought to attract the attention of Martin Bell.

Although it is now hardly remembered, Bell sought in 2001 to unseat Eric Pickles at Brentwood and Ongar (which latter Bell could not pronounce correctly) due to the "infiltration" of the local Conservative Association by a Pentecostal church.

Pickles had never been a member of the Peniel Pentecostal Church in Pilgrims Hatch. Whereas until his election at the age of 28, Shuker was the pastor of the City Life Church in Luton, and another member of it now chairs his Constituency Labour Party in place of a party machine stalwart who had not wanted him as the candidate.

All to the good, say I. Of course a figure like that (who is white, if it matters, as I expect are most or all of the members of his church) is Labour, and is already a Shadow Minister, for the sake of retaining whom and others variously Evangelical and Catholic on the front bench no whip was imposed on the definition of marriage. Such is their clout within Ed Miliband's Labour Party, however modest their numbers may be.

None of this is remotely surprising to anyone who knows which way the wind blows. It is anything else that would be flabbergasting. Shuker and I have mutual friends, and I strongly suggest that you do not take your eye off him.

But where does it all leave Martin Bell, himself originally from the East of England, where the two Luton seats are Labour's only remaining redoubts in this Parliament, with one of them having been held by these means?

Bell is getting on a bit. But his nephew, who wrote his totally cynical election address at Tatton in 1997, is still only 50 or 51. I refer to Oliver Kamm.

To Kamm's mind, the situation at Luton South, and the influence of figures such as Gavin Shuker within the Labour Party, must be utterly egregious. The idea of the erstwhile pastor of the City Life Church as an International Development Minister must be as horrific to Kamm as it is exciting to me.

Following this week's New Statesman article, if Oliver Kamm does not announce his candidacy at Luton South, then there will be no remaining reason to take with even so much as the slightest seriousness anything that he might ever say on any subject whatever.