It turns out that you can now stand for the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party by self-nomination. So there are 173 candidates. One hundred and seventy-three. Let's see if Laura Pidcock can once again cheat and still lose. Just as only Chris Grayling could have lost a rigged election, so only she could have done that.
How I feel for Jonathan Ashworth. I remember him well at university. As I recently explained to someone who was not born in those days, "He has been a loyal and faithful servant of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn, and Keir Starmer." "And of the next one?" "My dear boy, you have missed the point."
Through no fault of Jonathan's own, it will be his lot in life to have to lead Labour into the General Election of 2029, when Rishi Sunak will enjoy something akin to the 49-state sweeps that reelected Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
There are few, if any, constituencies where the votes of well-heeled white liberals would alone be enough to make one the First Past the Post, and in any case Labour is going to be in a three-way fight for that small bloc, against both the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.
As I look back on a quarter of a century of political activism, never again to contest another election to anything, then it is possible that I played some very small part in turning North West Durham into a key swing seat that therefore commanded serious attention, and in keeping the truly disturbed and disturbing little clique around Pidcock from any hope of seizing the Leadership of the Official Opposition.
And as a kind of double-headed capstone, I would take that. Life goes on. The Budget of March 2020 has ended the era that began with the Budget of 1976. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.
How I feel for Jonathan Ashworth. I remember him well at university. As I recently explained to someone who was not born in those days, "He has been a loyal and faithful servant of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn, and Keir Starmer." "And of the next one?" "My dear boy, you have missed the point."
Through no fault of Jonathan's own, it will be his lot in life to have to lead Labour into the General Election of 2029, when Rishi Sunak will enjoy something akin to the 49-state sweeps that reelected Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
There are few, if any, constituencies where the votes of well-heeled white liberals would alone be enough to make one the First Past the Post, and in any case Labour is going to be in a three-way fight for that small bloc, against both the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.
As I look back on a quarter of a century of political activism, never again to contest another election to anything, then it is possible that I played some very small part in turning North West Durham into a key swing seat that therefore commanded serious attention, and in keeping the truly disturbed and disturbing little clique around Pidcock from any hope of seizing the Leadership of the Official Opposition.
And as a kind of double-headed capstone, I would take that. Life goes on. The Budget of March 2020 has ended the era that began with the Budget of 1976. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.
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