Last night I had a phone call from a comrade in Erith and Thamesmead. A middle of the road kind of person who has been in the Party for many years. She rang me because she is distressed about what is happening in her constituency.,
Georgia Gould, a 22-year-old who is the daughter of Blairite guru Philip Gould, has glossy leaflets, lots of money, and a PR consultancy headed up by Margaret McDonagh, former General Secretary of the Labour Party, working on her behalf. In Erith and Thamesmead, the selection process is in chaos due to the number of postal votes. People are threatening to resign from the Party, and they are disgusted at the way in which the system has been manipulated .I think it's time to stop this malpractice and I'm not keeping quiet about it.
Sunday, 12 April 2009
ERITH AND THAMESMEAD
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4 comments:
Commiserations on the Calder Valley selection.
I think you need to be careful before making accusations of malpractice, though. Being better at organising, and having the support of people who want you to win is not the same thing as malpractice.
There's a strong argument to be made that the current model of selection, where organising, speaking with voters, getting leaflets and DMs out etc makes more difference to the result than one good speech in a packed room, is closer to the nature of a general election contest, and means the party is more likely to select someone who is more likely to win against other parties.
My view is that rather than railing against this culture, the left should become better at it than the people you identify.
I am not making any accusations. I'm speaking as someone recently involved in two PPC selections. One had
80 people at the hustuings and 20 or so voting by post. The other had 57 voting at the hustings and 90 voting by post. I think being able to make a political case in a formal speech and then answer questions from Party members with some modicum of expertise is a pretty fair indicator of how good a candidate you are. And No-one gets elected unless they have activists working for them. Postal votes should be the exception, not the norm. That's what the rules say,.The current system, which favours those with the most money to throw at campaigns, and does not allow candidates to speak at Branch nomination meetings, needs sorting out.Fast.
Tim - I understand your point, but things have to be fair. If the system is no longer appropriate then we need a new one, but it can't be acceptable for the current system to be open to abuse. After all, we could have got LRC members to phone round the constituency getting people to arrange postal votes. Could have done; but doing so would be breaking the rules. And I don't think we need candidates who are better at breaking the rules. If this company, BBM, are actually involved then this is potentially very serious indeed. Is somebody paying for their services? Even if not, if they are arranging postal votes for people, or encouraging people to get postal votes, then they are breaking the rules; and if they're doing it on behalf of specific candidates, then I'm afraid the rules state that those candidates should be disqualified. Now I don't know if they are; I don't know which CLPs they've done it in if they are; but I damn well want to find out.
Duncan, I don't know either about the consultancy but I do know that something is amiss when a decision is made on who is PPC candidate regardless of the hustings.The hustings, after all, should be where the decision is made.And the decision at the hustings was utterly contrary to that enormous postal vote.Where it came from I have no idea. But I intend to find out.
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