A VERY BRITISH PURSUIT.....

I'm a bit of a fan of political diaries - most politicians leave their memoirs to the time when they have taken the Chiltern Hundreds and retired from Westminster. Not so Chris Mullin.

The MP for Sunderland is standing down but befiore he goes he's publishing his memoirs of life in Government in a ( very) junior capacity.

I've been reading them on-line and the tone is frankly, tedious and embittered. A former man of the left, and author of the spendid A Very British Coup, Mullin became a devotee of New Labour ( see Tony Benn's diaries) and briefly, clearly, cherished dreams of senior office. Enough to eschew independence as a backbencher for the toil of junior ministerial life .

To his credit, Chris Mullin voted against the Iraq War and in latter years has re-gained something of his "cred" but to my mind someone who has benefitted from the patronage of Government office should not now be publishing personal tittle-tattle about senior figures at a time when Labour is in serious trouble. He may be leaving it all behind him. But the Party is going to be fighting for its life at the next election .

On a personal note, I've met Chris Mullin and have no doubt he is a clever man who once had reason to harbour dreams of high office. But when charisma bypasses were invented he was one of the first in the queue for the operation

GRIM DOWN SOUTH FOR BLAIRITE LAURA!

The following story from the august pages of the Crawley Observer has been brought to my attention. Have members perchance been reading How To Select and De-Select Your MP, by Chris Mullin.?

SOME of the town's grassroot Labour supporters have snubbed Laura Moffatt by deciding NOT to automatically back her as the party's next candidate for MP.
The Observer can exclusively reveal that members of the Ifield and West Green Labour group made the decision at a special joint meeting on Sunday.The agenda for the meeting states: "The Crawley Constituency Labour Party has began the process to decide whether Laura Moffatt MP should automatically become our next Parliamentary Candidate or whether we should proceed to have a full selection process and panel of candidates."This is your chance to have a voice in what happens."A source told the Observer that the vote in Ifield went eight to two against Laura with the vote in West Green polling seven to one against.MP Laura has represented Crawley since 1997, but now has the smallest majority in the country - just 37 votes.When we contacted the MP she confirmed she was aware of their decision but sought to play down the embarrassing snub.She said: "It is fine, its absolutely cool I have done it before." LoL......