And another thing…

“I’m willing to bet”

Bets have to be testable. Given the ballot box has been interfered with, we can never know.

Tom I agree this is a disgrace, and if Erith members want her the should get her.

I think the PV thing is exacabated by fact that you cannot (according to the rules) get a PV just because you want one, you have to give a reason (holiday etc)

I’d imagine Georgia was going to win with PV’s from non active members who others hadnt approched as it was unlikley they’d vote. I believe the other candidates may belive that she may have encouraged the others (who had no intention of voting) that they could have a PV if they were “away”.
That is entirelt my speculation.

I wont not vote for her in a selction but its wrong on every level that those votes were interfered with.

I refer the honorable gentleman to the comment I made some blog-entries before…

(Also, I understand the ‘Dave Spart’ type you refer to is a selected Labour PPC – don’t know where, or anything about him, but it wouldn’t do to undermine a selected candidate now would it…)

Disgusting business. I wonder who that middle-aged bully could be……..?

Meantime, here’s a snippet from one of my very favorite songs:

“……..He’s leaving,
On that midnight train to Georgia,
And he’s goin’ back
To a simpler place and time.
And I’ll be with him
On that midnight train to Georgia,
I’d rather live in his world
Than live without him in mine”.

@ Rosie B “I think the PV thing is exacabated by fact that you cannot (according to the rules) get a PV just because you want one, you have to give a reason (holiday etc)”

You’re thinking of a General or Local election. This was a constituency selection vote where any local member can vote; either on the night of the hustings or by post within 7 days of the meeting.

If someone won the hustings vote and the postal votes were voided then (if you were completely mental) you’d assume that the decision would stand.

This is all a reminder that the poisonous politics that so damaged Labour in the 1980s have not gone away. They were effectively suppressed, if not eliminated, under Blair, but under Brown bullying and the rest have come back.

Most party members reject this poison and it is about time that the NEC took action against it. Sadly, though, this weekend’s other news suggests that lots of senior people in the party are rather too much implicated in this sort of thing.

More power to you. Tom.

The most obvious solution;
http://tinyurl.com/ballotsafe

Sorry?

Post Smeargate ? LOL

To be ‘post’ anything; doesn’t it have to be over first?

Nice try Tom – but this baby’s going to run and run.

As for Georgia…..
“No-one would blame Georgia for saying “sod off” to Labour”

Well quite!

As will the majority of the electorate come the General Election.

Face it Tom; it’s over!
You’d be better off out of the venally corrupt Labour Party and starting a new left of centre party to really take on the Tories.

You…you are a Labour MP aren’t you Tom?

*Pokes him with a stick*

Labour are all about the class envy. You could be appointed “Lord Harris” and your kids will have one hell of a time trying to succeed in the Labour Party in later life. For some reason in that situation you magically become a Tory and your children magically travel back in time and are reborn into the aristocracy with a silver spoon in their mouths.

I feel a new slogun coming on…

“Labour, because our prejudices don’t have to make sense.”

What’s worse though, is that the entire Kinnock household have all been given appointed on merit to various high paying, tax avoiding EU jobs, and NO-ONE has a problem with this.

You need a new party Tom, thinking rationally will get you nowhere in today’s Labour party.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Labour has chosen to run its politics like the Mafia with metaphorical killing of opponents.

The last clearout was Kinnock in the 1970s getting rid of Militant. Seems like another clearout is due again.

It’s all very well to deprecate smearing but the people who do it get used to doing it and the POWER. They should be treated like cockroaches (metaphorically) as they leave the same kind of residues which poison everything.

I anticipate this shambles going on for weeks and helping to thoroughly destroy Labour’s election prospects. Voters do not like divided parties: see the Conservatives in 1997..

@richard

I think you have that wrong richard, the wrong way round I mean.

Ive got a PV from the council (valid for all national and local elections) just as I rang and asked them for it, and filled a form in.

But im a LP member and took part in a selection last year whereby the procedures secretary explicitly told members they could not have a PV without giving him a reason.I cant see Erith running under anything but them same rules

“Also, I understand the ‘Dave Spart’ type you refer to is a selected Labour PPC – don’t know where”

Eastleigh

Sorry Richard, but it’s quite the opposite.

In a general election, anybody can apply for a postal vote. In a Labour Party selection you have to have a reason why you can’t attend the hustings. It is also quite explicit in the rules and in the code of conduct for candidates that postal votes are entirely a matter for the local organisation and nominees should play no part in them, at any stage.

Now people have been making the case for the last week why they would prefer different rules, and we can have that debate. But in the mean-time some candidates are (perhaps entirely unwittingly) breaking the rules. The problem with that is that other candidates are not breaking the rules (and their reward for keeping to the rules is being ’smeared’ by middle-aged male bullies for apparently not putting in as much work as other candidates…)

@Duncan is correct, so we have stumbled on the “justifaction” that will be used for this despecible act.

The alleged wronged will claim the person who had most to gain, “encouraged” (or worse) PV’s and therfore their almost certain selction was invalid.

Its all getting very nasty, its called death throws.

Truly pathetic indeed. And, the laugh is, albeit a mirthless one, that that attitude is itself them-and-us factionalism, aka snobbery.

It’s regrettable, but it occurs in all parties.

I’d rather my colleagues here weren’t so smug about what’s happening to that particular Labour selection, were’re very close to something similar happening in some of our own selections. Let’s get our own house in order before crowing from the rooftops.

Tom,

Sorry to say, the Labour spin machine is now so discredited that the more officals try and claim that Georgia Gould, as the annointed central candidate, was robbed, the more I am inclined to believe that she lost fair and square, and the rest is black arts.

You however are one of the few to have shown yourself to be a decent man, and therefore I will believe your account. No, scratch that. I will believe you are faithfully reporting your understanding of the facts – you may still be being lied to by your own side.

Ultimately, this is why your lot have to move over. Nobody trusts the Government any more, even when they’re telling the truth, which is ripping the country apart. And it’s entirely Labour’s own fault.

Gould’s daughter, more labour ‘aristocracy’ to handed begging bowls for the taxpayer to fill,
Tony Blairs step mother-in-law.
Tony Benn’s daughter.
I guess the old battle cry of labour of ‘advantaged’ public school conservatives is starting to ring a bit hollow.

I pointed out some of the above to a not too particularly politically aware friend, she lives in your constituency. She will not be voting labour again.

Tom Harris MP, you are out of touch

Funny how the men in the Labour Party – the same one which forever drones on about loving all things feminist – are prepared to bully women when it suits them, isn’t it?

Tom Harris: ‘Ms Gould’s worst liability isn’t even that she doesn’t live in the constituency (and we all know that anyone who hasn’t lived all their life in the constituency they aspire to represent can’t possibly hope to be remotely effective as an MP. Apparently).’

Protesting a little too much, there..?

Was a little surprised, several months down the line, to discover that the replacement for our resigned MP, Tess Kingham, was a Londoner. Why would the local party think him a better choice than perfectly capable homegrown candidates? There has never been an answer, but he coasted to victory on Tess’ coat-tails, despite being ‘briefed’ against by the local paper (editor: a Londoner).

Why *should* any constituency need to look outside it’s own boundaries for a representative? We’re not talking about premier league football teams here…

Tom

Isn’t it symptomatic of Labour that deep inside the grassroots physche is a class warfare raging.

By that I mean not just a fight for equality, fairness and taxation based on the ability to pay but a deep seated hatred of the upper classes.

In many ways this is an extremist sentiment reminiscent of the old radical left.

Is it a further sign of the growing tensions between the left and the rest of the party.

Can we expect either a lurch to the left or a split post election 2010?

Either way, New Labour appear finished, dry on policy and unelectable after so many smear scandals.

Right now, even the Tories look tempting to middle England.

’she has become popular among the local membership.’

1 word is she was one of a closed ‘women only’ short list imposed on the constituency labour party by central office. what ever happened to democratic choice at local level,selection on merit and proven ability /experience ?
2 at 22 her only experience is at student union level and not the concerns of people who have to get and keep a job and pay their way
3 at least the mafia tended not to draw the women and children of their enemies into their disputes (and tom i acknowledge your stand on this)

Tom

How about a posts on the presence of Charlie Whelan?

He seems to have been pivotal in all these shenangins.

1. Whelan was cc’d into the Dolly Draper Emails

2. Whelan wasat the fabled ‘Redrag’ meeting

3. UNITE were paying for Draper & Redrag

4. Whelan is issuing statements to say that his computer has been hacked yet he isn’t in the Government.

What’s you thoughts on Whelan?

Is he acting as the unofficial spin doctor for Brown after his disgraceful exit so many years ago?

Is this the correct way to run Government and how would that taint Brown, as if he needed tainting?

“…capable, intelligent, likeable and committed…”

Yeah, and twenty-two.

It would be better for her to demonstrate a capacity for achievement in the real world before she stands as an MP.

Though this may be a safe seat for your party, please do not ignore the misgivings many voters have over the limitations of career politicians.

No comment on all those postal votes Tom ?

Is this a practice run for the main event ?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/15/damien-mcbride-georgia-gould-labour

So, you’re saying we shouldn’t discriminate against someone because of their parents success?

Shhh, don’t tell Harriet or Gordon.

I hadn’t heard that Ms Gould had enjoyed any particular popularity in the constituency in question, this may well be the case. I also don’t believe that the current cycle of stories have been smearing Ms Gould per se.

It seems to me that what is being reported is an unease with the tactics and processes being followed, such as the extrememly high proportion of postal ballots, control of the selection process being taken away by the central party and unexpected and unnanounced visits from prominent Labour politicians.

I don’t think it is the reporting of these stories that are perpetuating the poisonous Labour image, rather it is the disregard for the local CLP, the belief that the central party knows best and the internal cliques that seem to be all about maintaining the status quo.

This of course is an all woman shortlist designed to increase the number of women in the Party. standing as MPs etc.

SO far it is being perverted – or it looks like this – to elect the siblings or relations of Labour bigwigs.

I thought nepotism died out with the Tories. Obviously I am wrong.

Smearing expenses (the Tories are as bad) and nepotism. the next stage to Zimbabwe is arresting opponents. Ooops!

Many years ago there was a constituency called Nantwich, which was pure Tory. Next to it was a constituency called Crewe, which was pure Labour.

After the boundary changes of 1983 the constituency of Crewe and Nantwich came into being. Labours candidate was Gwyneth Dunwoody who managed to win the 1983 election by with a majority of less than 300. (290?).

Over the following years until her untimely death Gwyneth built that majority up to ~7000. She did this mainly by convincing the Tory majority in Nantwich that even as a Labour MP she could and would defend their interests. Although a life long member of the Labour party her principal was always to fight for what was best for her constituency regardless of party policies.

She was one of the few people who survived being attacked by the central party when the party tried to oust her from the chairmanship of the Transport committee. Mostly because of her honest and not merely compliant running of the committee even if that involved saying the party was wrong.

And the point of this post ?.

Her mother, Norah Phillips, was a life peer.

The people of Crewe and Nantwich will be lucky to have another MP who represents and fights for them as much as that daughter of a peer.

I don’t know her or her politics but I would urge Georgia Gould to campaign for and fight to represent the people of Erith and Thamesmead. The constituency (like every constituency) deserves somebody who will get involved at a local level, who will listen to the people and will fight for you and your votes.

I am not a natural party voter, no single party represents my views, but Gwyneth would always get my vote because even if I disagreed with a particular point I always knew she was trying to do the best for the people she represented and not just kowtow to dogmatic party lines. She wasn’t my Labour member of parliament, she was MY member of parliament and that means a lot more to floating voters like myself than if she was the daughter of a peer.