And another thing…

KNUCKLE draggers who actually believe that candidates should be rejected because of their parentage should pay attention to this comment, left in response to my latest posting on Erith and Thamesmead:

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.

I HAVE never met Georgia Gould but she is already the most famous Labour activist in the country.

She is contesting the selection for Labour candidate in Erith and Thamesmead  and has already made a rookie mistake, such a blindingly obvious faux pas that you have to ask yourself if she’s really cut out for politics at all: she has become popular among the local membership.

But it’s not enough, apparently, to be capable, intelligent, likeable and committed (which from all accounts she is). 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). No, her biggest disadvatage is that she’s the daughter of Philip (now Lord) Gould, who was, you may remember, a close friend and adviser to Tony Blair as well as his polling guru.

Now some Dave Spart-typer over at LabourHome is joining in the Georgia-baiting that has become a compulsive sport for some in the party of late. Equating a life peer appointed by Labour’s most successful prime minister with hereditary lords, Daniel Clarke says:

The offspring of Lords and Ladies have been over-represented in Parliament for centuries and the Erith and Thamesmead CLP members now need to make clear that being born into wealth and privilege is no longer sufficient qualification to be a Member of Parliament

Truly pathetic.

Isn’t it remarkable that post-Smeargate, when everyone is ostensibly beating themselves up over briefing against colleagues and reporting such briefings as fact, that here we have a young woman being villified and briefed against by Labour Party members for committing the unforgiveable crime of having a father who’s pals with our party’s most succesful leader ever and who is proving a far better campaigner than any of the other candidates in the field. And the media are dutifully reporting this poison. As they always do and always will, I suppose.

No-one would blame Georgia for saying “sod off” to Labour and heading off to somewhere where she might a bit more appreciated. Ah, but there’s the problem: she’s already appreciated by the members of Erith and Thamesmead , hence the destruction of the postal ballots which, I’m willing to bet, would have given her the nomination.

I hope she doesn’t walk away, because I don’t think we want to send out the message, particularly at the moment, that off-the-record, briefings by bullying middle aged men can see off talented young women.

ONCE again, the blogscape has beaten the mass media to the punch and got the real scoop on the Erith and Thamesmead selection fiasco.

Although the BBC website is reporting that the ballot box was “tampered with”, that turns out to be something of a euphemism for “broken into and had all the postal ballot papers ripped up”.

Alex Hilton has the dirt (in a very real sense of the word) over at LabourHome, The facts have been confirmed to me from another source.

I have no real interest in the outcome of the selection for this relatively “safe” Labour seat, except that the candidate with the majority support among members must prevail. Allegations have been made (and I know who the alligators are — boom, boom!) that one of the candidates is using “underhand” means by (shock! horror!) approaching ordinary party members (as opposed to activists) and encouraging them to apply for a postal votes. 

Hence, presumably, the action taken yesterday against the ballot box. You know, the one that was locked “safely” away in a cupboard at Victoria Street. Utterly, utterly dismal and disgraceful.

I suffered similar criticisms when I was running for the nomination in Cathcart in 2000. I was criticised for courting ordinary party members, most of whom had never attended a branch or constituency party meeting. I was told after the count that of the 31 postal votes submitted, 29 of them had been cast in my favour. But having visited far more members in their homes during the campaign, nobody should have been surprised.

John Smith staked his leadership on the principle of one member, one vote in parliamentary selections. He was right to do so, and one of the consequences is that every party member, whatever their status or role in the party, has no more say than anyone else.

Now, it seems, that some loathesome, anti-democratic criminal has tried to pervert the course of democracy. Presumably this cretin believes he or she knows so much better than the members of Erith and Thamesmead how they should have voted.

I hope and pray that whoever it is will soon have to explain him/herself to the investigating officers and, subsequently, the courts.