Categories
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Henry G Manson says that party selections rarely leave clea
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Henry G Manson says that party selections rarely leave clean hands
Bismarck said “laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” The same could certainly be said of parliamentary selections. The scrutiny of Labour’s Falkirk selection has generated a good deal of recent media coverage and much of this can be put down to the fascination of Unite, the largest trade union in the country.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/photo-gallery-atlas-of-prejudices-fotostrecke-98525.html
Labour selections are always entertaining. Who can forget Mr Harriet Harman, Jack Dromy (who just happened to be a Trade Union baron and the Labour Party Treasurer who didn't know about £18 million loans raised by Lord Cashpoint) winning one of his wife's all-female shortlists
We would then get away from stitch ups like Falkirk, or any number of others. It would reduce the power of the self replicating cotierie of SPADs that form the oligarcies of our two main parties.
It was in the coalition agreement as I recall.
He's awfully busy presently and these noble interventions from your good self always show PB in its best cross community light.
A nice attempt of apologetics but it is not persuasive. Yes Labour has a record of imposing rules and then breaking them when it suits its personal purpose (like Mr Harriet Harmon).
However, when the major donor to a political party unapologetically and publically announces that the party that it has been supporting has MPs and candidates that are not supporting the believed basic ethos of that party (and adopts measures (invalid? or illegal?) to correct that imbalance) then it is valid that questions are asked.
On Today this morning, Anna Eagle could only offer the defence for Labour's inaction/action that "we had to defend the rule book" and would not recognise the scenario that was put to her that Unite could withdraw its funding of Labour.
Maybe it's just me, but I am not sure that makes any sense.
Mentioning Thatcher?! Good grief - that's desperate barrel scraping.
Still this Kinnocking has been most fun.
what about Jack Dromy being selected on an AWS ?
you heard it first from Easter Ross McWhirter.
" Only Labour party members vote in their selections. "
Well clearly if UNITE decides to make you a member of Labour without your consent or pays your dues for you - its not exactly cricket is it?
Imagine if News Corp were caught paying Tory membership fees so they could rig an election for their preferred candidate. It's totally undemocratic.
James Wharton on his EU referendum bill: "Ed Miliband isn't coming today because he's too weak to lead his party."
He's awfully busy presently and these noble interventions from your good self always show PB in its best cross community light.
Jack you fine chap, been very busy with all the DNA malarkey. Hoping to announce exciting evidence of 12th century inter-family nookie shortly with royal connections. Only downside is may make me a distant cousin of Mrs Dromy but at least does confirm Boris and Dave are cousins from a safe distance.
Now Mr Jack Harman or is it the full monty - Ms Jack-Harriet Dormy-Har-Woman ??
But 95% of the public are entirely unaware of this story and 90% of the remaining 5% either don't give a monkey's or don't understand it.
UNITE sends out documents describing its actions as *exemplary* as if that wasn't asking for it, but to allegedly make someone a Labour Party member without their consent?
If you're going to fabricate support - wouldn't you make up people or at least divert their party mailing to an address so they'd never get them/know what was going on?
It's bizarre. And paying someone else's membership fees? I'm sorry but its not quite like getting a record token is it.
I've no idea if you can buy memberships for others as *gifts* from Labour or any other party - but it does strike me as something that is wide-open to abuse and shouldn't be allowed.
.....................................................................................
It might be worse .... Cheshire farmers et al !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I realise I wrote Dromy, my apologies to Mr Droney.
" The great majority of the womens (sic) who came into parliament were women ".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJWHwAp5Css
Labour's inbreeding is producing a race of imbeciles.
Len McCluskey's onslaught on Ed Miliband is far more significant than the Falkirk brouhaha itself.
Open primaries are good for democracy, bad for party machines, because MPs like Sarah Woolaston owe little to the machine and can speak freely. She was good on QT last night. Dave should promote her not marginalise her.
If so, it looks horrible for Labour. Can things get any worse?
Decent.
Being a party member isn't that much fun most of the time. The right to choose your candidates is more interesting than everything else, since there's a chance that you can change the outcome, which isn't really usually the case for an individual voter in a GE, however much we shout "your vote could be decisive!" at them. If members give up the right to select, I'm not sure that many will bother at all.
Perhaps should agree to follow the style of the first replier.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100225011/a-question-of-labour-leadership/
"Today illustrates how on policy – Europe – and organisation – Falkirk/Unite – Mr Miliband has until now allowed others to call the tune. "
If so, what's the election process to replace him?
We can take our lead from the mighty and left wing airbrushing BBC on this one where the first five stories (including multi-media elements) are about the kitten in Derbyshire which got stuck in a can of coke.
Is there actually, perhaps unexpectedly, a way this could be turned into a win for Ed Milliband? With clever spin that could surely be doable (Although he hasn't got off to a good start).
On the other hand, I don't know what is yet to come out, and what Tom Watson will do next.
"I can reveal that any candidate for either council or parliamentary elections must now be a member of a trade union.
This astonishing condition is hidden in the small print of the party rulebook. As well as demanding that anyone who wants to be a candidate must ‘have continuous membership of the party for at least 12 months’, he or she must ‘also be a member of a trade union affiliated to the TUC or considered by the National Executive Committee (NEC) as a bona fide trade union and contribute to the political fund of that union’.
Not surprisingly, this rule change was not publicly announced. For it shows that the Labour leadership is in the most powerful union grip since Harold Wilson’s government had its policy dictated to by union chiefs over beer and sandwiches in Downing Street in the 1970s.
This amazing concession to the unions was part of Red Ed’s ‘Refounding Labour’ strategy which he pushed through the 2011 party conference...
A Labour Party spokesman insisted there had been an ‘assumption’ that candidates should be trade union members for 15 years or more and claimed the only changes that had been made to the rules in recent years were ‘grammatical’. But the rule is already delivering dividends for Unite, which has succeeded with its preferred choice of candidates in nine parliamentary seats, with 11 others put on shortlists.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2356502/ANDREW-PIERCE-Revealed-How-unions-got-Red-Ed-headlock.html#ixzz2Y9mVbxV6
One of parliament's best MPs since the GE has been Dr Sarah Woolaston.
Her method of selection is probably the reason why. An open primary where she was championed locally and therefore someone who feels more loyalty her constituents rather than the leadership. Often to the discomfort of Cameron.
Unite funded MPs will be loyal to Unite.
Party political pros and SPADS who become MPs wiil be loyal to their leaderships.
Open primary MPs will be loyal to their constituents.
You can see why party leadership's dislike open primaries.
They want MPs who are safe, unthinkingly loyal and who kneel to party discipline.
I can see both sides of the argument and understand why the unions - who pay the party huge sums - want their people in parliament. But it would be nice to see more mavericks and free-thinkers.
EDIT - Sorry I didn't see Sarah Woolaston mentioned below, or that she was on QT last night. She must've been mind-channelling me!
1. Different factions within a party will attempt to ensure that their supporters are selected for promising seats to become MPs.
This happens in all parties, and Conservative Eurosceptic groups have been particularly successful in ensuring that the PCP reflects their views.
2. The degree to which rules are bent or broken in order to achieve #1. You have things like older MPs allegedly being offered Peerages in order to announce that they will not fight the election sufficiently close to the election that the hierarchy can parachute in one of their mates.
This appears to be regarded as routine within the Labour party, but could fall within the definition of bribery, in my view.
Then you have the situation of an organisation like Unite trying to, in their mind, correct the balance and possibly slipping in to fraud to do so.
Unite are often being criticised for #1, in which all parties are alike, when what is going wrong with the selections is #2.
I think we should worry if an MP owes their place in Parliament to corrupt practises. Government funding for open primaries might help [but determined people can always find a way to corrupt a process if they wish], but it raises a number of questions.
Would the government fund an open primary to select a BNP candidate? If you set a threshold of only funding primaries for parties who saved their deposit at the last general election then the primary process would act to reinforce the status quo by providing free publicity for those parties that are already established in an area. Is that consistent with a fair election?
STV would help, because people would be able to rank their preferred candidates for each party, and so in effect it combines the process of an open primary with that of the general election.
you sound so uptight, dude
here's a link to Drenge help you get in the zone
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jan/24/new-band-drenge
North Tyneside - Riverside
Wendy Lott (Lab) 1067 85.6%
Barbara Stevens (Con) 179 14.4%
Internally it might matter a very great deal, externally people are bored or don't really care or notice but the overriding impression - where there is one - is nevertheless negative.
Moreover although this seems a pretty egregious example, "Unions support Labour" is hardly a man bites dog moment. The story, as ever, is the attempted explanations/cover ups which seem not to add up and keep the story going and arouse peoples' suspicions.
" Up to now, Len seems to be a pretty lonely voice. Could it be that he is somewhat isolated? "
LOL.
Man in charge of Labour's largest donor by far is ISOLATED.
Pull the other one.
http://order-order.com/2013/07/05/read-leaked-labour-eu-vote-briefing/
They want to appoint an "EU commissioner for growth" - deary deary me.
We've had a handful of Labour MPs named, but is there a list Likely List anywhere?
It's kindergarten stuff.
"Mr Miliband has until now allowed others to call the tune. David Cameron has herded Labour towards a potentially dangerous position on the EU referendum. No wonder Ian Austin and other politically savvy types are hinting at an amendment to James Wharton's Bill that would force a vote before 2015.
In the same way Unite has taken advantage of Mr Miliband's hands-off attitude to internal matters, and his reliance on union finance, to advance its interests. The result is an insurgency, a Blairite reaction, and a mess. The Tories will milk Labour's neo-Militant tendency for all its worth. Labour MPs will keep a nervous eye on Tom Watson, whose resignation letter has everyone scratching their heads: is that pledge of loyalty worth the paper it's written on? Tony Blair might say not.
Lynton Crosby has been saying for months that the public perceive Mr Miliband as weak. Empty opposition benches in the Commons this morning, confusion in the face of Unite's challenge, the overarching impression Labour and Mr Miliband give this Friday is indeed of weakness. He is fighting back, but both confrontations have been forced on him. He has chosen neither the battle nor the ground. A terrible place to start. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100225011/a-question-of-labour-leadership/
One to cheer up Tim (who loves muslim immigrants) and anger others (who think those dastardly muslim immigrants are damaging the chances of home-grown players).
I was actually surprised to see that there are 40 muslims playing in the Premier League.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOZa9y1CUAAIrX3.jpg:large
magnificent labour turnout for wharton bill. definitely double figures.
@GuidoFawkes
So whips told Labour MPs to go home and enjoy the sunshine. Suspect that line won't hold.
weak, weak, weak.
I've in front of me the 2009 Rule Book. It already said
B. Nominating criteria of members standing for
public office
1. In addition to fulfilling any statutory
requirements for the relevant public
office, persons wishing to stand as a
Labour candidate must have continuous
membership of the party of at least 12
months. They should also be a member of
a trade union affiliated to the TUC or
considered by the NEC as a bona fide
trade union and contribute to the
political fund of that union. Any
exceptions to these conditions must be
approved by the NEC or by officer
authorised by the NEC.
It was already present in Rule Book 2008. And also 2007.
So yes, Andrew Pierce, you didn't do your homework well. Go back to your desk and learn your salary writing some decent lines instead of making things up.
And the resonance will be that the Labour party is trying to deny them a say on an important national issue. That it happens to be Europe is irrelevant.
Not a masterstroke by Len/Ed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/21006885
It becomes "must" in 2010 version.
In addition to fulfilling any statutory
requirements for the relevant public
office, persons wishing to stand as a
Labour candidate must have continuous
membership of the party of at least 12
months. They should also be a member of
a trade union affiliated to the TUC or
considered by the NEC as a bona fide
trade union and contribute to the
political fund of that union. Any
exceptions to these conditions must be
approved by the NEC or by officer
authorised by the NEC
http://www.leftfutures.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Labour-Party-Rule-Book-2010.pdf
So before Refounding Labour which was approved at Conference 2011.
EDIT: Oh, I got confused. "Must" here is for 12 months membership. Union memberships still have the "should".
And what would change in practice switching from should to must? I know must is more decisive than should. But if you leave the "exceptions" clause in the next line, it's not conclusive anyway.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOZegOxCMAAliQ3.jpg:large
"The majority of Labour voters want a referendum"
http://order-order.com/2013/07/05/read-leaked-labour-eu-vote-briefing/
It all went bad when Jock Dreamy won an Old Woman's Shortlist.
It is, however, a bad sign that the Labour party has suddenly become very leaky. It implies that discipline is breaking down.
"There are two huge obstacles in the way of Mr Miliband becoming Prime Minister and they are dramatised together in the obscure shenanigans in Falkirk. The first is that he has not persuaded the electorate that he cuts it as a leader. The second is that he is not trusted with the public finances or thought to understand the need for fiscal discipline. If the evil ghosts of Tory central office were themselves drafting the script to show Labour at its worst they could do no better than to portray Mr Miliband losing control of his party to a public sector union that demands there be no more cuts.
It is all very well for Mr Miliband to say, as he often has, that he is not the sort of leader who wishes to pick a fight with his party. He seems, though, not to have realised that his party, or at least that section of it that gave him his victory over his brother, is picking a fight with him. This is not an arcane internal dispute. It is a toxic story for Labour and Mr Miliband has to stamp on it at once. Focus groups now talk about the Labour Party as if new Labour were a mirage. The image they offer of Labour is the pre-Blair default setting of an assembly of losers.
...Mr Watson should never have been close to the Shadow Cabinet in the first place. He is too divisive a figure, too closely associated with Len McCluskey, the general secretary of Unite, with whom he once shared a flat. Whenever a dog barked in the night of Labour politics, one thought always occurred: Mr Watson, I presume."
For example, there's a wafer-thin majority in favour of paying more National Insurance to improve the NHS: 40.4% - 39.9%.
However, when you look at the Midlands - traditionally regarded as being swing vote territory where the marginals are - then there are large majorities opposed to paying more NI for the NHS. In the West Midlands by 46% - 35% and in the East Midlands by 49% - 34%.
It would be great if one of the polling companies would start producing data tables that split out those living in major cities, say >250,000, and those in rural areas, say a population <10,000, from those in between, the <a href="http://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2007/10/17/where-the-next-election-will-be-decided/">METTHs that were identified by Blair Freebairn here in 2007.
I'm pretty sure that it is the Ashcroft polls that ask people whether they live in an urban area, defined as >10,000, or three further options [village, hamlet, isolated dwelling], but that still lumps the METTHs in with the larger conurbations.
"The leak of the Unite strategy document from January 2012 has given their game away. Unite’s plan is to counter-attack its own party, to make it more class-bound, more expressly left-wing.
...The specious Unite defence of its conduct is that it wishes to see more working-class people in Parliament. In truth, Unite operates an ideological test as well as a class identity test. I doubt today’s equivalent of Ernest Bevin would pass the ideological examination. There would be no place for Alan Milburn or Alan Johnson, working-class men who don’t think in the straight line required.
The truth is that those who wield power without intelligence do not want free-thinking original working-class people, of whom I am sure there are plenty who do need to be brought through the system. They want people who will understand that trade union sponsorship comes at the price of complete loyalty. Above even the desire to defend every perk and privilege of the public sector or to install an aimless form of class politics, what they most want is to be in charge. Like most control freaks, what they do with the power is by no means the whole point. It’s not enough for them to tell Labour what to do. They want to be there, in control..."
@rosschawkins
Tom Watson on BBC WM: there was clearly a problem with some of my colleagues around the shadow cabinet table and obviously I do accept that
So are there now 2 "musts" instead of one "must" and one "should"?
Thanks David for the subtle English grammar reasoning.