Posts Tagged ‘women shortlists’

Celebrity stitch-up: the game show coming to a CLP near you

17/11/2011, 07:30:11 AM

by Peter Watt

Hoorah! I am delighted to see that we are well and truly into selection season again. It means that we can expect many more stories of the “it’s a stitch-up” genre.

Because selection stitch-ups are the stuff of activist legend and fantasy. They contain all of the elements that excite: corrupted internal democracy, re-interpretation of rules, officious officials, favours being done for favoured sons and daughters and the rights of the local party being impinged. Lovely. Still, good to see that in Thurrock, at least, the new generation and Ed’s new politics have all come to nothing. Nope, in selections, at least, it all looks like good old fashioned business as usual.

I personally find it all a little bit bizarre. Why don’t we just grow up a bit and either recognise the current system for what it is or if we don’t like it change it.

The current system of selections for parliamentary seats is in theory a model of democracy. Rules and regulations enshrine the rights of local members to select their candidate. But in reality, various powerful factions load the dice in their favour. The leader’s office will have a pool of candidates that it wants selecting. The trade unions another block. There will be groups of candidates that differing factions will see as being broadly okay and will therefore help: all within the rules. And other groups that differing factions will see as broadly not okay, and they will not be helped: all within the rules. Of course not all of the factions will get their way. Not every one of the leader’s candidates will get selected. But proportionately, the impact of the favoured and not favoured will be high. (more…)

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