Photo credit: Mark Kerrison
The newspapers, broadcast media and political podcasts over the last few days have been obsessed with the machinations inside the Tory party in Basildon and Billericay. It is one of the safest Tory seats in the country, with a majority so large that it should withstand a Labour landslide come July. With the incumbent MP John Baron standing down, and with only a month to go before the election, the Chair of the Conservative Party, Richard Holden, has announced the new candidate. It is Richard Holden.
The move has shocked not only the Tory voters of Basildon and Billericay but also the unshockable political journalists. The news featured on most bulletins and on Newsnight. It also featured prominently in the press and The News Agents devoted an entire podcast to the topic.
That this flagrant example of parachuting should attract so much attention from the mainstream media has surprised some of us on the Left, where parachuting is part of everyday life.
And in the Labour Party, we don’t just put our yes-men and women into seats without an incumbent. We trump up charges against existing candidates, find them guilty and allow those who made that judgement to move into a safe seat without challenge.
The dismissal of Faiza Shaheen in Chingford and Woodford Green is perhaps the most egregious. Labour has lost a candidate who would have been a credit to the party and a serious player in parliament.
Faiza was removed on the basis of a few tweets over 14 years, none of which seem in any way contentious but were used by three NEC members - two of whom took over safe seats and one of which said nothing and failed even to turn on his camera during the Zoom interview - to justify their factionalism.
Faiza is a great loss. Let’s look at a gain.
Luke Lakehurst is a seriously unpleasant man, but he is - since a couple of hours before the closing of nominations - the Labout candidate for North Durham.
He is an extremist, a self-proclaimed “Zionist shitlord” who has accused the UN of being anti-semitic and - a non-Jew himself - has accused non-Zionist Jews of abandoning their Jewish identity. “They don’t go to shul at all. It’s become a purely cultural thing around a bowl of chicken soup.”
He also, famously, said of (the late MP) Glenda Jackson that she made him “want to puke” and “sets my gag reflex going”.
But that’s ok - it’s not as if he’s a Tory donor. And why should the media be concerned about this man being parachuted into a safe Labour seat.
After all, Starmer was clear that all candidates should meet the highest standards.
Faiza, a working class Muslim with a PhD and a community base, doesn’t. Akehurst, a shit with no community base, does.
Standards? Or double standards?
Today from the everysmith vaults: The Lindsays, playing the Razumovsky quartets. I miss them.
The move has shocked not only the Tory voters of Basildon and Billericay but also the unshockable political journalists. The news featured on most bulletins and on Newsnight. It also featured prominently in the press and The News Agents devoted an entire podcast to the topic.
That this flagrant example of parachuting should attract so much attention from the mainstream media has surprised some of us on the Left, where parachuting is part of everyday life.
And in the Labour Party, we don’t just put our yes-men and women into seats without an incumbent. We trump up charges against existing candidates, find them guilty and allow those who made that judgement to move into a safe seat without challenge.
The dismissal of Faiza Shaheen in Chingford and Woodford Green is perhaps the most egregious. Labour has lost a candidate who would have been a credit to the party and a serious player in parliament.
Faiza was removed on the basis of a few tweets over 14 years, none of which seem in any way contentious but were used by three NEC members - two of whom took over safe seats and one of which said nothing and failed even to turn on his camera during the Zoom interview - to justify their factionalism.
Faiza is a great loss. Let’s look at a gain.
Luke Lakehurst is a seriously unpleasant man, but he is - since a couple of hours before the closing of nominations - the Labout candidate for North Durham.
He is an extremist, a self-proclaimed “Zionist shitlord” who has accused the UN of being anti-semitic and - a non-Jew himself - has accused non-Zionist Jews of abandoning their Jewish identity. “They don’t go to shul at all. It’s become a purely cultural thing around a bowl of chicken soup.”
He also, famously, said of (the late MP) Glenda Jackson that she made him “want to puke” and “sets my gag reflex going”.
But that’s ok - it’s not as if he’s a Tory donor. And why should the media be concerned about this man being parachuted into a safe Labour seat.
After all, Starmer was clear that all candidates should meet the highest standards.
Faiza, a working class Muslim with a PhD and a community base, doesn’t. Akehurst, a shit with no community base, does.
Standards? Or double standards?
Today from the everysmith vaults: The Lindsays, playing the Razumovsky quartets. I miss them.
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