Harriet Harman elected Labour Party Deputy Leader
I was very surprised to hear that Harriet Harman was elected as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, she was certainly not my first choice of even my second choice which was Alan Johnson. I was disapointed that Hazel went out first but I guess that's politics and it was a very packed field of candidates with no clear front runner.
The one bonus with Harriet is that she gained the most votes in the constituency section, personally I think that the electoral college is a pretty archaic system and that we should either reform or abolish the college and move to one member, one vote. In this election I had a vote in both the constituency and union section and given the turnout in the union section was a dismal 10%, questions really have to be asked about how representative this part of the college actually is, while I support the Labour party link with the trade unions should not all votes for leader and deputy be an OMOV system? Alternatively consideration should be given to weighting the votes 50% for members, 25% for MP's/MEP's and 25% for trade unions though getting constitutional change within the party is never easy especially as it will need the consent of unions at party conference(which I cannot see happening)
With the team now in place, it's now time to build for the future. I thought Gordon Brown made a visionary speech today and given the latest poll result we need to build on that and go forward united as a party. Certainly politics should be very interesting over the next few months.
The one bonus with Harriet is that she gained the most votes in the constituency section, personally I think that the electoral college is a pretty archaic system and that we should either reform or abolish the college and move to one member, one vote. In this election I had a vote in both the constituency and union section and given the turnout in the union section was a dismal 10%, questions really have to be asked about how representative this part of the college actually is, while I support the Labour party link with the trade unions should not all votes for leader and deputy be an OMOV system? Alternatively consideration should be given to weighting the votes 50% for members, 25% for MP's/MEP's and 25% for trade unions though getting constitutional change within the party is never easy especially as it will need the consent of unions at party conference(which I cannot see happening)
With the team now in place, it's now time to build for the future. I thought Gordon Brown made a visionary speech today and given the latest poll result we need to build on that and go forward united as a party. Certainly politics should be very interesting over the next few months.
posted by Martin Whelton at 8:49 pm
1 Comments:
Thank God the party eleceted a sensible, clear thinking representative and one who is not a Blair Babe or an over enthusiastic party hack. The fact that Hazel Blears went out at the first ballot is encouraging...the party has endured 10 years of one DPM who was a laughing stock and a bit of a joke....the diminutive and enthusiastic Hazel would have been an easy target for the daily mail.
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