Purged! part two

When, in 2014, the Labour Party changed its rules to allow registered supporters, Andrew Rawnsley reported in The Observer: 'Mr Miliband has an ambition to get the number up to 100,000.' The idea of allowing people a vote in future leadership elections was to involve more people in the party, Rawnsley added:

What Mr Miliband is essentially proposing is what Americans call a "closed primary". You can't just walk in off the street to take part. You have to show some level of commitment to Labour. But you don't have to be a full-blown member to have a vote.

The proposal was passed by Labour's National Executive Committee in February last year by a vote of 28 votes to two. The dissenters were Dennis Skinner and Christine Shawcroft, probably the two most left-wing members of the NEC. Ed Miliband professed himself delighted with the result:

These changes will help bridge the gap between Westminster and the rest of Britain. They are about opening up the Labour Party so that more people from every walk of life can have more say on the issues which matter to them most.

At one point, in October, it seemed as though the price for being a registered supporter might be as high as £10, but that came in for a lot of criticism. Tessa Jowell - not then declared as a London mayoral candidate, but with that contest clearly in mind - said: '£10 sounds very high. In my view the charge should be set at the lowest level possible consistent with the proper administering of the primary.' So it came down to £3. And there it still is.

Which is why I signed up to it. I think a £10 charge would have deterred me, but I always liked the idea of primaries (of voting in anything, really) and I thought that seemed a reasonable level.

I also thought that I'm maybe sort of among the kind of people that they might want to participate: someone who's voted Labour in the past, but not consistently, i.e. a floating voter who could be won over, and therefore someone whose opinion on the leadership might be worth taking into consideration. And being a single, childless man with a natural inclination towards sloth, I thought I might offer a different perspective to all those hard-working families so beloved of politicians.

Evidently I was wrong, since I've been rejected. (No word yet, incidentally, on the return of my three quid.) Somewhere there is someone in the Holborn & St Pancras Labour Party who has checked up on me, taken against me, and put my name on a blacklist, so that as soon as I tried to cast a vote, I received a rejection email.

This doesn't leave me feeling bitter, in the way that some longstanding members and activists clearly - and justifiably - feel when they've been excluded. But it does tend to reinforce the impression that it's all a bit risible (hence the cheap sarcasm yesterday). And it does irritate me enough that I don't particularly wish the party well; surely it's a normal human reaction to respond, 'Well, if that's how you feel about it...'

Mostly, though, it leaves me genuinely baffled. If the 'opening up' of Labour doesn't include me, who does it include? Perhaps I misunderstood from the outset, and the intention was to attract solid Labour voters who'd never joined the party. In which case, Miliband was even more useless than I thought: they're not the ones you need to win over.

But maybe in writing that last sentence, I've answered my own question. I have been writing on this blog for several years that Miliband was useless and would never win a general election. I've also been very critical of Labour's policy and direction. That doesn't mean I don't support the 'aims and values' of the party - which is all I signed up to - but maybe they're feeling a bit sensitive right now.

I do like the bit in the rejection email that says I can appeal but only if I apply 'to join Labour as a full member'. Which obviously costs a lot more money. You'd have to be very cynical, however, to conclude that this was all a fund-raising exercise. I'm not sure the party's capable of thinking that far ahead.

Who gets my vote: Part 5

So finally, having looked out the Tory, Lib Dem, Green and fringe candidates for the constituency where I live, Holborn & St Pancras, I come to the person who will - barring acts of God - become the next MP. And that person is the Labour Party's candidate, Keir Starmer. Or Sir Keir Starmer, as he became last year.

Now Starmer starts with a slight advantage, as far as I'm concerned. I've got used to the idea that people offering themselves for the highest political office are younger than me (I once wrote an e-book on the subject). But Starmer was born just six months after I was, which is well within the margin of error.

According to a profile in the Guardian a decade or so back, he was born into a working-class family in South London and went to Reigate grammar school, where he had violin lessons alongside Fatboy Slim. His parents, after retiring, ran a donkey sanctuary.

He made his name in the 1990s as a defence lawyer, specialising in civil rights and representing everyone from the families of British soldiers killed by 'friendly fire' in the Kuwaiti War, through to Arthur Pendragon. (The latter, in case you've forgotten, was the official sword-bearer of the Secular Order of Druids and was accused of trespassary assembly at Stonehenge on the summer solstice.)

He was also involved in the epic McLibel case, and acted for Death Row prisoners in the Caribbean. In 2000 he was named Human Rights Lawyer of the Year by the two pressure groups Liberty and Justice.

In 2008 he became Director of Public Prosecutions. The Daily Telegraph called his appointment a case of 'poacher turned gamekeeper'; the Guardian said it was 'bold' (resisting the temptation to add 'very bold', in approved Jules and Sandy manner); while the Sun summed it up with the headline: 'New prosecutor defends paedos'. He left office five years later, and was subsequently selected as the Labour candidate for Holborn & St Pancras.

All of this is perfectly sound; you might say impressive. And the man even lives in the constituency. So why am I suspicious of Starmer?

Well, Wikipedia points out that as DPP he was responsible for the non-prosecution of the police officer involved in the death of Ian Tomlinson, and was subsequently keen on pursuing the Twitter Joke case. But I don't think that's the real cause of my distrust. Those decisions certainly besmirch his image as a liberal lawyer (Judge John Deed wouldn't have made them), but his broad record as DPP stands scrutiny with pretty much anyone else's.

No, I think my problem comes from a feeling that he is at heart a believer in the state as the solution to our woes. This is characteristic of many civil rights lawyers; a sense that they are the guardians of truth, freedom, progress, and that these things are therefore determined by action from the top down.

Back in 1990, for example, Starmer was quoted as saying that 'morality was a question for Parliament, not the judges'. I don't think it's a question for either, particularly. I think morality is a question for the people, with both Parliament and the judges following behind.

Or perhaps my problem is that he represents the new-look Labour Party. 'Labour has changed, with just 13 per cent of our MPs from skilled manual backgrounds,' said the union leader Ken Jackson in 1999. 'Barristers, academics and doctors have taken their place. Parliament is fast becoming the preserve of the professional.'

In Andy McSmith's excellent book Faces of Labour, he recounts the story of Tony Blair being introduced to Greg Dyke in 1983, at a time when Blair was looking for a safe constituency to fight. Dyke's response was: 'Not another fucking London barrister!'

Maybe that's it.

Who gets my vote: part 4

As I explore the outer reaches of the ballot paper that has been assembled for the Holborn & St Pancras constituency in which I live, I'm terribly excited to find that Natalie Bennett is not the only party leader standing. 

Because look, here's Vanessa Hudson of the Animal Welfare Party. She may not get invited onto the leaders' debates on television, but she's the big boss of the AWP. And she can call on the endorsement of 1960s model Celia Hammond. Unfortunately most of the policies that the party are putting forward relate to animals - apart from calling on the government to promote 'plant-based diets', there doesn't seem to be anything aimed at us humans.

The AWP is fielding candidates in a total of four constituencies, which is twice as many as the Socialist Equality Party. I'm not fully up to speed with developments in the world of Trotskyism, and the SEP is a new name to me. but - having checked - they turn out to be a rebranded version of the International Communist Party, who split from the Workers Revolutionary Party back in the 1980s.

They are also - as their leaflet boasts - the British section of the International Committee of the Fourth International. Not the actual Fourth International, of course (in which we are represented by Socialist Resistance), nor the Fourth International (ICR) nor the Fourth International Posadist. And certainly not the International Trotskyist Committee for the Political Renegeneration of the Fourth International, the Liaison Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International or the Workers International to Rebuild the Fourth International. And, just while I'm clearing up these confusions, there is another rival International Committee of the Fourth International as well, but that's not the one that the SEP are part of. Don't be fooled by the name.

Despite all of which, their election leaflet insists: 'Only the SEP speaks for the working class.' But only in two constituencies, apparently. And one of them, happily, is mine, with a candidate named David O'Sullivan.

These are minor parties, though. Just six candidates between the two of them across the whole nation. Much more substantial is the list of 32 constituencies being contested by Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol. That's a statement of intent. Somewhat peculiarly, however, the central demand of CISTA is not the immediate legalisation of cannabis, but merely the setting up of a Royal Commission to look into drug laws. They want government drug policy to be 'evidence-based, cross-party, humane and non-partisan'.

I think they're underselling themselves. They're not even competing properly with the Green Party of England and Wales, whose manifesto promises 'Radical reform of our drug laws'. No mention there of a Royal Commission. And as Peter Lilley pointed out back in 2001: 'Royal Commissions are just a way of playing issues into the long grass.' He added: 'Perhaps appropriate for cannabis.'

Still, good luck to Shane O'Donnell of CISTA. If all the potheads in Camden could get themselves together to vote for him, he'd do alright.

And that's it. The English Democrats and the British National Party - both of whom fielded candidates last time - have abandoned us. And there are no independents like we had in 2010. Still, no doubt we'll survive somehow.

Who gets my vote: part 3

Moving on from the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats, I come to the right-wing parties who are fielding candidates in my constituency, Holborn & St Pancras.

Ukip are sticking with Maxine Spencer, a 51-year-old former immigration officer. She got all of 587 votes last time round, when she was beaten into sixth place by the BNP. (In an area not short of luvvies, it is possible that the BNP benefitted from having a candidate named Robert Carlyle).

Since the BNP aren't standing this time, and since Ukip have been receiving much more national media attention, Spencer will presumably improve on her 1.1 per cent share of the vote and might even (though it's unlikely) save her deposit.

I think it's fair to say that - even though Spencer claims she's getting less abuse than in the last campaign - this isn't natural Ukip territory. It's also fair to say that the party won't be getting my vote.

I've probably written too much about Ukip on this blog and its predecessor (most recently here), but I would just make one further point: I'm really rather glad that Ukip exist.

The ex-communist turned Tory MP Eric Forth used to say: 'There are millions of people in this country who are white, Anglo-Saxon and bigoted, and they need to be represented.' He was quite correct on both counts. Any decent democracy worthy of the name needs to allow minority voices to be heard, because the alternative - of suppressing dissent - is immoral and dangerous.

Just to be clear, I'm obviously not suggesting that the Ukip vote is solely comprised of bigoted white Anglo-Saxons: Spencer herself, for example, is the child of a Trinidadian mother and a Welsh father. But it would be daft to deny that there's a strong element of Forth's section of the Conservative Party in there, having been made to feel unwelcome by David Cameron. And, sadly, they're not going to be represented.

Because I think one of the big stories of the coming election may well be a wave of dissatisfaction with a system that rewards the Scottish National Party so disproportionately when compared to Ukip. On current polls, and assuming a similar turnout to 2010, the SNP are in line to secure around 1.1 million votes and are predicted to get somewhere around forty-five seats; Ukip, on the other hand, will receive twice that level of support and will be doing well to win three seats.

This is palpably unjust. But it still doesn't make me want to vote Ukip.

For the last general election, the Conservative Party had a very strong candidate in George Lee. His election address made great play of his back story: Hong Kong Chinese, born in a semi-converted pigsty, child labourer in a toy factory at the age of five, came to Britain, joined the Metropolitan Police, rose to rank of chief inspector, subsequently became vice-president of T-Mobile - this was compelling stuff. He had no hope of winning, of course, but he cut a convincing figure and he got the Tory vote back into five figures for the first time since 1992.

He was so good (the Labour Party had reportedly been chasing him as well) that I assumed he was working his political apprenticeship, and that he'd move on and get a winnable constituency this time to become Britain's first Chinese MP. Regrettably I can find no trace of him having done so.

Maybe Lee was a bit too exciting for the local Conservative Party, because this time they've got a much blander looking candidate:

I'm probably being unfair to judge him solely on his looks, but I know very little more about him, apart from what I read in his literature and in a single newspaper interview. He's thirty years old, he grew up in Dorset, he joined the Conservatives at the age of fourteen, he studied history at Oxford, he's worked for an MP, he lives in Kentish Town, he's gay, he looks pleasant enough.

Oh, and he's called Will Blair. That's Will Blair. Doesn't stand a chance with a name like that. But I bet he turns up in another constituency next time.

Who gets my vote: part 2

Continuing my ruminations about who to vote for in the coming election, the Liberal Democrats in my constituency of Holborn & St Pancras are fielding Jill Fraser.

This is a good choice - Fraser (she's the one in the middle) is a popular figure. In 2003 she won a shock by-election to be elected to Camden Council (this was against the backdrop of the invasion of Iraq), and went on to become mayor of the borough in 2006. She stood for parliament in the Holborn & St Pancras constituency in 2005, achieving an 11 per cent swing from Labour to Lib Dem, and she's very active and visible in local campaigning.

Her son is a university lecturer (which is surely a good thing), but most famously she works in a local chip-shop and has done for over two decades. This is not necessarily the image conjured up by the words 'North London Liberal'.

She didn't stand in 2010, but the Lib Dem candidate came in second again, for the third election running. The candidate then, Jo Shaw, got a shade under 28 per cent of the vote. Even with the personal standing of Fraser, it's unlikely to get much better this time. Last year the Lib Dems were all but wiped out in the local elections, and Fraser lost her council seat (as did all but one of their candidates).

The reality, of course, is that it doesn't really matter who the candidate is. This is nobody's idea of a target seat (even assuming that the Lib Dems enjoyed the luxury of having target seats) and the party isn't exactly pouring resources into the constituency campaign. Fraser could promise free chips to every voter without it making any real difference.

I've long thought that the Lib Dems would do better in this election than was being predicted. And my reasoning was that they had quite a decent story to tell. Nick Clegg made the right decision in 2010 to enter a coalition government. Coalitions are what the party had been talking about for my entire adult life, and it would have been absurd to turn down the opportunity when it arose. Further, I have no doubt that the presence of the Lib Dems made the government a better one than it would have been had the Tories governed alone. Those were the two options that existed after the nation had voted, and we got the better of the two.

Now, though, I'm not so sure about the Lib Dem prospects. I think that as the choice between David Cameron and Ed Miliband becomes starker, there is a very real possibility that the Lib Dems will get squeezed. Clegg seems to me to be playing a limited hand pretty well, but for most of this campaign it's been as though the party hardly exists. No one appears to care in the slightest what they have to say.

And that's a bit of a shame, because I think the country benefits from having a moderately strong Lib Dem presence. It provides an alternative where none would otherwise exist, and it can sometimes spring a surprise. Eastbourne, for example, where the Labour Party stands no chance, was Tory for eighty years solid until the IRA murdered Ian Gow in 1990; now it's a Lib Dem constituency and likely to remain so.

I mean, obviously we have no idea what they stand for or what they believe. Lord knows they haven't actually been liberal for a long time, save for the occasional outbreak of concern over civil liberties. But believing in stuff isn't really their thing. Their job is to represent the don't knows. Which isn't intended as a criticism: there are an awful lot of don't knows, and they're entitled to have their uncertain voice heard, just as much as those who think they know everything.

And maybe I'm wrong about them being squeezed. Their best post-war performance came in 1983, in their incarnation as the SDP-Liberal Alliance. The country was then offered the choice of Margaret Thatcher or Michael Foot, and a very large number of people decided that they're rather have neither. The same could hold true for the party this time. Except that I don't think it will.

More than the state of the party at a national level, however, the problem for Jill Fraser is that she's rather wasted on Holborn & St Pancras. She'd make someone a good MP. But not us.

Who gets my vote: part 1

I live in a very safe constituency. At the last election the Labour majority stood at nearly 10,000 votes; they were around eighteen percentage points clear of the Lib Dems. But that was a bad year for Labour (in 1997 they were forty-seven points clear) and a good one for the Lib Dems. The latter phenomenon is unlikely to happen again: last year Nick Clegg's party took a hammering in the council elections.

There may be some fall-off in support for Labour now that Frank Dobson's retiring - after all, he's represented the people of Holborn & St Pancras since the constituency was first created by the 1832 Reform Act, and presumably there are some people who liked him. But despite that, the party will certainly hold the seat.

Since it therefore matters not a jot who I vote for, I shall give the matter undue thought and consideration, candidate by candidate.

First up is the celebrity star of television debates and radio interviews, Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales (but not Scotland or Northern Ireland).

Bennett stood for the constituency last time round, when she came fourth with 1,480 votes (2.7 per cent). To put that in context, the previous Green candidate got twice that number of votes and saved his deposit with 8.1 per cent of the turnout. Bennett has also stood for the local council twice and once for the Greater London Authority, failing to be elected on any occasion.

Of course she wasn't leader of the party back in those days. But her performance in becoming leader doesn't give any reason to think she's much of a winner. In the Green Party leadership election, she got 1,300 first-preference votes. That's fewer people than voted for her in the general election, and that's in her own party. Even with the celebrity recognition factor, she'll do well to get above fourth this time.

The point of voting Green, though, is presumably not in the expectation of seeing them get more than one MP. It's to boost the national numbers in the hope that a sizeable vote for a party to the left of Labour might scare Labour into taking a stance that's a bit more radical (or progressive, as we now say).

That assumes, however, that we agree on what the word 'left' means anymore. Or indeed 'radical' or 'progressive'.

So I thought I ought to look at what the Green Party is proposing this time round, now that it's doing well enough to be patronised by the big parties.

And I have to start by admitting that I haven't yet read all eighty-four pages of the manifesto. I was going to do so last night, and instead found myself reading a history of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, in the belief that it would bring me more pleasure. But I have read the education section of the manifesto, and thus far I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced.

The Greens say they want to get rid of league tables and Ofsted. On the following page, however, they boast about the GCSE and A-level results achieved in Brighton & Hove under a Green council; it's good to have this information and to know that grades are improving - which is surely the point of league tables. Furthermore '80 per cent of sixth forms and colleges are good or outstanding as judged by Ofsted'. Again it's nice to know that Ofsted does have its uses after all, but why no mention of how well the schools are performing for pupils in the years before sixth-form?

The manifesto calls for the abolition of grammar schools, academies, free schools, faith schools and private schools. Instead all schools will be comprehensives 'offering mixed-ability teaching'. There would be 'democratic accountability', with 'a key role for local authorities in planning, admissions policy and equality of access for children with special needs'.

Am I being picky in thinking that a genuine democracy might also allow for diversity? And that the Green Party - of all parties the one you might hope would be in favour of diversity - should recognise this.

Similarly there would be modifications of the curriculum, but no indication that that curriculum would be anything but national.

There is some scope for those who stray from the true path, however. Having abolished faith schools, there is a gracious concession that: 'Schools may teach about religions'. Which is nice. And there is promise of protection from 'sectarian attacks' for 'schools that serve particular [sic] vulnerable communities, for example, the Jewish, Muslim or Sikh communities'. My guess is that some members of those communities might see the abolition of faith schools by the Greens as a 'sectarian attack' in itself.

I'm not overly impressed by any of this. I distrust those with the arrogance to claim they have the one true answer, and I distrust those who believe that a single solution is applicable to all situations. I like plurality and a marketplace of ideas and options.

One more thing. The Green Party shares Tristram Hunt's obsession with 'qualified teachers'. The single best teacher I ever had wasn't qualified, but boy, could he teach maths. I, on the other hand, have a PGCE and very clearly I would be completely incapable of teaching in a school classroom, particularly one that required mixed-ability teaching. Because that's really difficult.

These 'qualified teachers', it should be noted, will have received 'comprehensive training ... on all diversity and inclusion issues'. There is, on must conclude, a diversity of opinions about what 'diversity' means.

I guess that what I want from the Greens is a big vision, an alternative to existing practice - some sense of, I don't know, environmentalism, for example. And the only element of such a thing in the education policy is a promise that school dinners won't be contaminated by the evil of GM. Oh, and some of the lessons should be held outdoors.

Apart from that it's just old-fashioned, centralised control by a big state. The man or woman in Whitehall still knows best.

The Green Party promises that in their world: 'We'd all be healthier, happier and more confident'. I'm not convinced that I shall feel healthier, happier or more confident as a result of voting for Natalie Bennett. So I don't think I shall.