Purged!

This is, as Rupert Murdoch would say, the humblest day of my life. I just voted in the Labour leadership, deputy leadership and mayoral candidate elections. And by return of email, I got the following message, telling me that I simply wasn't wanted:

Woe! Woe is me. Woe, woe and thrice again woe. I've been debarred, expelled, banished, excluded. My voice has been silenced and I've been denied my democratic rights.

Maybe it was because I said that I didn't consider myself a Labour supporter. Maybe someone noted my claim that I voted for the Monster Raving Loony Party in the general election. Whatever the cause, the result is unequivocal and admits of no appeal: I've ended up on a blacklist. I am beyond the pale, an outcast from Eden. And now I truly know the meaning of shame. I have done those things I ought not to have done, and I have left undone those things that I ought to have done, and there is no health in me.

Obviously I've written back to ask how I go about reclaiming the thirty pieces of silver (well, the three quid) that I gave them when I registered. But that'll be scant compensation for the feeling of rejection I'm experiencing.

Just for the record my votes (spurned, spurned, all spurned) went to:

Leader: (1) Liz Kendall, (2) Yvette Cooper, (3) Jeremy Corbyn, (4) Andy Burnham

Deputy: (1) Stella Creasy, (2) Angela Eagle, (3) Ben Bradshaw, (4) Caroline Flint, (5) Tom Watson

Mayoralty: (1) Christian Wolmar, (2) Gareth Thomas, (3) David Lammy, (4) Tessa Jowell, (5) Diane Abbott, (6) Sadiq Khan

I do like that 'Kind Regards' sign-off, though. That's a nice touch, don't you think? Even if they are purging me.

Paying the piper

For the first time in my life, I've just given some money to a political party. I was hoping that it might buy me a peerage, but it turns out that not even the Labour Party will give you one of those for three quid these days.

What I do get is not only the chance to vote for Labour's new leader and deputy-leader but also, excitingly, the party's candidate for the London mayoralty. Three pounds for three elections strikes me as a very good deal indeed, because I love voting.

It also means that I need to give serious consideration to the question of who gets my vote. To which I shall have to return when I have more leisure, because at the moment I really don't know. Though I suspect Stella Creasey will turn out to be my first preference as deputy leader.