Post by andrea on Apr 9, 2013 13:55:55 GMT
And then there're different kinds of parachuting. The obvious one is when the NEC pick up the candidates and not just the shortlist. It's pretty rare (it happened twice in late retirements for GEs since 1997. I don't know when is the last time it happened for a by-election. Kate Hoey in Vauxhall?).
The most frequent parachuting is when the NEC is in charge of shortlisting process and it excludes some local candidates to make it easier for their prefered candidate to win the nomination. For ex excluding the council leader in St Helens when Woodward was selected (even if he came close to lose it anyway against Barbara Keeley who is now MP for Worsley and Eccles South). Sometimes they are more subtle, but in a couple of cases they produce shortlists they almost look like
prefered candidate
Mark Senior
Armchair Critic
Mark uses his 5 minutes speech to remind the hall about Miranda Grell. Armachair talks about Margharet Thatcher and insults the Procedure Secretary. Prefered candidate wins the selection. Labour spokeperson: "Members have spoken in a democratic processs".
The question can be "how would the shortlist have looked like if the CLP had in charge with the usual procedure?". But in some cases it can be difficult for us to judge from the outside as we can't see the performances of contenders in front of the selection panel (becasue some local candidates may be excluded not to favour the prefered candidate but just because they put up an awful performance).
Coming back to Ian's point, in Rotherham, they obviously manipulated the shortlist. In the other contests, it's much less obvious without having strong local knowledge. In Leicester South they left out the former council leader. In Bradford West they (the CLP or at least the faction running it) got what they want. Inverclyde and Cardiff South look ok. I can't recall much fuss about Feltham & Heston or Middlesbrough. Croydon North was very competitive with strong runners (not surprisingly considering it is a London seat), so it was inevitable that some may be left out. A local man was left out from Barnsley Central shortlist (but the selection was competitive anyway with a local woman included). Abrhams vs 2 Asian men from different backgrounds (Pakhistan vs Bangladesh) in Oldham East may have been a plan to make her selection easier (and it almost produced another outcome) but I can't recall any obvious "OMG, he has been excluded" name (even if there were some decent other names in the mix). Afzal Khan was left out of Manchester Central (but does he have much traction in Central wards? Considering there were 2 other Cllrs on the shortlist.)
Some candidates were shortlisted at random to make up the numbers (there are at least 2 candidates with 0 votes. And another 3-4 with 1-3 votes)
It's a list which shows that Labour can behave itself on these matters. I assume there must have been hundreds of applications, so choosing a genuinely local list is to be acknowledged as a good thing.
Local paper said just over 50 applications
The most frequent parachuting is when the NEC is in charge of shortlisting process and it excludes some local candidates to make it easier for their prefered candidate to win the nomination. For ex excluding the council leader in St Helens when Woodward was selected (even if he came close to lose it anyway against Barbara Keeley who is now MP for Worsley and Eccles South). Sometimes they are more subtle, but in a couple of cases they produce shortlists they almost look like
prefered candidate
Mark Senior
Armchair Critic
Mark uses his 5 minutes speech to remind the hall about Miranda Grell. Armachair talks about Margharet Thatcher and insults the Procedure Secretary. Prefered candidate wins the selection. Labour spokeperson: "Members have spoken in a democratic processs".
The question can be "how would the shortlist have looked like if the CLP had in charge with the usual procedure?". But in some cases it can be difficult for us to judge from the outside as we can't see the performances of contenders in front of the selection panel (becasue some local candidates may be excluded not to favour the prefered candidate but just because they put up an awful performance).
Coming back to Ian's point, in Rotherham, they obviously manipulated the shortlist. In the other contests, it's much less obvious without having strong local knowledge. In Leicester South they left out the former council leader. In Bradford West they (the CLP or at least the faction running it) got what they want. Inverclyde and Cardiff South look ok. I can't recall much fuss about Feltham & Heston or Middlesbrough. Croydon North was very competitive with strong runners (not surprisingly considering it is a London seat), so it was inevitable that some may be left out. A local man was left out from Barnsley Central shortlist (but the selection was competitive anyway with a local woman included). Abrhams vs 2 Asian men from different backgrounds (Pakhistan vs Bangladesh) in Oldham East may have been a plan to make her selection easier (and it almost produced another outcome) but I can't recall any obvious "OMG, he has been excluded" name (even if there were some decent other names in the mix). Afzal Khan was left out of Manchester Central (but does he have much traction in Central wards? Considering there were 2 other Cllrs on the shortlist.)
Some candidates were shortlisted at random to make up the numbers (there are at least 2 candidates with 0 votes. And another 3-4 with 1-3 votes)
Local paper said just over 50 applications
