Thursday 14 June 2007

Bald men fight over a comb: the Labour deputy leadership contest

Not the most inspiring of contests this, and one difficult not to approach with a certain grudging bitterness about the cowardice and control freakery that characterised the leadership coronation.

But anyway, Jon Cruddas deserves to win because he's the closest to non-dogmatic yet palpably Labour values (not 'old' or 'new', just Labour) - confronting a smattering of issues that Blairism has either ignored or been on the wrong side of: social housing, poverty and inequality, rights for immigrant workers, opposition to trident replacement. His response to the BNP's presence in his consistuency was also pretty impressive. I don't totally trust him, but he's the best of a poor bunch.

Beyond that, it's all about tactical deployment of votes to prevent Johnson and, particularly, Blears, a woman seemingly incapable of an original thought and whose demeanour of a demented training awayday 'team leader' has a nails-down-the-blackboard effect. That, and her dogmatic, not-for-turning obeissance to the Blair project.

So I went: 1 Cruddas; 2 Harman; 3 Benn; 4 Hain. And that's yer lot

2 comments:

Jackson Jeffrey Jackson said...

Still undecided but I think I'm going similarly

Cruddas
Harman
Hain
Benn

The other two aren't worth a drop of piss.

Harry Barnes said...

What is wrong with bald men? God only made so many perfects heads, the rest he covered in hair. Or so my atheist friends tell me.