EXCLUSIVE: Flint to manage Blears campaign
As speculation mounts that Hazel Blears is about to announce she is joining the Labour Deputy Leadership race I have it on good authority that her Campaign Manager will be Public Health Minister Caroline Flint MP.
Having one of Labour's acknowledged ministerial rising stars - in fact someone who had themselves been speculated about by an anonymous MP on politicalbetting.com as a potential DL contender - running Hazel's campaign sends some very good messages about the strength of her bid.
posted by Luke Akehurst at 7:39 am
14 Comments:
Are you joking Luke? Caroline Flint? Not a heavyweight. She'd be better off having you manage her campaign mate.
9:08 am, February 22, 2007
Henry,
anyone who chaired the NOLS Conference in Hull in 1984 when Militant stormed the stage is a heavyweight in my book.
9:56 am, February 22, 2007
Is Blears' entry in the race going to kill Harriet's chances to get on the ballot paper?
12:54 pm, February 22, 2007
"Andrea said...
Is Blears' entry in the race going to kill Harriet's chances to get on the ballot paper?"
Let's hope so, Andrea, let's hope so!
4:51 pm, February 22, 2007
I welcome Hazel Blears' entry into the contest. She is a competent, likeable and savvy MP and Minister. But she is not going to win - you know it, I know it and the majority of Labour members know it. So why stand?
PS - I was at the conference in Hull in 1984 - nobody 'chaired' anything, it was complete bedlam!
10:07 pm, February 22, 2007
Chairing a student conference isn't heavyweight. By the way Luke as a fellow enemy of Militant have you seen the drama GBH? It totally skipped by me at the time but I'm gripped by it. I think new members who have joined a post-militant Labour Party should watch it to see what we were up against and how outrageous that the Bennites actually defended these people.
10:15 pm, February 22, 2007
As a current Nolsie all I'll add to this thread is this: thank fuck Nols Conference hasn't been in Hull recently.
10:26 pm, February 22, 2007
Yes I have seen GBH first time round.
Mike - by what great insight are you able to predict Hazel won't win? There hasn't been any meaningful polling yet of members or trade unionists. I think she, AJ and Cruddas are the most likely to get nominated. I have no idea what the final result will be, but people should vote for who they believe in rather than trying to second guess & vote tactically - it's not first past - it's transferable voting - so there are no "wasted votes".
8:07 am, February 23, 2007
Luke - likewise I am not sure how you can infer that AJ, Cruddas and Blears are likely to get nominated. As I said, I welcome Hazel Blears but I just don't think she has any chance of winning (nor do, I think, does she) - of course you and others should vote for who you want but... where will your second preference be going?
8:41 am, February 23, 2007
Probable order of transfers for me is 2 - Johnson, 3- Benn, 4- Cruddas.
8:45 am, February 23, 2007
Hazel blears would make an excellent Deputy Leader. She is passionate, worked hard in the north west for her constituency and is full of ideas.
10:37 am, February 23, 2007
Why is that anonymous Nolsie? Are Hull problematic these days?
3:06 pm, February 24, 2007
First time I met Luke was at a NOLS conference in Hull, I think...
There were some perfectly decent people in Militant, and some very nasty ones. There aren't many political groupings I couldn't say the same about. As for their politics... well it never particularly grabbed me, but I'm not sure I was the intended audience. Kind of community-trotskyism, a mixture of doctrine, sloganeering and making-it-up-as-you-go-along... I'd much rather have them back around, delivering us supporters and voters, than some of the groupings that have slipped into the vacuum that sort of politics has left behind.
As for Bennites defending them: the way the witchhunts against suspected Militants was conducted was a disgrace; transferring the NEC into a Kangaroo Court. Shutting down the party's youth wing and expelling so many people that you even got to MPs was organised lunacy. The barking declarations from many of our leaders allowed the myth that the party was rife with trotskyism to take hold in the media, and the lazy lumping-together of the left as 'trots' made sure that editors never got tired of 'reds under the bed' headlines. Utter madness.
3:22 pm, February 24, 2007
I too was at the NOLS conference at Hull in 1984 and it was seeing people like Mann, Moore and Flint in action that made me realise that the Democratic Left was neither Left nor Democratic - just a shame that they and their ilk have made careers out of grinding the Labour Party towards the moral bankruptcy it now wallows in.
11:00 pm, February 11, 2008
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