Sunday, September 16, 2007

Twiggy wins Labour selection for West Derby...

Former Schools Minister Stephen Twigg could be back in Parliament after the next General Election. He has this afternoon defeated sitting MP Bob Wareing in an open selection contest to be Labour's candidate for West Derby, Liverpool at the next General Election.

Stephen Twigg spectacularly beat former Tory Defence Secretary Michael Portillo in Enfield Southgate, London in Labour's 1997 landslide - as recorded in the book "Were you still up for Portillo?"

Twiggy held Enfield Southgate in 2001, but narrowly lost the the Conservatives in the 2005 General Election.

The Labour majority in West Derby at the 2005 General Election was 15,225.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's an interesting post - is there a back story?

That means that RecessMonkey missed out, then.

Matt Wardman said...

Aha.

Having dug around it looks fairly standard. Stephen Twigg looking for a new seat.

Harry Barnes said...

After the next General Election, Bob can always turn to blogging. It is highly recommended for all ex-MPs who have reached retirement age and are not pensioned off to the Lords.

fairdealphil said...

harry

good to hear from you. hope you are enjoying life...

Anonymous said...

Just heard that Bob (who has rebelled over 200 times as an MP)is to stand as an independent candidate himself so obviously there is a major split in the Labour Party here.

fairdealphil said...

geoffrey...

if you detect a major split Geoffrey, maybe you should quickly get your CV in to be the Tory candidate...

wouldn't however recommend it...no major split i'm afraid and i think the tories came a poor fourth last time - behind labour, libdems and libs...

clearly bob's not wareing so well and members of his local party have decided it's time for a change...

he didn't even come second!

in the labour party, we call it democracy...

Anonymous said...

I notice, Phil, that the instructions under "Leave Your Comment" have transmuted into German.

How very commendable. Something similar happened to Hazel Blears shopping opportunities on her website, I recall. Is it a Labour thing?

Will English monoglots be getting a translation?

Anonymous said...

I call it de-selection and for a sitting MP to be de-selected proves that there is a major split.

Anonymous said...

P/S Sorry to dissapoint you Phil but I am not on the Conservatives candidates list and have no desire ever to be on it.

fairdealphil said...

Geoffrey:

you call it what you like!!

in the labour party we don't regard selection to be a parliamentary candidate as a job for life.

Anonymous said...

Why then have you previously attacked Conservatives for following the same process (ie Patrick Cormack - re-selected this week!)?

Anonymous said...

I'm sure Jane Griffiths (Reading East), Helen Clark (Peterborough),
Tom Cox (Tooting) and Frank Cook (Stockton North) will agree with you.

fairdealphil said...

anonymous:

maybe not.

but i'm also sure that thousands of labour party members would.

These are the people who selected these four - and 600+ others - to be candidates...and four or five years later they have exercised their right to hold an open selection procedure.

And in each case the sitting MP has also been shortlisted.

Also worth noting that the members in West Derby opted for a full selection process for the 2001 General Election - and Bob Wareing prevailed.

fairdealphil said...

Geoffrey:

you make my point.

Patrick's 'de-selection' was clearly a stitch up.

it had not gone through the three-month democratic process as witnessed in West Derby.