Things may be going from bad to worse for Luciana Berger, the newly-selected Labour PPC for Liverpool Wavertree. After mutterings about the selection process, followed by concerns about the candidate living in the same house as hundreds of ballot papers, the actor Ricky Tomlinson, famous for roles in Brookside and the Royle Family, has announced that he will be seeking the nomination of Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party for the seat.
Tomlinson, a long-time active socialist and former militant trade unionist, has said that he may give up acting to stand in Wavertree, in protest at what he sees as Ms Berger’s ‘parachuting’ into the seat. He said:
“If I get nominated, it would be an awful cut in wages. But I just think the state of British politics is abhorrent. I just can’t understand why they have picked someone from London. It just does not make sense to me.
“People say […] you could be letting the Tories in. But there is no difference between the Conservatives and new Labour”.
I assume that although Ms Berger professed not to know who Bill Shankly was, she will have heard of Mr Tomlinson?
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4 Comments
Oh, yummy….. ..
The man’s political sophistication is evident in his “If nominated …” etc
Presumably such an intervention would be more likely to assist the Lib Dems than the Conservatives – further evidence of his sophistication.
Just what we need, another sleb running for Parliament. Tactically, this is probably good for us, but I still don’t like the smell of it.
I’m surprised nobody’s remembered Ricky Tomlinson’s previous foray into politics, as one of the ‘Shrewsbury Two’.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article422173.ece
I should point out that Tomlinson says that he was framed, and that he has sought to clear his name since his release, etc, etc.