Look, we’ve told you before love, you’re not coming in here. Source: Sky News
Now for some wild speculation. Short is resigning early on in a Parliament. It was only last year she won her seat standing on a Labour ticket. There will be intense pressure on her to resign and cause a by-election. We were in second place in Ladywood at the last election…
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21 Comments
Lets hope she doesn’t even try to join us!
colin
Wolverhampton
http://www.colin-ross.org.uk
There might be intense pressure but little precedent and, with no party to keep her in check, no-one to force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do.
Last time I looked, refusing membership is – constitutionally – as serious as revoking membership, and requires similarly strong, evidence-based grounds.
Having said that, I don’t think it at all likely that Short would apply. 🙂
Paul Griffiths Says:
Last time I looked, refusing membership is – constitutionally – as serious as revoking membership, and requires similarly strong, evidence-based grounds.
Well, we could do what we should do more often when accepting hardcore socialists to the party is just remind them that by signing up their are explicitly agreeing to the spirit of the preamble to our constitution and the values which are implied within it.
In any case, I don’t think it’s too hard to put together strong evidence about Clare Short..
I’m not sure that you could describe someone who was a New Labour Cabinet Member for 6 years as a hardcore socialist. Not that I’m in favour of her joining, you understand.
Refusing membership doesn’t require the same grounds as revoking it
I’ve lost track of what Clare Short stands for these days, but I remember being pleasantly surprised by a more sensible attitude to trade and third world development (i.e. pro-trade) than one would expect a left-wing firebrand to have.
Indeed. And the fact that someone clearly isn’t a Liberal Democrat is pretty sound grounds for refusal.
Well, her resignation letter talks of her sitting as an independent Labour MP and a committed Social Democrat, so from that I can’t see her seeking to join the LibDems.
She’s still a Labour Party member, and I think she will always be so, unless she groups with people to reform the ILP or something… but that’s unlikely in my view.
I’m less worried about her seeking to join us, and more worried about US going and asking HER!
Refusing membership doesn’t require the same grounds as revoking it.
Well, I did say “similarly strong, evidence-based grounds”. In fact, the necessary grounds are indeed very similar. The one most pertinent to the current discussion is: “material disagreement, evidenced by conduct, with the fundamental values and objectives of the party.” The membership rules also state that “refusal of membership is just as serious and as exceptional a course of action as revocation.”
Actually she hasn’t quite the Labour Party, but just resigned the Whip…she wants to stay in the party as an individual member without taking the whip as an MP.
Not sure what they’ll do to her now…the NEC or the NCC can probably kick her out as a party member too if they want.
Are Social Democrats now allowed in the Lib Dems?
Someone should tell Charles Kennedy!
Having narrowly escaped fighting her in 1992 I honestly say that I can’t see her applying to join us BUT I can see her potentially working more closely with our Parliamentary Party to hold the Government to account.
I wonder whether this might not encourage other dissident Labour MPs to consider their position in the Labour Party… (But THIS time we should listen to Tony Greaves!).
I am not at all surprised to see that the very first response to Clare Short’s resignation (from Colin Ross) stated quite bluntly:-
“Lets hope she doesn’t even try to join us!”
The recent decision at Bournemouth that this Party should take yet another lurch to the right by letting the rich continue to be soaked and paid well in excess of what ANY individual human being is worth i.e. no 50p tax rate, probably deterred her anyway.
Some may recall that Clare ousted a right-wing Lib MP from Ladywood and some of us were grateful to her for that. But back then we only had a handful of MP’s but at least they were ten times more effective at keeping the Libs in the headlines than the 60 odd we have now. Never seem to hear much of the majority of ’em in LDN or anywhere else.
So, O.K., Clare Short was a firebrand, a Maverick, an ardent left-winger. She certainly left no-one in doubt as to what shw thought of Blair and his filthy war.
Perhaps a few Clare Shorts might put some life back into this Party that I am beginning to lose faith in – having joined in 1962! (Did no-one ever make a clone of Jo Grimond? Grave oversight that was to be sure).
With all the footsie going on (Blair/Brown, Cameron and Campbell) to stake the centre, with a tinge of left and a tang of right, in Westminster politics I am having visions of a similar scenario/mess to that now prevailing in Germany.
It may well be that George Galloway, Clare Short, Brian Sedgemoor and a couple of dozen truly radical LD MP’S -like Evan Harris – are left with no other choice but to form a strong opposition to the “privatise everything that moves mentality” that will be the hymn-sheet of the Grand Coalition that takes over at Westminster in three or four years time.
Some of your contributors do not seem to realise that had Clare Short not been buggered about so much by Tony Blair she would not have been left in an intolerable position which our Great British media have simply made far more intolerable for her to stomach.
Blair is the one who has mislead and deceived both Clare Short and the British Nation. She should be admired for having stuck to her guns for so long and now welcomed into a Party – ours – that does not go balistic every time someone in the Party speaks up for what they beieve in. Sadly, as Charles Kennedy proved when he gave Jenny Tonge the order of the boot when the tabloids quoted her out of context, the LD’s seem to be sliding into that same Abyss.
Perhaps I should get out too but then I shall just be making a space for another whose only interest is to get on a bandwagon that can get him or her elected – so long as that person’s strongly held views do not upset the “Westminster Establishement”. That seems to be all that matters these days.
The Guardian is reporting this morning that she wants to remain a member of the Labour party, so I think we can stop most of this speculation. Ladywood is obviously a good prospect for the next GE though.
btw, the Guardian article reminds me she campaigned against Page 3 girls. Not very liberal?
Peter Hartwell asks us to recall that Clare Short ‘ousted a right-wing Lib MP’ for Ladywood, and that some (including himself) were gratfeul for that. I assume he is referring to Lawrence Lawler. In fact, there were *three* intervening Labour MPs for Ladywood – Doris Fisher, Brian Walden and John Sever. A case of misplaced gratitude, perhaps?
An absolute disgrace. Check out her 2005 election leaflet here. I would be outraged if I had voted for her at the last election.
You will all be greatly relieved to know that I have just spent two hours composing replies to Cheapwallpaper and Brian Robson and in a millisecond lost the whole lot in cyberspace.
Consolation could be that if a Martian should stumble across it and read about the likes of Brian Walden, Oliver Letwin, et al, he may well advise his superiors “No point in trying to land on that planet. Parking charges are crippling. And anyway we are already green and it will take those humans a month of Sundays even to get to a pale shade of lime”.
You can also relax as I am not going to attempt another tome like that only to lose it in another flash.
That reminds me, I did thank CW for reminding me about Clare Short’s rant about the oversized Mammories on Page 3 of the Sun. (There is a connection there somewhere with “flash” and my sympathy for the poor deprived truckdrivers who can no longer wake up in a Layby on the A1 with P3 of that paper in one hand and their own piece of streaky bacon in the other. How many extra prangs have been caused by tensed up truckdrivers pulling out in a fit of frust because of Clare’s meddling in the wrong places?)
Instead of Ms short doing her Mary Whithouse impersonation it would have been much more interesting, particularly for poofters like me, if she had campaigned to even the playing field by having Mel Gibson lookalikes exposing their “Glory” on Page 5. Poofs drive trucks too you know.
There is another of my sad little puns in the word “Glory” but I expect only the members of DELGA will spot that one.
My original masterpiece had a dig at DC’s lot linked to a broadside on the Great British electorate. How come that recent polls show the Tories out in front when voters are asked “If there were an election tomorrow etc. etc.” when even the Tories admit that they will not have any policies before the end of next year? So the electorate now prefer not to know what they are voting for or what? We poor ol’ Libs were always getting handbagged by Central Office for either not having ANY policies at all or a different one for each village in the U.K.
Typical Tory twoddle but canvassing became so tiresome when you had that Thatcher soundbite repeated on every other doorstep.
It has just dawned on me. The penny (or should I say the 50p) has just dropped 🙁 We have just shredded one of the best tax policies we had and replaced it with some very admirable proposals for green taxes which, so sadly, very few will understand. The media are already having great fun trying to confuse both us and the electorate about these proposals.
All young Oliver needs to come up with now is a brilliant:-
“We propose in the first Tory budget to introduce a higher rate of income tax of 50 pence for those earning more than 150,000 per annum” and continue with “All those affected by this increase will receive an annual report to show that the extra revenue will be spent on research and investment into alternative greener sources of energy so that it will cost them much less to propel your Porsche, private plane, powerboat etc. You will then see that under the Tories you CAN pay more tax and still be much better off at the end of the tax year”
(Could this be exactly what our “Green Tax Switch” will achieve but the Party does not want the poor to see the wood for the greenery?)
The whole idea of the Tories having any policies by the end of 2007 all depends on Oliver Letwin lasting that long of course. Having personally experienced a near-death episode when stampeded by a herd of cattle in the (Wild) West Country some years ago, West Dorset may pose a threat to those who believe they have acquired a safe rural retreat. As long as Oliver gets on with it and finishes his vision for a Tory Britain before the next Gadfly season DC need not worry too much about stampeding cattle hopefully.
My apologies for forgetting the three MP’s for Ladywood (after Wallace Lawler) who kept the seat warm for Clare Short. It was such a very long time ago and I now do vaguely remember Mr Walden who also did a Robert Kilroy-Silk – going from the Westminster stage to a TV studio somewhere.
++++++++++++
It seems that this Short piece has turned out to be longer than the one lost in cyberspace. Anyway, if you suffer from Insomnia, reading this should do the trick.
Several papers have been reporting that we’ve actually been trying to get her to to defect – I do hope not. She’s become something of a loose cannon and I don’t think she has entirely LD views. I really don’t think it’d be a good story for us if it happened.
This may be obvious, but I do think a political party needs to have consistent values and principles. Obviously people are allowed to go off party line, but there must be a point where you go so off-message that you can no longer sustain being a party member. I suppose the question is where that point is.
Clare Short may have it in her power to see one of her dreams come true and I don’t mean the one where Tony Blair is “elevated” to higher places by means of a No. 11 bus.
By resigning her Ladywood seat asap I am sure Lord Rennard would achieve an ensuing by-election sensation of Brent East proportions at least.
How about something like this?
LD 62%
Respect 15%
Labour 10%
Green 6%
Con 4%
Others 3%
With us more than doubling our 2005 vote and the Tories coming fifth, as well as losing there deposit, Clare could be instrumental in creating a climate that makes the next Westminster election results almost a three-way draw or as well-hung a Parliament as is imaginable.
DC would have been given his marching orders – together with a spare pair of cycle clips – and Ann Widdecombe would be the n’th leader of the Tory Party having been elected unopposed. Poor soul only wanted to be a stalking horse but no other Tory was prepared to add “Failed Leader of The Conservative Party” to his/her CV.