The Golden Strawberry

I suppose that after you've attended a few left-wing meetings, you are going to have a favourite 'looney left' story. One of my favourite lines is, "What should be the proper socialist response to a congestion charge?". This is the sort of left I read about in Mark Steel and John O'Farrell's books, and it seemed a rather surreal if slightly despairing place to hang out, but one that was hardly ever boring.

At the first ever Birmingham Young Labour meeting, we encountered a similar example of looney-leftness. We had to elect a commitee of eight. After a long discussion on the voting method (first past the post? single transferable vote? who cares?) someone mentioned whether the eight-person committee should comprise of at least four women.

Sigh. It was suggested that maybe we should elect the best person for the job, rather than decide merely on the basis of their sex. The proposer shook her head, as though it was a laughable proposition. Well, maybe electing the best person for the job isn't in the best tradition of the Labour Party, but one shouldn't be scared to break with tradition.

I am broadly in favour of all-women shortlists for MP jobs, for example. But that is because there are roughly 60 million people in Britain, and roughly 30 million of them are men and roughly 30 million are women. They deserve equal representation. However, if you are in a meeting of about thirty people, and seven of them are women, that isn't so fair (or practical). Some women there also didn't want to represent the committee, are you going to force them to join? Wouldn't you rather have a committed male committee member (if you'll pardon the pun) than a female forced against her will to stand only for the purposes of gender balance? It seems typical of certain elements of the left, who have dogmas rather than principles, which get applied willy-nilly to any situation without the use of common sense. When the left starts to do this, it loses elections.

One committee position was for a women's officer, and it was suggested that only women should vote for the position! To be fair, this was suggested by a male committee member, who is presumably foolish rather than the possessor of a giant chip on his shoulder. I pointed out that if we were all in favour of gender equality, then couldn't we just vote for the (female) member who would campaign for gender equality? Which was agreed upon, and after what seemed a lifetime we eventually had a committee. I am sure they'll do marvellously.

Moving on to that other woman's issue, Harriet Harman. She was my fifth choice on the ballot, reaching that exalted position because she wasn't Hazel Blears. Like the overenthusiastic committee members, I can see no reason why the Deputy Leader has to be a woman, any more than they have to dislike golf, or watch Eastenders. But I'm sure she won't cause too much damage. Some sensible people - Johann Hari for one - like the look of Harman, which reassures me. However, I'm more in thinking with the line of the resurgent Idiots for Labour. All of it is worth reading, especially the bit about Yougov polls, but if you can't be bothered, or are too busy, just read this:

Throughout her career Harriet has campaigned for equality and social justice.
This is not in fact our recollection at all. We recall her leading the effort, as Secretary of State for Social Security in 1997, to reduce the benefits payable by the State to single mothers – people dependent upon those benefits for a decent quality of life for themselves and their families – at a time when she was herself on a total salary package of over £100,000.

This was a proposal that while in Opposition in 1996 she described as “a disincentive to work, as well as being wrong” (you can hear her saying it on the BBC website at the bottom of this page here). It may be said that she argued against it privately and in Cabinet: this may even be true. If she did argue privately against it, she was not successful and is a well-meaning but crap politician; if she did not, she had clearly forgotten all her Labour values in the struggle for the advancement of her own career.

Still, we must all rally round. There is a General Election to win, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon...

Cory