Coulda Beena Contender
Tom's diary is being published in The Herald - starting yesterday - and contains lots interesting insights into the madness of politics generally - and the foibles of the Scottish Labour party in particular.
I enjoyed the following entry regarding the three candidates' chance to capture the nomination of Unison's political committee - as Tom himself says he was blackballed before he even walked through the door.
"The secret diary of Tom Harris, who had a dream to be Labour's Scottish leader
Saturday 5 November 2011
Hustings with all three leadership candidates in front ot Unison's political committee, to decide who they'll nominate. If neither Ken nor Johann had shown up, I still wouldn't have got their support, and I knew it. So maybe I could have been a tad more consensual. But anyway. Would I support the action on November 30? No problem. Would I support all and any future action? Seriously? Of course not: I'm a grown-up and I will judge for myself whether industral action shoud be supported based on the case at the time. Not sure that went down too well."
What strikes me as completely crazy is how intelligent people in the Labour party - and in the trade unions for that matter - put up with this nonsense.
A small handful of people in a room decide to support one person over another - for reasons that are unclear - and this recommendation influences how union members vote in their section of Labour's electoral college.
Only penny numbers of union members actually vote in the ballot - probably less than 10% - though the Labour party won't say exactly how many for fear of looking foolish - or even more foolish.
So the trade union vote is a joke - because it is entirely unrepresentative of the wider union membership - with many of the people taking part having already voted once - in the individual 'party member' section of Labour's electoral college.
Which means that around 10% of union members in Scotland - with many of them voting twice - effectively carry more influence that the entire Scottsh Labour party membership.
As it turns out the big trade unions all agreed to nominate the same 'dream ticket' - Johann Lamont for Labour leader with Ian Davidson for deputy.
The union vote came through and delivered for Johann Lamont as leader - even though the majority of Scottish party members voted for a rival candidate - Ken Macintosh.
Ian Davidson won the trade union section of his contest for deputy - but was much less 'popular' amongst party members and parliamentarians (MSPs and MPs) - so he lost out to Anas Sarwar.
But the sad truth of the matter is that the undemocratic hand of the unions - continues to decide who should lead the Labour party - both in Scotland and down in London at Westminster.
