Consequently is Liverpool educating the same number of high calibre pupils with the ability to feel at home in the corridors of power which it used to achieve ?

I’m not quite clear what the objection is here – Labour activists picked the non-local candidate who was backed by the outgoing local MP rather than local alternatives, including a trade union-backed local councillor.

I guess we could have either residency requirements for prospective candidates and/or ban MPs from expressing a preference about who their preferred successor is, but neither seem particularly enforceable or even desirable.

In fact, if you look at the selections in “safe seats” for the next election, I think most of them have picked local candidates – e.g. Easington, both seats in Sunderland, Birmingham Ladywood.

But an interesting question is what (if anything) we could do to help “non-political class” candidates have a better chance of being selected.

@22-24, 27-29 You’re kidding yourself if you think Labour isn’t capable of fiddling an internal election. I’m not saying this result was fiddled, but you’d be mad to take the guy on trust. Let him present the ballot papers for independent inspection! I’m sure we’d find they’ve unfortunately already been destroyed by a coincidental fire in the constituency office.

@ 7 “Ah. for being so loyal,on-message and obedient to me, I grant you the estate of Anytown North.”

Great, great line. Says it all. If Scotland and Wales go their own way, then there really is a case to say that leaves the North of England as the last colony.

@19 “Liverpool has been represented by such well known scousers as Harold Wilson”

Wilson was a Yorkie, from Huddersfield.

Finally. In all seriousness.

@5 “Luciana Bergers biggest critic is Peter Kilfoyle and I don’t think she has anything to worry about if that is the case. Kilfoyle['s] main criticism is that she is a member of labour friends of Israel and thats it”

That’s obviously a total lie and cynical slur.

It’s perhaps a little sad, but by no means surprising that despite the low esteem MPs are currently held in, major political parties continue to operate in this manner, parachuting their preferred candidates into seats.

It’s perhaps a little worrying her website (which you link to) carries very little biographical info. Is this perhaps because she has, as yet, very little to tell that would involve Liverpool? I gather she’s from London and went to university in Birmingham.

Anyone who goes for a seat is going to be given preferential handling by someone unless no-one likes them, in which case they’re not getting anywhere anyway. Was Ms. Simons union endorsement not “preferential handling?”

The local party chose Ms. Berger over Ms. Simon. Obviously Ms. Kennedy made her preference clear but presumably she’s entitled to do that. Perhaps they made the wrong choice but you’ve presented no evidence to that effect. She’s certainly very young but I’m uncomfortable with the idea that that should be a disqualification. Certainly some influential people wanted her to get through, but what makes you so sure that their judgment was wrong?

Well, that really does invoke the ‘who guards the guards’ precept, does it not?

She employs him, to work for her.

Maybe Luciana will keep him on.

No?

during the selection process Ms Berger, who hails from London, stayed at the home of current Wavertree Labour MP Jane Kennedy.

As it happens, Ms Kennedy’s partner, Peter Downing, is the constituency secretary who ran the selection process and received completed ballot papers at his home address.

All parties have protested that there has been no wrongdoing and the process was carried out properly.

Jane Kennedy has represented the city for many years and has a well-deserved reputation for honesty so if she says everything is above board then there is no reason to disbelieve her.

However, Caesar’s wife must be beyond reproach

http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/businessbeat/2010/02/ceasars-wife-must-be-beyond-re.html#more
Without casting any aspersions as to the vote, for the exiting MP to be putting up a particular candidate in their house as well as for the selection surely smacks of a ‘favoured son’ approach.

Was a better candidate overlooked and if so why?

Perhaps, I don’t know, you see yourself as possibly one of Labour’s future “bright stars to rise to the top”, but don’t forget you need to do the groundwork out there,even in the dreaded provinces, outside of party cliques, think tanks and the like.At a time when job insecurity haunts the masses, you seem to talk of job security for political elites, which is peculiar,if not insulting. Of course it might be personally nice, and reassuring for bright young stars to know that their rise to power won’t be interrupted, but that’s not the type of politics I want to see, nor one that any party that wants my support should pursue as it is treating the electorate with contempt, as a mere technicality to be circumvented. Not exactly progressive

Here’s a thought. How about job security being related to how well the constituency MPs win over and serve their constituencies, rather than being a gift in the pocket of bloody London politicos?

If the local people don’t want her to vote for Labour policies at Westminster, then they are fucking stupid for pretty much having always voted for Labour MPs. Labour MPs vote for Labour policies.

Also, it is time to ditch the constituency link. Councillors are there to deal with potholes and dogshit. MPs should be talking about defence, national security, civil liberties, the economy. Not local issues for busybodies in residents’ associations. With a PR electoral system, we can have MPs with a regional link (which makes sense, as opposed to the stupid pretense that one MP out of 646 can really do things differently for one constituency over another, especially when 90% of them belong to national parties with national policies) who can get on with the job of passing national laws.

Maybe then will people bother to give a damn about what their MP does in between elections – they will pay attention and lobby them. I guarantee that 90% of the fools shouting down Luciana Berger will not bother to hold her to account for what she does if she is elected.

That said, I think they chose the wrong time to parachute her in. If the rumours of fixing are incorrect, then surely the local Labour party are to blame. She won the selection.

Also, do the fat, old, balding mustachioed men complaining about her selection, want any young women in politics?

But if you want Government ministers, you need people who are secure in their seats. If you want bright stars to rise to the top within your party structure – and that, after all, is partly what party structures are for – you’re going to need to give them job security.

If you have X number of seats where you are definitely going to win, then you put your favoured candidates in those seats, thus preserving the party hierarchy and allowing the next generation to come through.

Does it mean that lots of safe seats end up with aparatchiks flown in from London?

Yes.

Does it mean we, as a nation, have functioning Parliamentary democracy with established constant hierarchies where people at the top are job-secure and thus can get on with, oh I dunno, national legislation as oppose to talking to councillors about dog shit on the local playing field, or doing constituency surgeries.

Yes.

Is the system perfect?

Absolutely not. As noted, people in safe seats get lumbered with know-nothing, don’t-care MPs who are destined for the top. It fosters negligence, and allows the parties to effectively exploit the fact that they have rock-solid seats at the expense of the people making those seats rock solid.

Could we have a different electoral system where this was avoided?

Of course.

But let’s be honest about this: if we complain out of one side of our mouths that safe seats end up with non-local MPs, let’s please remember to use the other sides of our mouths to remember that this has delivered, er, stable party rule for over a century, allowing parties to offer job security and training to both their leaders and their bright stars. Which, in turn, allows alternate parties to run the country properly.

So yes, safe seats can be a bitch for the locals. They’re also kind of helpful for all of us, taken together as a nation…

The whole New Labour thing has fallen apart now Blair has gone. This is just a horrible bourgeous effort to get someone who’se face fits into Parliament through a safe seat. That’s how it will be seen in Liverpool and that’s how it is. Stop splitting hairs and grow up.

If Labour want to be succesful in future they need to spend a lot less time putting dinner party chums into parliament and allow the constituency parties to come up with their own candidates. Its an old-fashioned idea called democracy.

Roy Hattersley (a bloke who, surely, every LibCon reader considers to be a decent man) never found himself a seat in Sheffield. Even when he became confused about his location in an election speech, the Brummies forgave him. He may not have been a Birmingham man and may not have known where he was owing to exuberance, but he was a good man to have in Parliament.

It will always be difficult for rejected local candidates to understand that localism may not suffice. The lesson that I see from this post is that it is better to appoint the PPC as soon as possible; if you are the MP who is questioning whether to stand again, make up your mind quickly; give your potential successor time and space to learn.