Reasonable people may indeed think Labour are doing the right thing.

Of course they may also think that they were dead wrong to appoint him to the shadow cabinet in the first place, and that the decision to do so demonstrates how little they have actually changed?

It’s a shame Channel 4 News didn’t ask Ed Miliband to justify why he put Phil Woolas back in his shadow government knowing full well the allegations against him.

What ever Ed Miliband had said about Phil Woolas he was going to split opinion in half, he was in a no win situation.

Just a shame that it took a court ruling for Labour to accept that what Woolas did was unacceptable behaviour. Let’s face it, if he had got off Labour would have been perfectly happy to keep him as a front-bencher and would have kept him as a minister had they won the next election. Just goes to show that Newer Labour is just like New Labour – no principles whatsoever.

P.S. Instinctively hating the tories no matter what does not count as a principle

@4

Principles? You, as a Lib Dem, dare to use that word?

http://www.libdemvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/LibDem_Tory_Bombshell-300×150.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qZ7oSwb2KLs/TLbPdWNinDI/AAAAAAAACsA/FuQwKHapGks/s400/lib+demsclegg+pledge+tuition+fees.jpg

Don’t make me laugh.

@3 Yep. And it’s own fault that he’s in a no-win situation. If he’d had any sense of decency he would have suspended Woolas from the party as soon as the allegations emerged and avoided all this trouble. After all, the NEC seemed quite happy to suspend people based on allegations alone in Tower Hamlets…

@5 Fuck off. Labour are just as much hypocrites as the lib dems are over VAT rises and as for tution fees, why do you think I’m going to the demo on wednesday and made a personal pledge to refuse to campaign on behalf of any Lib Dem MP who breaks *their* pledge.

In any event, that has no bearing on my argument. Even if your opponents have no principles that’s no excuse for you not to have any.

@7

Sorry, but your gang are in power now. Get used to it: if your party sells its soul for the crumbs of an AV referendum then expect criticism.

he would have suspended Woolas from the party as soon as the allegations emerged and avoided all this trouble.

This is absurd partisanship. If he’d done that it would have looked like he was pre-judging the case.

@10 No it isn’t. Those leaflets were obviously wrong and tainted the Labour party by association. Even before the outcome was announced there was an article on Lib Con calling for him to be suspended. I should note here that I’m not talking about expulsion here, I’m talking about suspension. He could have been suspended pending the outcome of the case which would still have been fairer than what happened in Tower Hamlets. Political parties routinely suspend MPs accused of serious wrongdoing (for example if they’re facing criminal charges). There is no reason why that could not have been done here.

Let’s all be brutally honest about stuff here.

We’ve all done it. We’ve all broken the law but we made damn sure it didn’t get back to the candidate without deniability. This was a fuck up from start to finish and whilst being a Tory, well, unlucky.

I’ve put Labour, Lib Dem and BNP logos on stuff and I know damn well the Lib lad was doing it and the Labour guys did it from a separate office. This is bush-league that he got caught.

I guess it’s good that they’ll be greater scrutiny next time – all very well having debates about funding and stuff but all this requires is a guy with photoshop and a team of flagrant bullshitters and I would assume we’ve all got that.

Don’t like the guy and my Labour bud who’s known him for ever says he’s nasty but this is just damned unlucky. Schoolboy error – see ya!

Why don’t people triangulate anymore? I had a great relationship with a BNP lad and all it took was 2 ciggy breaks in about 4 months. He knew the score, I knew the score – let’s rock. How the hell Woolas went Constituency rather than Ward level shows some serious problems with the office he was running. Did the Local Labour Party hate him or something? I assume it’s a Labour stronghold round there so what on earth were the Leaders of the Councils doing to help the chap? The more I think about it the more it seems there’s more to this than meets the eye.

Not that I give a shit or anything but….oooh, it’s like Eastenders.

— Woolas Timetable —

16 September 2010 — third and final day of election court hearing
07 October 2010 — Ed Miliband announces shadow ministerial posts
05 November 2010 — Ed Miliband works out that Woolas is a naughty boy

50 days from final court hearing to denunciation. Pathetic, Ed Miliband, pathetic.

Milliband shouldn’t have sacked him because of the court judgement.

He should have sacked him because of the attempt to reignite the racial tension that led to the riots.

The fact that he didn’t want to set this precedent is instructive: I don’t know many other Labour MPs ran similarly racist campaigns but I bet it’s quite a few.

And how are Woolas’ lies any different to the Tories ‘Labour’s Recession’ spew? He lied and duped his constituents into not voting for opposition. The Tories duped a few more million than that.

I’m not saying what he did was right, of course not, but lets get this into perspective here.

I totally disown all of them Labour bastards. So there. They are now officially disowned.