Barry's Beef

Many thanks to Gutbuster for emailing me so that the first thing I saw when I logged on this morning was that Michael Meacher will be announcing his candidature for the Labour Party leadership. I have mixed feelings shared, I'm sure, by many on the Left of the Party. Apart from Harry Perkins, of course, whose feelings are conveyed here. Yes, Meacher has not been a picture of consistency, but at least he has voted against some of the Blairite policy which, clearly, puts him higher than Gordon in my estimations. The bigger problem is that it will, or at the very least has the potential to, split the Left vote ensuring that neither McDonnell or Meacher get the required 44 nominations and Gordon coasts in without a vote.
Personally, what I would ideally hope for is that Labour MPs who have their suspicions of the Brownite agenda but cannot bring themselves to vote for John McDonnell will instead plump for Meacher, i.e. Meacher nicking off Brown and not McDonnell which, in turn, would leave a fatal 3 way between Brown, Meacher and McDonnell - now that would be quite good.

Labels: Gordon Brown, John McDonnell, Labour Party, Michael Meacher