Monday, January 02, 2012

Handbags at dawn? Or will there be a gentlemanly drawing of straws?

WalesOnline reports on how some Labour MPs are getting a bit hot under the collar over the proposed constituency Boundary changes.   It uses the example of RCT where Chris Bryant and Owen Smith could – the article alleges – see themselves jostling for position along with Huw Irranca Davies.

Kevin Brennan, Cardiff West MP, is the one who seems to be getting in a bit of a spin however, according to this piece. 

What is happening is really quite disgraceful, “ he says,  and designed to give the Conservatives an advantage at the next general election.”

Now whether or not you accept that is true it seems a bit hypocritical coming from someone whose own party keeps flip-flopping over electoral reform and whose Shadow Welsh Secretary, Peter Hain, has decided now that they should push for first past the post votes for the Assembly.  This a complete u-turn from him and nothing to do with any perceived advantage this may give Labour of course.

Mr Brennan is concerned too about the possibility of removing penalties for people not registering to vote (and here he may have a point).  However, his reasoning is not the furtherance of democracy, but because

Most of the people who won’t register to vote will be poor people, who would be more likely to vote Labour.”
Self serving sanctimonious clap trap from a party who claim to be a socialist party, the party of the working classes. Yea, right.

Maybe it accounts for some of Labour’s failures – keep the people poor, keep them unemployed, keep them on benefits, reliant in the state – keep them blindly voting for the party who keep taking advantage and keep letting them down time and time again

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