Time for Labour to worry.

One would think labour learned their lesson in Ebbw Vale

For any unaware, at the turn of the century the constituency that sent Nye Bevan to form the NHS had as its MP a man all the people I drink with from the area considered was a decent enough constituency MP who came up through the ranks as a local councillor

Then Blair demanded safe seats throw well liked candidates and sitting MPs in the gutter to make way for all women short lists

In those days all the selected candidates had tits and a pair of X chromosomes and the bits that go with THEM

There was utter bloody uproar. I saw it first hand one weekend taking my eldest to the town so she could find her way from the bus station to the college for a bit of her course taught up there.

Men and women ran up the street past me pausing only to spit on the windows of the semi derelict shop pressed into service as a labour election office

What the hell is going on I yelled to a running group

‘Peter law is speaking in 10 min” yelled a bloke “up here” and pointing

I was heading that way so i ambled up there

My Nan told me when I was a teenager about the Welsh valleys religious revivals of the 20s when she was my age then. I guess this was the nearest I would see to that in my lifetime. It was genuinely electric. You had to be there to understand. It was unbelievable.

Law stood as an independent. He won, overturning the Christ knows how many thousands labour majority. He was also the Assembly Member. He took that too, destroying Labours majority of one. Labour had to enter a deal with the lib gems to stay in power. They would never see a majority in the hot air shit pit again.

Labours demand for all women shortlists, demanding sex (or these days gender identity) equality was more valuable than competence and a track record in the job, cost them their second safest seat in wales, the one that sent Nye Bevan and later Michael Foot to Parliament. It was over a decade before things were restored, and only then because the guy died of a brain tumour and his wife and election agent, try as they did, couldnt live up to his record.

God. You’d think they’d learned