Many members will already have received their electronic or paper ballots for the incredibly important election of two members of the CAC (Conference Arrangements Committee). Some will not yet have theirs, but should receive them by the end of this week.
The sharp-eyed and experienced will notice something unusual about the statements by the four candidates – there are no details of the number of CLPs who have made supporting nominations for each candidate.
Here is a snap of the candidate booklet from the last CAC election, with the number of CLP nominations circled in red – every candidate had similar:
And here is the 2017 version:
No nominations – and the same goes for all candidates.
This might be thought to be merely an oversight – but the ‘proofs’ of the statements sent to each candidate clearly had placeholders for the number of nominations, as this image taken from a tweet by one of the candidates shows:
Yet these are conspicuous by their absence in the final version.
Was the staffer or group of staffers responsible for the production of the statements reluctant to show the nominations? Might the fact that nominations for left-wing candidates Seema Chandwani and Billy Hayes outnumbered those of the Progress/Labour First-backed candidates de Piero and Cashman by around five to one have anything to do with it?
Chandwani and Hayes have around 160 nominations each – just over 150 according to official Labour figures but the SKWAWKBOX understands that there are around 10 nominations each that have been confirmed by CLPs that are missing from the official count.
The exact final numbers for de Piero and Cashman have not been made public, but are understood to be around thirty.
Members should have this information so they can see the relative support given by local parties to each candidate and take this into account when casting their vote.
Whatever the reason for the disappearance of these important numbers from the information that has been/is being sent out to voters, it is a matter that needs to be investigated urgently by the leader’s office and/or Labour’s National Executive Committee.
The SKWAWKBOX asks every Labour member to vote Chandwani and Hayes for CAC. As members, we need representatives on that committee and all others who are genuinely behind the party’s vision and direction under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.
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It might be simple incompetence … but the Labour Party doesn’t need that either!
0Yeah I noticed that when I got my papers (email) but I’m one of the lucky ones to be a member of momentum so I get the information from them about JC supporters left leaning candidates etc. I personally think every labour member JC supporter should give serious thought to becoming a momentum member they supply the information that the labour party won’t supply because the office bearers are mainly Blairites and voting for Billy and Seema will hopefully help to redress this at the conference. By the way, keep up the good and essential work Skwakbox
Yet more contest rigging from Iain McNicol, the Debbie Wasserman Schultz of UK politics.
Nice comparison =)
And, in an echo of the DNC leaks, I remain convinced that a crowdfunded whistleblower reward for information on misconduct during the leadership challenge would be an excellent way pile pressure on McNicol and his co-conspirators, test the limits of “honor among thieves” and, with only a little luck, dig up sufficient toxic waste to dismiss the whole lot of them in disgrace, rather than having them stink the place up or slink off clutching golden goodbyes.
A £100k reward sounds about right and there are plenty of Jeremy’s supporters out there who bear McNicol, and the rest, a serious grudge.
If McNicol wants to wage underhanded war against Jeremy’s supporters, our fightback should be asymmetric … try his misconduct in the court of public opinion, that should be more than enough to bury him up to his eyebrows.
Reblogged this on sdbast.
In the official candidate booklet, Michael has a link to a Facebook page for him and Gloria de P, which lists the centres that are supporting them. Perhaps a good idea if Seema and Billy do the same?
Having worked in print I would say it’s probably a fuck up rather than a conspiracy. The line probably dropped out in repro or if done litho could have been missed off when lasering.
The print proof shown above isn’t a print proof as it not had the data hooked up into its meerly an artwork proof, so it proves nothing.
The amount of “fuck ups” (“abuse!abuse!”) emanating from the Southside HQ and Labour Party bureaucrats is incredible though.
If one discounts political conspiracy theories, they are just really, really bad at their jobs.
It would be easy to replace them with a team who would perform their roles professionally.
I’ve also worked in print, and that’s rubbish. If the placeholder was there in artwork, it would stay there as seen, until someone either corrected the details – or deleted it.
That doesn’t prove malice, of course – but if it isn’t malice, then it’s serious incompetence.
And yes, we’ve seen far too much convenient incompetence, haven’t we?
I’ve also worked in print, and that’s rubbish. If the placeholder was there in artwork, it would stay there as seen, until someone either corrected the details – or deleted it.
That doesn’t prove malice, of course – but if it isn’t malice, then it’s serious incompetence.
And yes, we’ve seen far too much convenient incompetence, haven’t we?
If there is any concerns then a check should be made on all CLP’s on how many were nominated and a count made, it’s not rocket science !.
Being a Momentum member I got the information and voted accordingly. If it is a cock up then there should be an investigation and consequences. I would think that sadly it is as likely to be underhand tactics again by the Stasi. Either way vote for Seema & Billy and get them elected.
Shock horror! HQ implicated in yet another ‘lucky’ break for Labour’s so-called moderates.
There’s no doubt that including the nomination counts could would have greatly assisted less well informed (i.e. new) members in identifying the candidates with the most grass roots support.
Your life raft’s gradually deflating, McNicol. What happens when you finally sink?
Your life raft’s gradually deflating, McNicol. What happens when you finally sink?
Dunno about you, but I’ll light a cheroot 😀