[Tubby Isaacs]

New leftwing Labour MP can spot Corbyn's a dead duck. This apparently means she's not a proper socialist.

[Cyclist]

...the left need to vet better those who we help get into power.

It's a bit late now. Weeding out the incompetents and the anti-Semites would have been favourite.

Do these idiots really believe they have any relevance to, or even future in, the Labour Party?

[oboogie]

Weeding out the incompetents and the anti-Semites would have been favourite.

Wouldn't that make The Campaign Group look a little, erm, threadbare?

[Tubby Isaacs]

...the left need to vet better those who we help get into power.

Or, you know, MPs could look beyond one group in their local constituency parties.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

It doesn't work like that.

Group takes over CLP officer roles.
CLP creates shortlist of candidates.
CLP chooses candidate from shortlist.

It's in the group's hands from start to finish. But, if the group we are talking about is Momentum, they are generally so arse-achingly incompetent that they don't actually know anything about the people they elect...

[Tubby Isaacs]

I note Kim Johnson resigned as PPS to Rayner over the Intelligence Bill. She's a 60 year old former union official, so presumably did a fair bit of Labour legwork there.

But you know, not a proper lefty.

[youngian]

Local Momemtumites failing to see the irony in the Indy's correction

[Tubby Isaacs]

Good God. Has anybody piped up that it's still spectacularly awful?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Howard Bennett, Assistant General Secretary of Unite here, sharing (online) platform with "controversial" Tony Greenstein. That'll help Jez.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Bennett has pulled out. Chris Williamson steps up to the plate.

[youngian]

Tony Greenstein's the black bloke in the Office that David Brent wheels out to give him cover for his racist jokes.

[Tubby Isaacs]

If you don't think Jez should be kicked out, how does it help to get in a load of people who were kicked out when Jez was in charge?

[youngian]

This Jez fan is on top of the ishoos

[Tubby Isaacs]

A chunk of them thought Jan Ravens was racist for doing an impression of Diane Abbott. Like she'd just done the equivalent of Barrymore doing John Barnes or something.

[The Weeping Angel]

Bennett has pulled out. Chris Williamson steps up to the plate.

Ah Howard Beckett now there's a very interesting story about him

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/top- ... -z55v7djx9

One of the most senior officials in Unite, Britain’s biggest union, was fined £5,000 for his role in the miners’ compensation scandal.

Howard Beckett, director of legal services at the union, was put forward at a recent union executive council meeting to become an assistant general secretary of Unite. He was accused seven years ago of unfairly deducting fees from miners’ compensation claims.

The miners’ compensation scheme was launched in 1998 for 760,000 former British coal workers who had suffered serious industrial injuries, including lung disease and hand injuries. The scandal involved several law firms that wrongly took money from payouts to the miners.

Beckett and two colleagues attended a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal hearing on May 12, 2009, to face claims that his firm, BBH Solicitors, had not properly informed miners about deductions from payouts as referral fees to a claims-handling firm.

It was alleged: “The respondents had preferred their own interests, specifically the maintenance of their relationship with [the claims-handling firm] and the flow of referrals, to the interests of their clients.”


It said for a time that this meant the firm had allowed “commercial priorities to prevail over its ethical responsibilities”.

Beckett’s lawyer told the tribunal he had made “errors of judgment” but had acted in good faith and had not realised the payments were for referral fees. He added that BBH Solicitors had been “right at the bottom of the scale of operations” on miners’ compensation claims. BBH, based at Eastham Hall in Eastham Village, Wirral, was bought by Thompsons, another law firm, for £2.69m in August 2011. Thompsons is on a panel of 12 firms that provides legal services for Unite members.

Kate Lonsdale, a former colleague of Beckett when he worked in private practice, now owns Unite Tax Refund Ltd, based at Eastham Hall, and helps to obtain tax refunds for Unite members. Her firm keeps up to 30p out of every £1 that workers may have been overcharged by the taxman in their payslips.

John Mann, the Labour MP who has campaigned for victims of the compensation scandal, said it was “outrageous” that a lawyer fined over miners’ compensation should hold such a senior position in a union.