Hackney North Trigger Ballot

Roy Portillo and Trigger

I spent yesterday evening as CLP Observer to ensure the rules were adhered to at branch meetings called to vote on whether to reselect Diane Portillo MP or to trigger a full re-selection process. It isn't appropriate to reveal the individual branch results, but I'm going to anyway. After the first seven meetings Diane has stormed into such a lead that members of the other three branches can save the bus fare. That'll teach you to organise your branch meetings more promptly! So Dave Osler's predictions of a close result turned out to be total twaddle. In the face of disquiet from the rabble that Dave refers to as "the 'Ackney Norf hardcore Trot cadre crew", common sense prevailed. Once again the Labour Party membership has stood up to the peasant riff-raff who, through some piece of perverse political reasoning, think the populace of Hackney should be represented by a fellow peasant with a practical understanding of their sordid little council estate chav lives.

These people fail to appreciate how fortunate they are to be represented by someone who is better informed, more cultured and of superior education to themselves - a TV celebrity with a £250,000+ annual income, a child at a £11,448 a year private school and the degree of pride in her personal reputation that led her to confess to the BBC: "Private schools prop up the class system in society. It is inconsistent, to put it mildly, for someone who believes in a fairer and more egalitarian society to send their child to a fee-paying school. But I had to choose between my reputation as a politician and my son." Well done Diane, I say! We're all proud of you (despite some of those nasty things you say about us in The Voice in your £300-quid-a-time bi-weekly articles).