Swansea West - No Funny Business

Interesting selection contest going on in Swansea West CLP, a seat with a Labour majority of 4,269 over the LibDems, where Father of the House Alan Williams is retiring as MP at the next election. According to the Welsh media, concern has been growing over the nomination of Dr. Parvaiz Ali, Head of Nuclear Medicine at Swansea NHS Trust. According to the "exposé" in the Western Mail, a year ago there were only about 10 members of the CLP with names indicating they had origins in Pakistan or Bangladesh, but since then a further 135 people with names associated with the two countries have joined the CLP, almost 100 of them joining in the last three months of 2006.

New members queue to sign up for Swansea West CLP

What a load of old Peter Tosh! We should be praising Dr. Ali, not trying to bury him. At a time when national Labour Party membership has slumped to a low of less than half what it was when Tony Blair came to power, this man has achieved miracles. In-between his onerous duties serving the community, he has rushed round and recruited masses of new members for the Party. The fact that Pakistani/Bangladeshi representation in Swansea West Labour Party is now ten times their representation in the local community and represents one third of the CLP's entire membership just goes to show what a fantastic job this man has done. Not only has he regenerated interest in local politics, he has managed to achieve this amongst people who never voted previously - evidenced by the fact that many of the new recruits are not on the electoral register. Well done, I say. And I just hope that, when Dr. Ali realises that over half of his new recruits will be rendered ineligible to vote in the selection contest due to the Party apparatchiks bringing forward the date of the selection meeting, they don't all take umbrage and huff off to join the Conservative Party. After all, recent evidence suggests that Macaroon would welcome someone with the political skills of Dr. Parvaiz Ali.