Ed Miliband got it right. Faced with a fiasco in Falkirk, where the trade union, Unite, attempted to fix the Parliamentary selection process, the Labour leader has come out on the right side of the argument about political reform.
In our eagerness to attack him, we Conservatives are in danger of putting itself on the wrong side of the debate. Falkirk-type fixes have been going on for years. Safe Labour seats have been run as trade union fiefdoms for as long as anyone can remember.
What Falkirk demonstrates is not that tiny cliques have been manipulating party selections, but that that old school way of doing politics is no longer acceptable.
The fallout from Falkirk illustrates that deferential democracy is dead. The idea that 20,000 Labour supporters in that constituency should robotically troupe down to the polling booths on election day to endorse the Labour candidate selected for them by a tiny band of brothers will no longer do.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in