Because of what John Prescott calls the ‘dustbin of last week’, we now know that a new leader of the Labour party will be elected this year or next. This will be only the second time in history that a Labour leader will have been chosen while the party has been in office. The first was in 1976, when Jim Callaghan succeeded Harold Wilson. Then, the vote was simple: all Labour MPs could vote, and no one else. Today, it is complicated. The electorate divides into thirds — MPs, the party’s members and the trade unions. When a leader of the governing party is chosen, he is certain in fact, though not in strict constitutional theory, to be the next prime minister. So for the first time in our history, the trade unions will have a direct say in appointing the prime minister of this country. Is this a modern, 21st-century thing to be happening? The Tory equivalent would be if the Marquess of Salisbury were to be given a formal role in choosing his party’s leader — a reversion to past habits so extreme that it would actually exceed the original.
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