Islington council child care scandal: the truth behind the headlines LABOUR'S is trying to impose all-woman shortlists of parliamentary candidates on Constituency Labour Parties in some marginal constituencies. Here JANE KELLY opposes the imposing of shortlists. WHILE socialists should support the right of Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) to select from an all-woman list, the real task is to select a left-wing candidate.
It is not surprising that the dictat by Labour's leadership — that some CLPs must select their candidate from a woman-only shortlist caused a backlash. For the Blair team, getting more women candidates is a question of image, not politics.
From the right has come the excuse that it will be hard for a woman to win "in this area". Some women argue the old story of "I wouldn't want to be selected except on my own merits".
In the face of these prejudices the leadership's decision seems laudable. Some of those CLPs which are marginals, likely to be won by Labour at the next election, should be set aside for women to win by having a woman-only shortlist. At the same time, we support the democratic right of CLPs to choose whom it wants as its candidate.
Ironically in the early 1980s Labour opposed allblack shortlists, especially when the unofficial Labour Party Black Sections was on the rise, even though there were no black MPs at the time.
Why has Labour's leaderFreshly Folleted: but what about the politics? ship changed its mind? Clearly there is embarrassment at the pitiful number of women Labour MPs: but there is no desire in the Blair camp to give Labour women effective organisation and The attacks on women's structures, up to and including Labour Women's Conference are evidence that left-wing women in the party are seen as a threat.
So now any woman selected and elected from a women-only shortlist will not be dependent on, or answerable to, any of the women's structures in the Party. If she gets elected as a result of the leadership's imposition of a shortlist, she will not feel answerable to the CLP either.
We should be opposed to any imposition on a CLP by the leadership, and support the fight against it — not to take the party to court, but to win the argument within both the unions and the party.
No politics This is especially the case when Emily's list, simply a version of the 'all-party' attempt to get 300 women MPs in the 1980s, takes no account of the politics of the candidates.
Politics is the point. We are not in favour of just any woman candidate. A right-winger is a right-winger, incidence" that a number of