Sunday saw a hastily convened NEC meeting at Victoria Street in London to agree details of the Leader / Deputy Leader elections.Both Tony Blair and John Prescott addressed the last meeting of the NEC and were warmly thanked for making our Party electable and delivering three successive election victories.
Aspiring candidates have until Thursday to get nominations from MPs. There will then be campaigning and hustings meetings throughout the country. CLPs are asked to hold all members' meetings to discuss who their CLP should nominate. These nominations have to be submitted by Friday 1st June.
This will be a very busy time for the Party and hopefully one where we begin to focus on the task of taking on the Tories at the next election.
My only concern was that there was no provision for a hustings in the North West of England - the biggest party region in terms of members (I think!) There is one in every other region (except Eastern) and two in London. Given that we are rightly having special hustings aimed at youth and ethnic minority members - it seems wrong not to have women and LGBT sessions and this issue was brought up by Angela Eagle.
The General Secretary promised to look into this and do what he could - but if the national party can't do it we might need to organise our own!
Anyway, for the record, elections are meant to be energising experiences and help refresh the party. We all have different views and its right the candidates campaign hard to win our support. I just want to see the campaigning done in a positive fashion which sees us emerge stronger after it.
Personally I'm voting for Gordon Brown for Leader and Hazel Blears for deputy - but whoever you support - enjoy the election.
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